Price of gold too high for the environment

Lowell Bergman, Jane Perlez, Kirk Johnson with other contributing reporters of the FRONTLINE/World and The New York Times examined the growing conflict between the local people and the Yanacocha Mine in Peru along with tours of gold mines in the American West, Latin America, Africa and Europe to provide a rare look inside an insular industry with a troubled environmental legacy and an uncertain future. "Some metal mines, including gold mines, have become the near-equivalent of nuclear waste dumps that must be tended in perpetuity. " Hard-rock mining generates more toxic waste than any other industry in the United States, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency estimated last year that the cost of cleaning up metal mines could reach $54 billion.
The 6 month project revealed that with costs and suspicions of mining companies on the rise in rich countries, 70 percent of gold is now mined in developing countries like Guatemala and Ghana. See the " entire documentary and extra website features " including interview transcripts, FOIA documents
and " recent developments " .