August 23, 2012 • 26 mins
Did you know there are as many as 500,000 abandoned mines in the US, but the federal government knows where only 30,000 of them are? Learn about these places go from money pit to death trap when mine companies simply walk away.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Damn,
(00:21):
that makes it sound fish And um, I just had
some of my notes mixed up, like criminal records was
stuffed in the middle of this one, Like wouldn't that
be funny if I was talking about abandoned mines? And
then just like a robot, it was like, and if
you have a d U I you can call your
local police shop and get that expunged. Yeah, I think
(00:42):
that's bad advice. Well, now I'm just saying, do you
not ever call the police unless it's an emergency. You're right, Chuck? Yes, Um,
how are you doing good? Three today? Huh yeah, day
before holiday even in fact, the office is closed right
now and we're still working. It's like crickets outside and
someone threw a spear at me when I stuck my
(01:03):
head out to go to the bathroom. Good that was
his assignment. So Chuck, if I may take it down
a notcher. Two? Have you ever heard of a guy
named Taylor Crane, a kid. Taylor as a kid who
was sixteen years old when he died. He was on
a tour of Mexico UM with his parents New Mexico
(01:26):
and mex Mexico, Mexico Old Mexico UM. And he was
on a tour I didn't realize he's existed UM but
a of abandoned haciendas and mines. So it's basically like
an urban exploration tour of old Mexico UM. And they
were at an old mind site the tour group was
(01:47):
and Taylor was apparently playing tag and um jumped up
on a low wall and apparently on the other side
of that was a thousand foot mine shaft which he
fell into a ten ft cross jess wide open a
thousand feet down. They had a lot of trouble getting
to them to recover him because there's so much lead
(02:09):
and arsenic at the bottom that it was really difficult
to breathe to get down there to get them. So
you think, like, wow, it's really crazy that Mexico has
these open minds. Mind blowing as it is, Mexico is
not the only place. As a matter of fact, here
in the States we have something on the scale of
(02:31):
five hundred thousand abandoned minds. That's the high end, but
the low end even is still I think like three
hundred thousand abandoned minds. Abandoned minds probably two of the
most dangerous words you can put together, and they're all
over the place. The US is lousy with them. Yeah,
(02:53):
and about thirty people die in the United States every
year from accidents involving abandoned minds. And did a little looking. Yeah,
apparently they include uh, quarries, and most of these are drownings. Um,
because the quarry either has water or an abandoned mind shaft.
(03:15):
You know, they'll pump out water to work in it,
and then when they're done, it fills back up with water.
So uh, some say, crazy scuba divers, we'll try and
scuba dive these things. My dad was actually certified in
an old marble quarry in Tlita, and to be certified
you had to go down to a school bus at
(03:37):
the bottom of this quarry. Um, you had to dive
down to go into the school bus and grab something
from it. It was like right inside, and then bring
it back up. Then they'd be like, Okay, you're certifying
your dad did. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I'm trying to
picture that. I can't imagine anything more creepy than having
to go into a school bus at the bottom of
a filled quarry. No, I'm just trying to picture your
(03:59):
dad like all you know, scuba diving and adventure, a
buzz cut and more like a big watch and everything. Yeah,
he was. I guess anytime you're older and you meet
someone father when they're a little older, it's hard to
imagine them as young because I didn't know him back then,
But I picture him on the couch. Oh no, uh no,
he was. He carried a spear gun everywhere he went
(04:19):
with him. Really, that's awesome. Alright, So, um, sadly, like
I said, about thirty people die each year, many of
them are drownings. I think number two on the list
as a TV accidents, which doesn't surprise me because tool
along in the a TV on some you know, random
thinking You're in the middle of nowhere place and all
of a sudden the bottom falls out. Literally. Um yeah,
(04:43):
those were the top two far and away that I
came across too. But since two thousand one, apparently two
seven people have died in the United States because of
accidents involving abandoned minds. I saw one in two thousand
and eight. These two guys were uh, trying to get
a former gold mine going again because they thought there
was still gold down there, and they were pumping out
(05:05):
water with a some sort of machine with a generator,
and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah, that's that's
another one. I think it's way down on the list.
It's like a distant third, but but I think it's
it's um being overcome unable to breathe, asphyxiation, that's the
word I'm looking for, by bringing in your own thing,
or just by the toxic chemicals down there, toxic chemicals
(05:26):
or um, carbon monoxide or oxygen depletion in general from
people either trying to get old ones started up or yeah,
more likely adventuring. Yeah, abandoned mind Let's go ahead and
give a tip to people because we like to encourage
the urban explorers, which you know we've done a podcast
on that. But man, you don't need to be hanging
(05:47):
around abandoned minds. No, they're very, very dangerous. Yes, I
mean that's just so mind bogglingly dangerous. Just resist the urge,
and I like, I have that urge too, because I
love the urban exploration. If I saw a whole the ground,
I would want to go check it out. But it's
not a good place to be, not a good thing
to do. So what's crazy is we said, like, up
(06:07):
to five hundred thousand abandoned minds and these are just
the minds, not mine features. So say, every mine has
several mind features. Say and at it, which is a
vertical shaft or I'm sorry, a horizontal shaft. Um, And
you've got a vertical shaft like the one that um,
poor Taylor Crane fell into. Um, you have all these
(06:27):
different mind features on up to five hundred thousand minds.
And the crazy thing is is as of February two
thousand eleven, the Bureau of Land Management, which is tasked
with finding these abandoned minds, has only found about thirty
one thousand of them. That means that there's possibly four
hundred and sixty nine thousand abandoned minds in the United
(06:49):
States that no one has on any map. True, but
like on on the good side, they're trying to find them. Now.
In two thousand and eight, they only had eighteen thousand
of them, so in spanned three years they found another
uh thousand, I had twelve thousand and two thousand and eight.
Well even better than um. And I think of those
(07:12):
have been remediated, have pending reclamation, or they say aren't
a danger. They say, so, Um, that's just the physical dangerous. Yeah,
there's two kinds. There's physical dangers and environmental dangers. And
I think and I guess it's of the ones they
found they said to have physical hazards and five have
(07:37):
environmental hazards, which you know, it's not a ton but
is pretty dangerous. Well, a physical hazard is insidious for
the local just the local people who are walking around
it sure like falling in, yeah, or maybe caving in.
And by the way, I found out that any mine
feature that is like a hole in the ground, or
(08:00):
even like if there's a depression in the ground because
a mine collapse, some they're called glory holes. Did you
know that? That was almost a fit take, wasn't it?
That's not true? I s where to God it is. Wow,
I saw a sign today of an abandoned mind called
the glory whole mind. Well that's that's quite a name. Yeah,
(08:21):
good for them. Uh mind tailings you talk about, and
this is some of the environmental hazards, and these can
actually be physical hazards too if you're living nearby. These
are the remnants of what was going on there of
the mineral, and often it can be very toxic and
then that can either be harmful to you or it
can run off into the water and be harmful to people,
(08:43):
you know, downriver. That was my point is things like um,
like add its and other mind features. UM, they're dangerous
if you're walking around the mine. Environmental hazards of a
mind can be very far reaching because in very much
the same way that ascid rain is produced from like
smoke stacks, these mines can produce acid rain UM, and
(09:05):
they can also produce acid groundwater. When sulfide sulfide minerals
and oxygen combined with water, it produces acidic groundwater that
can pollute an entire water system downstream and then also chuck.
There's mercury tailings or a big problem, especially with gold mines.
So you know, like if you take mercury and take
gold and put them together, mercury absorbs the gold and
(09:28):
you get a rainbow, right, a deadly rainbow. Uh, and
it makes what's called an amalgam. And then later on
so you have like you can take a little gold
flex or whatever, and now they're like highly portable, stable
little things of mercury. And then you take them somewhere
else and you can burn the mercury off and the
(09:49):
mercury will vaporize and just the gold is left. Well,
the problem is that mercury then immediately contaminates wherever you
just burned it off, and there's the atmosphere and everything.
But those kind of hailings are especially problematic, and old
gold mines too. And does that end up in gold
Schlager bottles? Probably is that where they get it? I
don't know. I hope they're not putting formerly mercury gold
(10:12):
and Malcolm in the gold schlag No, the people that
gold Slager wouldn't do that. So, Josh, if this is
such a problem, why wouldn't these companies clean up their
mind sites. It seems like a no brainer to me.
You're there, you do the work, you close it down,
you clean it up, make sure it's safe for everybody.
That's how you do it now. Yes, supposedly, Uh, it
was not the case until ninety seven. For about two years.
(10:37):
People mind UM even more than that, people mind in
the United States willingly however they wanted, and they would
they would say, well, this mind's used up. I don't
need it any longer. I'm walking away. Well, the quick
answer to my question answer now is money. That's the
real reason, because it's really expensive to clean up your
(10:59):
mind site. If you're a mining operation and you can
free what you can just fold up shop and leave.
Why would you spend money to clean it up? If
you were a company without me like an ethical compass
and a moral compass, because you know it's gonna hit
your bottom line, so screw it, let's just leave it.
You know, I can't help but feel like you set
(11:20):
me up by asking me that question and expecting the
short answer, because I've never given a short answer. Well,
that is a short answer. UM two thousand and six
congressional testimony said it would cost seventy two billion dollars
to clean up only the hard rock minds like at
the hard rock cafes. Right, seventy two billion dollars. Well,
(11:42):
the Bureau of Land Management, which we said is UM
responsible for finding these minds and for reclaiming them. Basically, Um,
they divide minds that they have to deal with in
the three categories. There's hard rock, which is like gold, silver,
mineral iron maybe yeah, I don't think they deal with
(12:03):
iron um. And then there's coal mines, and then uranium mines.
Got it. Well, I saw on the East coast they
had a map of where a lot of these abandoned
mines are, and there's a lot of them on the
East coast, and there were I think a lot of
the coal mines. Oh yeah, Like there's Centrally of Pennsylvania,
which we talked about before, is an abandoned town with
the coal steam burning underneath. Oh yeah, that's right. Creepy. Um.
(12:28):
So they abandoned the mines over time, land records and
lease records were lost, basically taking a reverse foreclosure. Yeah,
pretty much. And so in the end, like no one's
on the hook. No one knows many times who these
mines originally, like who was responsible over this to begin with?
And even if they do know the mine or its
(12:49):
gonna be like the do you have documentation that's there
on that mine? And the government goes no, and the
mine owners says see you or the other little loophole
wrote this right that you pointed out, which was if
you have gone through bankruptcy, then you can't be held liable.
That is no longer true. Oh is that not true? Yeah? Yeah,
(13:10):
I was happy to find that there's there's You now
have to post a bond basically as a mining company
from what I understand from research I did very recently,
that you have to post a bond kind of like
a fidelity bond. That is money you pay in upfront
that you get back if your mining operations successfully reclaims
(13:30):
the land. If you don't reclaim it, if reclamation isn't
like the end of your um mind, or you go bankrupt,
that money is still there to pay for reclamation. So
you canna correct the article. I think I should. I
think you should. People need to know that. UM here's
a little thing too called the Clean Water Act, which
(13:51):
um obviously you're going to be violating that if you're
letting your toxins from your mind leak out into the groundwater,
big penalties. But um As pointed out that in two
thousand six that was legislation to exempt people from prosecution
who were actually trying to clean up their minds, Like
I want to go clean up my mind, And we're
gonna exempt you, uh, as long as you weren't the
(14:13):
people who started the mind to begin with from I
guess exempt from the Clean Water Act. Yes, from polluting
because with tailings, a lot of a lot of cases. Um,
just removing them is going to some's gonna slip into
the watershed. And if it's from, say a uranium, mind,
well does it's radioactive and your water is radioactive and
(14:36):
you're in you have to pay a huge fine. Was
it better to leave it? I wonder it's better to
not get any into the water shed? Well, but can
you clean it up without doing that? Yes? I feel
like what the government has been doing. The Beer of
Land Management does, and they have a division called the
Abandoned mine Lands. Um, they basically just build a structure
(14:59):
around it, kind of like what they did with Chernobyl,
but on a much smaller scale, where it's basically like
this is gonna stay here for a little while, we'll
just put this around it until it's not radioactive anyway. Okay,
that's the impression I have what they're doing, at least
with radioactive stuff. Well, that legislation did not pass though, No,
it didn't, which seems like it would discourage people from
(15:21):
trying to clean these things up, right, Yeah, But I
also read testimony from UM this group called Earthworks, and
they were lobbying against that loophole, saying it was overly broad.
That basically like if you just picked up a little
bit of litter or whatever, you were automatically exempt from
the Clean Water Act, So it could be used to
nefarious ends by a moral people. Well, you mentioned the
(15:43):
abandoned mind Lands program under the Bureau of Land Management. UM.
They get funding roughly in the neighborhood at twelve to
fifteen million dollars a year. And you know we said
earlier it takes seventy billion to clean up I think
just the hard rock site. So they're doing the best
they can. UM. Over an eight year period, that cleaned
up more than three thousand minds, which is awesome, but
(16:05):
when you've got potentially five thousand out there, it's a
little scared to think about. So to to remediate a mind,
you have to address the physical stuff and the environmental stuff.
You have to take care of the tailings piles. You
have to um prevent any more acid groundwater from being produced.
You have to disassemble and carry off any old machinery,
(16:26):
any old buildings, maybe UM, and you have to cover
up entrances. But covering up a mind shaft a glory
hole as it's called in the industry, UM is not
quite as cut and dry as you think. You just
put a huge, heavy metal slab over it. The problem
is is when you build a mind, in a lot
(16:46):
of cases, you've disturbed bat population. When you UM abandoned
the mind, you basically are leaving this bat population with
a an awesome little place to live, a playground, if
you will, exactly UM. Now, bats are really really essential
to our comfort and happiness, and that the average bat
(17:07):
can kill something like six mosquitoes an hour when it
really wants to if it's feeling frisky, So we want
to keep bats around. They're already being decimated by a
white nose fungus, right. So people who are reclaiming abandoned
mind have figured out that there's ways that you can
keep humans out but let bats in and out, and
so they put on like bat couple of us I'm
(17:28):
vertical shafts, which is basically just like a little roof
that has slats to let the bats fly in and out.
That makes sense, And a bat gate is virtually the
same thing, except it goes into like an addit bat gate.
That couple of I think it's a great idea because
then like, you're not gonna find a kid down in there. No,
(17:49):
you're not disturbing the population of the bat unless the
kid is the size of a bat. And even still,
why is he not like bat boy? That's his problem? Well,
bat Boy's fine. Um. So the E p A UH
started something called the super fund UM, which basically means
mining companies now paying too this uh huge bank account
(18:10):
to cover costs of future cleanups. But that's not enough
to meet the needs, so taxpayers end up paying for
the discrepancies. Not don't mind my tax money going towards that.
So apparently nowadays since UM, part of the abandoned mind
Reclamation fund um is that if you're a mining company,
(18:34):
you're putting in your paying a tax basically for every
thirty one for every ton of surface coal that you
mind and every ton of underground coal, you're paying um
thirty one point five cents for surface coal and uh
thirteen point five cents a ton for underground mind stuff,
(18:54):
And all that goes into the super fund to reclaim it.
That's not bad. Well this this our October, I think
it's going to go down to twelve cents and twenty
eight cents. Yeah. Um things times are tough all over
for everybody. Yeah, they are. Um in n Josh, as
you point out, the Department of Interior created an award
(19:15):
for mining excellence. It's like the Yard of the Month
for abandoned mond and reclamaining. I think it's called the
Mining Award, and um, all joking aside, it's very cool
that they do this because, um, a lot of you know,
people are more responsible these days with their mining operations.
They're not all bad. Mining is a vital thing. We're
not trying to poop poo that. And then we did
(19:35):
like with the mountaintop removal, coal mining came down pretty hard.
But um, a lot of miners these days are pretty
responsible and they are reclaiming this land and uh going
back in and planning vegetation and trying to preserve old
buildings and make those into live work space condos exactly
what they're doing. Yeah, So that's great. Yeah, keep it up,
(19:58):
is what I say. I agree, and be careful out there.
A TV people in rot Corey swimmers. Yeah. There. Um,
if you see a mind, stay away. I believe that's
the name of the program. Yeah, stay away. Yeah. It's
like you know those cartoony posters with exclamation points and
stuff like that. UM P S A S that's what
(20:20):
they're called. Uh. I think if you do see your mind,
go on the Internet and look up reporting abandoned minds
and you will find a way to do it, and
that will be helpful. You'll save some money, save some
taxpayer money if you report a mind yourself agreed. Uh.
If you want to know more about abandoned minds and
reclamation and all that stuff, you can type it into
(20:43):
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
I said, search bars means it's time for that's right, Josh.
This closes out the trilogy. I'll go and start out
with Donna Fessler. My husband always wants to call my
beet vegetable soup as stew, but it is broth based.
(21:05):
I don't argue. Um, And basically she's asking about this.
My recommendation Donna is to go check out the podcast
Judge John Hodge, because he has a full podcast on
I believe Chili chili's chowlders, stews and soups and the
differences right, the first one. It was pretty early on.
(21:25):
Judge John will break it all down for you. Nice plug, Chuck,
Thank you, Ryan Taylor. Question, what time is it a hammertime?
Be time to make the donuts or see ber o'clock
time to make the donuts? Beer o'clock? We've got from
Jeremy Glover. Did either of you grow up watching Andy
Griffith's show? I think he means the Andy Griffiths Show. Yeah,
(21:47):
I certainly did. I did too, and reruns. Is there
anybody yes? Same here? Is there anybody who is alive today?
They didn't grow up watching yet? Yeah? Well he's asking
that because Andy Griffith died today. Oh really Yeah, I
didn't know. I still alive he was till today. Wow,
that's that's well. He had quite a run. Yeah, he
was eighty six years old. Good full life, as as
(22:08):
Sheriff Andy Taylor, Mattlock and uh was that it? Those
there's two big characters. Didn't you have a third? Those
were the two big ones. Does any like the Landlord
and threes company for a little while? No, I don't
think so. Tanya Chob is it is my anniversary? Can
you do a quick shout out to my very patient husband,
Abe Franklin. It would be a fun surprise, all right, Tania,
(22:31):
I guess Tania, Happy anniversary to you and Abe. Happy
anniversary Tanya and Abe. Oh here's a good one, Brandon Nichols,
Who would you most like to punch in the face?
That's sort of like the fight club question? Who would
you fight? Who would I most like to punch in
the face? Would it be a good one? I think
myself many times. Yeah, that's very much like fight club.
(22:56):
Actually I got someone else, but I can't say I
think you know who it is. Oh yeah, like a
punch him in the face. Yeah, you got anyone. I'm
not saying anything that's anything. So that was kind of
a cop out. Uh. Vitality says, would you rather fight
one hundred duck sized horses or one horsed sized duck?
(23:18):
I love these questions one horse sized duck. I don't
go for the one horse sized duck because you get
like a sharpened stick in its neck. It's over and
done with. It's kind of like that um garage full
of guided missiles up in space. Yeah, you take one
out you take ten out. If you've got like a
hundred duck sized horses coming at you, they're going to
(23:40):
get the best of you. Yeah. Plus, that's just creepy, man.
Can you imagine a hundred like one ft tall horses
coming after you? I find the horse sized duck creepier.
I don't I don't mind that. That's some good eating too. Yeah.
Uh Mica Mia Mia Mea. Paul Cannell says, Howe Maya
Maya says, how is Atlanta really quality of life? Would
(24:01):
you recommend it? I would? I love Atlanta. I'm from
here and I moved back here for a reason. Josh,
do you like Atlanta? Sure? Lands great? Atlanta's great? Robert Casey?
Is Jerry as smoking hot as we think she is?
And more? My friend? That's all I'm gonna say about that.
Have you ever gotten a threatening uh listener mail from
Nathaniel Yeager? No? Nothing threatening? Really like physically threatening? Um?
(24:28):
Uh no? Menacing? How about that? I've gotten a couple
of little crazy ones, but that never menacing? Care to share? No, Okay,
I want to send anybody off? How about one more? Okay,
let's see. Um, why is Cilantro so divisive? From Heidi Wells.
Good question, Heidi, Well, that is a good one. Cilantro,
(24:50):
the herb also known as coriander or um Chinese salary,
I believe in some quarters for yeah, um, that's pretty good,
thank you. Uh is divisive because it strikes different people's
tongues differently. It's really big time, right. Some people, cilantro
is a glorious herb, including me and me I love
(25:13):
cilantro me too. To other people, it tastes very much
like soap. Yeah, my friend says that. And there is actually,
if you're interested, a video on web md that addresses
this question. And if you watch very closely, the filmmaker,
who is a friend of mine who I know through Humi,
put in a moment where he takes a thing of
(25:36):
Paul malive and puts it over a taco. And it
happens just for a second, but it's pretty brilliant. Want
to it was just funny. Look at Yeah, it's like,
did you just put soap on a taco? Yeah? There
you go. Well, here's what I have to say. I
feel sorry for people who have that taste reaction because
cilantro to me is one of the great great things.
And uh, food and some drinks. Yes, I put a
(25:59):
little cilantro and margarite is from time to time so good.
It's really nice. And a couple of slices of halapeno. Yeah,
all right, I'm hungry, thirsty, I am too, man, let's
good some guacamole. Uh. If you have questions for Chuck
and I, you can tweet to us at s y
ESK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com
(26:20):
slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot Com brought to you by the
(26:45):
reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
It's ready. Are you welcome to you stuff you should
know from house Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome
to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. Damn,
(00:21):
that makes it sound fish And um, I just had
some of my notes mixed up, like criminal records was
stuffed in the middle of this one, Like wouldn't that
be funny if I was talking about abandoned mines? And
then just like a robot, it was like, and if
you have a d U I you can call your
local police shop and get that expunged. Yeah, I think
(00:42):
that's bad advice. Well, now I'm just saying, do you
not ever call the police unless it's an emergency. You're right, Chuck? Yes, Um,
how are you doing good? Three today? Huh yeah, day
before holiday even in fact, the office is closed right
now and we're still working. It's like crickets outside and
someone threw a spear at me when I stuck my
(01:03):
head out to go to the bathroom. Good that was
his assignment. So Chuck, if I may take it down
a notcher. Two? Have you ever heard of a guy
named Taylor Crane, a kid. Taylor as a kid who
was sixteen years old when he died. He was on
a tour of Mexico UM with his parents New Mexico
(01:26):
and mex Mexico, Mexico Old Mexico UM. And he was
on a tour I didn't realize he's existed UM but
a of abandoned haciendas and mines. So it's basically like
an urban exploration tour of old Mexico UM. And they
were at an old mind site the tour group was
(01:47):
and Taylor was apparently playing tag and um jumped up
on a low wall and apparently on the other side
of that was a thousand foot mine shaft which he
fell into a ten ft cross jess wide open a
thousand feet down. They had a lot of trouble getting
to them to recover him because there's so much lead
(02:09):
and arsenic at the bottom that it was really difficult
to breathe to get down there to get them. So
you think, like, wow, it's really crazy that Mexico has
these open minds. Mind blowing as it is, Mexico is
not the only place. As a matter of fact, here
in the States we have something on the scale of
(02:31):
five hundred thousand abandoned minds. That's the high end, but
the low end even is still I think like three
hundred thousand abandoned minds. Abandoned minds probably two of the
most dangerous words you can put together, and they're all
over the place. The US is lousy with them. Yeah,
(02:53):
and about thirty people die in the United States every
year from accidents involving abandoned minds. And did a little looking. Yeah,
apparently they include uh, quarries, and most of these are drownings. Um,
because the quarry either has water or an abandoned mind shaft.
(03:15):
You know, they'll pump out water to work in it,
and then when they're done, it fills back up with water.
So uh, some say, crazy scuba divers, we'll try and
scuba dive these things. My dad was actually certified in
an old marble quarry in Tlita, and to be certified
you had to go down to a school bus at
(03:37):
the bottom of this quarry. Um, you had to dive
down to go into the school bus and grab something
from it. It was like right inside, and then bring
it back up. Then they'd be like, Okay, you're certifying
your dad did. Yeah, that's pretty awesome. I'm trying to
picture that. I can't imagine anything more creepy than having
to go into a school bus at the bottom of
a filled quarry. No, I'm just trying to picture your
(03:59):
dad like all you know, scuba diving and adventure, a
buzz cut and more like a big watch and everything. Yeah,
he was. I guess anytime you're older and you meet
someone father when they're a little older, it's hard to
imagine them as young because I didn't know him back then,
But I picture him on the couch. Oh no, uh no,
he was. He carried a spear gun everywhere he went
(04:19):
with him. Really, that's awesome. Alright, So, um, sadly, like
I said, about thirty people die each year, many of
them are drownings. I think number two on the list
as a TV accidents, which doesn't surprise me because tool
along in the a TV on some you know, random
thinking You're in the middle of nowhere place and all
of a sudden the bottom falls out. Literally. Um yeah,
(04:43):
those were the top two far and away that I
came across too. But since two thousand one, apparently two
seven people have died in the United States because of
accidents involving abandoned minds. I saw one in two thousand
and eight. These two guys were uh, trying to get
a former gold mine going again because they thought there
was still gold down there, and they were pumping out
(05:05):
water with a some sort of machine with a generator,
and they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Yeah, that's that's
another one. I think it's way down on the list.
It's like a distant third, but but I think it's
it's um being overcome unable to breathe, asphyxiation, that's the
word I'm looking for, by bringing in your own thing,
or just by the toxic chemicals down there, toxic chemicals
(05:26):
or um, carbon monoxide or oxygen depletion in general from
people either trying to get old ones started up or yeah,
more likely adventuring. Yeah, abandoned mind Let's go ahead and
give a tip to people because we like to encourage
the urban explorers, which you know we've done a podcast
on that. But man, you don't need to be hanging
(05:47):
around abandoned minds. No, they're very, very dangerous. Yes, I
mean that's just so mind bogglingly dangerous. Just resist the urge,
and I like, I have that urge too, because I
love the urban exploration. If I saw a whole the ground,
I would want to go check it out. But it's
not a good place to be, not a good thing
to do. So what's crazy is we said, like, up
(06:07):
to five hundred thousand abandoned minds and these are just
the minds, not mine features. So say, every mine has
several mind features. Say and at it, which is a
vertical shaft or I'm sorry, a horizontal shaft. Um, And
you've got a vertical shaft like the one that um,
poor Taylor Crane fell into. Um, you have all these
(06:27):
different mind features on up to five hundred thousand minds.
And the crazy thing is is as of February two
thousand eleven, the Bureau of Land Management, which is tasked
with finding these abandoned minds, has only found about thirty
one thousand of them. That means that there's possibly four
hundred and sixty nine thousand abandoned minds in the United
(06:49):
States that no one has on any map. True, but
like on on the good side, they're trying to find them. Now.
In two thousand and eight, they only had eighteen thousand
of them, so in spanned three years they found another
uh thousand, I had twelve thousand and two thousand and eight.
Well even better than um. And I think of those
(07:12):
have been remediated, have pending reclamation, or they say aren't
a danger. They say, so, Um, that's just the physical dangerous. Yeah,
there's two kinds. There's physical dangers and environmental dangers. And
I think and I guess it's of the ones they
found they said to have physical hazards and five have
(07:37):
environmental hazards, which you know, it's not a ton but
is pretty dangerous. Well, a physical hazard is insidious for
the local just the local people who are walking around
it sure like falling in, yeah, or maybe caving in.
And by the way, I found out that any mine
feature that is like a hole in the ground, or
(08:00):
even like if there's a depression in the ground because
a mine collapse, some they're called glory holes. Did you
know that? That was almost a fit take, wasn't it?
That's not true? I s where to God it is. Wow,
I saw a sign today of an abandoned mind called
the glory whole mind. Well that's that's quite a name. Yeah,
(08:21):
good for them. Uh mind tailings you talk about, and
this is some of the environmental hazards, and these can
actually be physical hazards too if you're living nearby. These
are the remnants of what was going on there of
the mineral, and often it can be very toxic and
then that can either be harmful to you or it
can run off into the water and be harmful to people,
(08:43):
you know, downriver. That was my point is things like um,
like add its and other mind features. UM, they're dangerous
if you're walking around the mine. Environmental hazards of a
mind can be very far reaching because in very much
the same way that ascid rain is produced from like
smoke stacks, these mines can produce acid rain UM, and
(09:05):
they can also produce acid groundwater. When sulfide sulfide minerals
and oxygen combined with water, it produces acidic groundwater that
can pollute an entire water system downstream and then also chuck.
There's mercury tailings or a big problem, especially with gold mines.
So you know, like if you take mercury and take
gold and put them together, mercury absorbs the gold and
(09:28):
you get a rainbow, right, a deadly rainbow. Uh, and
it makes what's called an amalgam. And then later on
so you have like you can take a little gold
flex or whatever, and now they're like highly portable, stable
little things of mercury. And then you take them somewhere
else and you can burn the mercury off and the
(09:49):
mercury will vaporize and just the gold is left. Well,
the problem is that mercury then immediately contaminates wherever you
just burned it off, and there's the atmosphere and everything.
But those kind of hailings are especially problematic, and old
gold mines too. And does that end up in gold
Schlager bottles? Probably is that where they get it? I
don't know. I hope they're not putting formerly mercury gold
(10:12):
and Malcolm in the gold schlag No, the people that
gold Slager wouldn't do that. So, Josh, if this is
such a problem, why wouldn't these companies clean up their
mind sites. It seems like a no brainer to me.
You're there, you do the work, you close it down,
you clean it up, make sure it's safe for everybody.
That's how you do it now. Yes, supposedly, Uh, it
was not the case until ninety seven. For about two years.
(10:37):
People mind UM even more than that, people mind in
the United States willingly however they wanted, and they would
they would say, well, this mind's used up. I don't
need it any longer. I'm walking away. Well, the quick
answer to my question answer now is money. That's the
real reason, because it's really expensive to clean up your
(10:59):
mind site. If you're a mining operation and you can
free what you can just fold up shop and leave.
Why would you spend money to clean it up? If
you were a company without me like an ethical compass
and a moral compass, because you know it's gonna hit
your bottom line, so screw it, let's just leave it.
You know, I can't help but feel like you set
(11:20):
me up by asking me that question and expecting the
short answer, because I've never given a short answer. Well,
that is a short answer. UM two thousand and six
congressional testimony said it would cost seventy two billion dollars
to clean up only the hard rock minds like at
the hard rock cafes. Right, seventy two billion dollars. Well,
(11:42):
the Bureau of Land Management, which we said is UM
responsible for finding these minds and for reclaiming them. Basically, Um,
they divide minds that they have to deal with in
the three categories. There's hard rock, which is like gold, silver,
mineral iron maybe yeah, I don't think they deal with
(12:03):
iron um. And then there's coal mines, and then uranium mines.
Got it. Well, I saw on the East coast they
had a map of where a lot of these abandoned
mines are, and there's a lot of them on the
East coast, and there were I think a lot of
the coal mines. Oh yeah, Like there's Centrally of Pennsylvania,
which we talked about before, is an abandoned town with
the coal steam burning underneath. Oh yeah, that's right. Creepy. Um.
(12:28):
So they abandoned the mines over time, land records and
lease records were lost, basically taking a reverse foreclosure. Yeah,
pretty much. And so in the end, like no one's
on the hook. No one knows many times who these
mines originally, like who was responsible over this to begin with?
And even if they do know the mine or its
(12:49):
gonna be like the do you have documentation that's there
on that mine? And the government goes no, and the
mine owners says see you or the other little loophole
wrote this right that you pointed out, which was if
you have gone through bankruptcy, then you can't be held liable.
That is no longer true. Oh is that not true? Yeah? Yeah,
(13:10):
I was happy to find that there's there's You now
have to post a bond basically as a mining company
from what I understand from research I did very recently,
that you have to post a bond kind of like
a fidelity bond. That is money you pay in upfront
that you get back if your mining operations successfully reclaims
(13:30):
the land. If you don't reclaim it, if reclamation isn't
like the end of your um mind, or you go bankrupt,
that money is still there to pay for reclamation. So
you canna correct the article. I think I should. I
think you should. People need to know that. UM here's
a little thing too called the Clean Water Act, which
(13:51):
um obviously you're going to be violating that if you're
letting your toxins from your mind leak out into the groundwater,
big penalties. But um As pointed out that in two
thousand six that was legislation to exempt people from prosecution
who were actually trying to clean up their minds, Like
I want to go clean up my mind, And we're
gonna exempt you, uh, as long as you weren't the
(14:13):
people who started the mind to begin with from I
guess exempt from the Clean Water Act. Yes, from polluting
because with tailings, a lot of a lot of cases. Um,
just removing them is going to some's gonna slip into
the watershed. And if it's from, say a uranium, mind,
well does it's radioactive and your water is radioactive and
(14:36):
you're in you have to pay a huge fine. Was
it better to leave it? I wonder it's better to
not get any into the water shed? Well, but can
you clean it up without doing that? Yes? I feel
like what the government has been doing. The Beer of
Land Management does, and they have a division called the
Abandoned mine Lands. Um, they basically just build a structure
(14:59):
around it, kind of like what they did with Chernobyl,
but on a much smaller scale, where it's basically like
this is gonna stay here for a little while, we'll
just put this around it until it's not radioactive anyway. Okay,
that's the impression I have what they're doing, at least
with radioactive stuff. Well, that legislation did not pass though, No,
it didn't, which seems like it would discourage people from
(15:21):
trying to clean these things up, right, Yeah, But I
also read testimony from UM this group called Earthworks, and
they were lobbying against that loophole, saying it was overly broad.
That basically like if you just picked up a little
bit of litter or whatever, you were automatically exempt from
the Clean Water Act, So it could be used to
nefarious ends by a moral people. Well, you mentioned the
(15:43):
abandoned mind Lands program under the Bureau of Land Management. UM.
They get funding roughly in the neighborhood at twelve to
fifteen million dollars a year. And you know we said
earlier it takes seventy billion to clean up I think
just the hard rock site. So they're doing the best
they can. UM. Over an eight year period, that cleaned
up more than three thousand minds, which is awesome, but
(16:05):
when you've got potentially five thousand out there, it's a
little scared to think about. So to to remediate a mind,
you have to address the physical stuff and the environmental stuff.
You have to take care of the tailings piles. You
have to um prevent any more acid groundwater from being produced.
You have to disassemble and carry off any old machinery,
(16:26):
any old buildings, maybe UM, and you have to cover
up entrances. But covering up a mind shaft a glory
hole as it's called in the industry, UM is not
quite as cut and dry as you think. You just
put a huge, heavy metal slab over it. The problem
is is when you build a mind, in a lot
(16:46):
of cases, you've disturbed bat population. When you UM abandoned
the mind, you basically are leaving this bat population with
a an awesome little place to live, a playground, if
you will, exactly UM. Now, bats are really really essential
to our comfort and happiness, and that the average bat
(17:07):
can kill something like six mosquitoes an hour when it
really wants to if it's feeling frisky, So we want
to keep bats around. They're already being decimated by a
white nose fungus, right. So people who are reclaiming abandoned
mind have figured out that there's ways that you can
keep humans out but let bats in and out, and
so they put on like bat couple of us I'm
(17:28):
vertical shafts, which is basically just like a little roof
that has slats to let the bats fly in and out.
That makes sense, And a bat gate is virtually the
same thing, except it goes into like an addit bat gate.
That couple of I think it's a great idea because
then like, you're not gonna find a kid down in there. No,
(17:49):
you're not disturbing the population of the bat unless the
kid is the size of a bat. And even still,
why is he not like bat boy? That's his problem? Well,
bat Boy's fine. Um. So the E p A UH
started something called the super fund UM, which basically means
mining companies now paying too this uh huge bank account
(18:10):
to cover costs of future cleanups. But that's not enough
to meet the needs, so taxpayers end up paying for
the discrepancies. Not don't mind my tax money going towards that.
So apparently nowadays since UM, part of the abandoned mind
Reclamation fund um is that if you're a mining company,
(18:34):
you're putting in your paying a tax basically for every
thirty one for every ton of surface coal that you
mind and every ton of underground coal, you're paying um
thirty one point five cents for surface coal and uh
thirteen point five cents a ton for underground mind stuff,
(18:54):
And all that goes into the super fund to reclaim it.
That's not bad. Well this this our October, I think
it's going to go down to twelve cents and twenty
eight cents. Yeah. Um things times are tough all over
for everybody. Yeah, they are. Um in n Josh, as
you point out, the Department of Interior created an award
(19:15):
for mining excellence. It's like the Yard of the Month
for abandoned mond and reclamaining. I think it's called the
Mining Award, and um, all joking aside, it's very cool
that they do this because, um, a lot of you know,
people are more responsible these days with their mining operations.
They're not all bad. Mining is a vital thing. We're
not trying to poop poo that. And then we did
(19:35):
like with the mountaintop removal, coal mining came down pretty hard.
But um, a lot of miners these days are pretty
responsible and they are reclaiming this land and uh going
back in and planning vegetation and trying to preserve old
buildings and make those into live work space condos exactly
what they're doing. Yeah, So that's great. Yeah, keep it up,
(19:58):
is what I say. I agree, and be careful out there.
A TV people in rot Corey swimmers. Yeah. There. Um,
if you see a mind, stay away. I believe that's
the name of the program. Yeah, stay away. Yeah. It's
like you know those cartoony posters with exclamation points and
stuff like that. UM P S A S that's what
(20:20):
they're called. Uh. I think if you do see your mind,
go on the Internet and look up reporting abandoned minds
and you will find a way to do it, and
that will be helpful. You'll save some money, save some
taxpayer money if you report a mind yourself agreed. Uh.
If you want to know more about abandoned minds and
reclamation and all that stuff, you can type it into
(20:43):
the search bar at how stuff works dot com. And
I said, search bars means it's time for that's right, Josh.
This closes out the trilogy. I'll go and start out
with Donna Fessler. My husband always wants to call my
beet vegetable soup as stew, but it is broth based.
(21:05):
I don't argue. Um, And basically she's asking about this.
My recommendation Donna is to go check out the podcast
Judge John Hodge, because he has a full podcast on
I believe Chili chili's chowlders, stews and soups and the
differences right, the first one. It was pretty early on.
(21:25):
Judge John will break it all down for you. Nice plug, Chuck,
Thank you, Ryan Taylor. Question, what time is it a hammertime?
Be time to make the donuts or see ber o'clock
time to make the donuts? Beer o'clock? We've got from
Jeremy Glover. Did either of you grow up watching Andy
Griffith's show? I think he means the Andy Griffiths Show. Yeah,
(21:47):
I certainly did. I did too, and reruns. Is there
anybody yes? Same here? Is there anybody who is alive today?
They didn't grow up watching yet? Yeah? Well he's asking
that because Andy Griffith died today. Oh really Yeah, I
didn't know. I still alive he was till today. Wow,
that's that's well. He had quite a run. Yeah, he
was eighty six years old. Good full life, as as
(22:08):
Sheriff Andy Taylor, Mattlock and uh was that it? Those
there's two big characters. Didn't you have a third? Those
were the two big ones. Does any like the Landlord
and threes company for a little while? No, I don't
think so. Tanya Chob is it is my anniversary? Can
you do a quick shout out to my very patient husband,
Abe Franklin. It would be a fun surprise, all right, Tania,
(22:31):
I guess Tania, Happy anniversary to you and Abe. Happy
anniversary Tanya and Abe. Oh here's a good one, Brandon Nichols,
Who would you most like to punch in the face?
That's sort of like the fight club question? Who would
you fight? Who would I most like to punch in
the face? Would it be a good one? I think
myself many times. Yeah, that's very much like fight club.
(22:56):
Actually I got someone else, but I can't say I
think you know who it is. Oh yeah, like a
punch him in the face. Yeah, you got anyone. I'm
not saying anything that's anything. So that was kind of
a cop out. Uh. Vitality says, would you rather fight
one hundred duck sized horses or one horsed sized duck?
(23:18):
I love these questions one horse sized duck. I don't
go for the one horse sized duck because you get
like a sharpened stick in its neck. It's over and
done with. It's kind of like that um garage full
of guided missiles up in space. Yeah, you take one
out you take ten out. If you've got like a
hundred duck sized horses coming at you, they're going to
(23:40):
get the best of you. Yeah. Plus, that's just creepy, man.
Can you imagine a hundred like one ft tall horses
coming after you? I find the horse sized duck creepier.
I don't I don't mind that. That's some good eating too. Yeah.
Uh Mica Mia Mia Mea. Paul Cannell says, Howe Maya
Maya says, how is Atlanta really quality of life? Would
(24:01):
you recommend it? I would? I love Atlanta. I'm from
here and I moved back here for a reason. Josh,
do you like Atlanta? Sure? Lands great? Atlanta's great? Robert Casey?
Is Jerry as smoking hot as we think she is?
And more? My friend? That's all I'm gonna say about that.
Have you ever gotten a threatening uh listener mail from
Nathaniel Yeager? No? Nothing threatening? Really like physically threatening? Um?
(24:28):
Uh no? Menacing? How about that? I've gotten a couple
of little crazy ones, but that never menacing? Care to share? No, Okay,
I want to send anybody off? How about one more? Okay,
let's see. Um, why is Cilantro so divisive? From Heidi Wells.
Good question, Heidi, Well, that is a good one. Cilantro,
(24:50):
the herb also known as coriander or um Chinese salary,
I believe in some quarters for yeah, um, that's pretty good,
thank you. Uh is divisive because it strikes different people's
tongues differently. It's really big time, right. Some people, cilantro
is a glorious herb, including me and me I love
(25:13):
cilantro me too. To other people, it tastes very much
like soap. Yeah, my friend says that. And there is actually,
if you're interested, a video on web md that addresses
this question. And if you watch very closely, the filmmaker,
who is a friend of mine who I know through Humi,
put in a moment where he takes a thing of
(25:36):
Paul malive and puts it over a taco. And it
happens just for a second, but it's pretty brilliant. Want
to it was just funny. Look at Yeah, it's like,
did you just put soap on a taco? Yeah? There
you go. Well, here's what I have to say. I
feel sorry for people who have that taste reaction because
cilantro to me is one of the great great things.
And uh, food and some drinks. Yes, I put a
(25:59):
little cilantro and margarite is from time to time so good.
It's really nice. And a couple of slices of halapeno. Yeah,
all right, I'm hungry, thirsty, I am too, man, let's
good some guacamole. Uh. If you have questions for Chuck
and I, you can tweet to us at s y
ESK podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com
(26:20):
slash stuff you Should Know, or you can send us
an email to Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it
how stuff works dot Com brought to you by the
(26:45):
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