Walker Mine in Taylorsville, California

For three decades starting in nineteen-eleven, California's Walker Mine extracted copper from the Sierra Nevada foothills, then left the landscape to its own devices. Acid mine drainage and mill tailings—crushed ore rock laced with heavy metals—poisoned the waterways for decades after. Atlas Obscura reports that the site has now become a rare success: after years of legal wrangling over remediation costs, the Central Valley Regional Water Board calls it a model for cleaning up historic mining sites.

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