Mining contaminated waters

The next billionaires may be the entrepreneur who figures out how to turn contaminated mine water into drinking water. In the process, they would make part of their fortune recovering chemicals and metals we use in our everyday lives.

No one was talking about old mining waste until August 5 when an EPA cleanup crew accidentally breached the wall of a containment pond at the Gold King Mine near Durango, Colorado, sending three million gallons of mustard-tinged muck down the Animas River.

Suddenly, the world’s attention focused on heavily polluted settling ponds from mining operations that, in s...