I think perhaps that you should go and visit a place called Sudbury,after 50 years of mining nickel the land has been transformed from from a "moonscape" to a verdant area of trees and inhabitated by both moose and deer. Tailing ponds are now home to various aquatic life including herons and migratory geese and ducks.

In fact it is better now than when the mining began!

Despite what the "tree huggers" publisize we in Canada do look after our land and recourses and when we "clear cut" the forests we go back in and do re-forestation and negate any impact on the territory.In fact the re-plant is twice as many trees as harvested.

We as Canadians expect no less and even more, once the bitumine sand are finished,a moved to other areas.

The companies working in these fields are legislated to returning these areas back to thier natural situations. All companies have put aside monies to this end .

Dennis

STMF