Edgar González Gaudiano published an analysis of the mine in the local newspaper La Jornada Veracruz, in which he estimated that the mine would produce 100,000 ounces of gold a year, with a value of about $1,660 an ounce at 2012 prices, or $166 million. Goldcorp would operate two huge open pits. The ore would be treated with cyanide, a strong poison, to leach out the metal. Cyanide bonds with the gold, essentially dissolving it. Later, the gold is separated out, leaving a large amount of cyanide-laced wastewater. That runoff is held in huge open-air ponds.
Gold mining with cyanide is a very dangerous process, yet more than 90 percent of all gold extracted worldwide relies on its use. In Romania in January 2000, a dam on one such pond broke and about 100,000 cubic meters of toxic wastewater and mud poured into the Danube River. The plume of cyanide traveled downstream, through Hungary and the former Yugoslavia, to the Black Sea, killing everything it touched. It was called the worst environmental catastrophe since the nuclear meltdown in Chernobyl.
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