It is a definite boom cycle in the minerals industry right now copper and gold being the principal metals of interest. There are lots of spin-off economics from that work, especially in service and supply industries. Reclamation of sites is generally far more tightly regulated these days so that hopefully means companies are cleaning up their own mess (or inherited mess) instead of socializing the cost of cleanup. That has been an historic problem in Canada. The US is a different animal than Canada though, with much more privately held lands.
From what I have heard, cyanide breaks down quite quickly with exposure to sunlight. Mercury, cadmium, arsenic, bismuth, antimony are common with gold mineralization and generally bad news for the environment (and your concentrate for that matter - smelters penalize your return since they have to dispose of the deleterious metals).
Going back to Fenris and his original post, are there any nude celebrities helping with the mining? You'd have thought with all their gabbing on about the environment they'd want to help.