Rio Tinto Kennecott continued to chip away last year at one of the mining company’s long-term goals — making the giant waste-rock piles from its Bingham Canyon Mine less visible from throughout the Salt Lake Valley.
But it’s going to take time, Rio Tinto Kennecott officials Steve Schnoor and Trevor Heaton said Wednesday in the company’s annual report to the state Board of Oil, Gas and Mining.
“They’re steep and they’re tall,” reclamation engineer Heaton said of the 1,000-foot-tall piles of gray, yellow and red waste rock left behind in excavating the huge copper mine in the Oquirrh Mountains.