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...participates in the removal of a finite resource, a non-replenishing asset. When the ore deposits have depleted, and the cost of mineral production falls below the value of the minerals themselves, these operations will say goodbye to Wendover and move on elsewhere. This is not to say that all extractive industry is unnecessary and evil, but rather to consider the fragility of these massively impactful operations and the impermanence of their existence. The delicate balance of dependency on and depletion of the earth itself gets to the core of all land-based industrial practice; a core that for now may provide economic structure, but will one day—like many a western boom town—bust, and leave in its wake only abandonment and a half-mile-deep hole in the ground.

Date: December 2019
Length: 2200 words

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