When I took my rowing class, we would drive by these mounds of dirt on the way to the Great Salt Lake, and they would always be hosing the dirt down. We wondered what on earth was going on? Are they harvesting salt? Why are they spraying it? Well, folks, thanks to a visit to the Bingham Copper Mine, I have the answer. 
All the copper ore they take from the Bingham Copper mine has to be refined because there's a very low percentage of actual copper in it. They put the ore in chutes that take it all the way from the mine to the Great Salt Lake - by gravity! - and they smelt it right there by the Great Salt Lake. The spraying is to minimize the dust and particles that go into the air from the rocks in the chute. Apparently it's one of the cleanest smelting plant in the world. Isn't that nuts?
Anyway, I'd never been to the Bingham Copper Mine before and I was pleasantly surprised. I was pleasantly surprised that there were more people there than just me (including the requisite Japanese tourists). Second, their visitors' center is quite nice, and third, I actually learned me some stuff! Did you know that this is the largest open-pit mine in the world? I didn't. That it's one of the only man-made objects to be visible from space?
Look how big their trucks are hauling up the ore. As big as houses, people! Here's a little comparison. Check out the semi on the right-hand side compared to their big truck. Dwarfs it. The tires alone are 12 feet 6 inches high. 
Also, it made me a little sad to see that the mine used to be a mountain and how they've cut away so much of it. As they say in their propaganda/historical video, "mining by its very nature disrupts the land." Still, it ain't pretty. Have you been? What did you think?
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