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In this photo, two employees with the State Land Office walk across the expansive sand dune that tops the tailings at the Nacimiento Copper Mine near Cuba, N.M. Land Commissioner Aubrey Dunn has hired a consultant to review the site and determine what options exist for cleaning up mine waste left behind by past operations. (AP Photo/Susan Montoya Bryan)

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For decades, yellow- and white-tinged piles of waste from a defunct copper mine have covered the mountainside at the edge of the quintessential New Mexico village of Cuba — out of sight, out of mind and not nasty enough to warrant the attention of the federal government's Superfund program.

By SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN, AP December 27, 2017