Regulators deal with mines left abandoned.

Byline: Joe Baird

Feb. 13--Imagine that the state of Utah is chock full of holes, thousands and thousands of them. And that each is a potential environmental or public safety hazard.

Now imagine yourself a state or federal abandoned mine program regulator. This is your reality.

Utah has anywhere from 17,000 to 20,000 old, abandoned hard rock mines, dotting the state from the west desert to the Wasatch to the Colorado Plateau. Most of them are remote and rarely encountered. But between what they can emit and what can happen to those who unwittingly enter them, regulators, environmentalists and academics see an increasing threat.

"What we've got is a huge problem," says Terry Snyder, abandoned mines coordinator for the Bureau of Land Management Office in Utah.

With his trusty pick and shovel, the hard rock miner stands alongside the cowboy on the short list of the West's iconic images. But those grizzled gold and silver prospectors, who toiled long before environmental regulations, also left behind a mess.

Waters laced with lead, arsenic, zinc and other metals …