Drew,
You're right, heavy metal poisons don't just go away when mining stops, and they affect many species besides our own. Air quality is different. Stop mining/burning coal and the air gets cleaner through natural cycles, which argues in favor of stopping burning coal, not continuing. Coal is nasty, no argument here, but it's a different kind of nasty than nuclear nasty, and I wouldn't consider nuclear pollution a good alternative to coal pollution.
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