The brown water of another of the three ponds, Parkotxa, is a legacy of the 1970s. Mud was dumped in there from the treatment plant, which was the last part of the mining industry in the region to close down. This once-thriving little village, which had twenty-four bars, a forty-six-piece village band, hostels and schools, a cinema and theater, and even a police station, is now mainly residential with a few bars and restaurants. It has become a popular recreational destination, with visitors mainly from Greater Bilbao and beyond. The traditional dish of the miners, a bean stew, is famous in the region and many village restaurants serve it. Today, the area surrounding the water-filled mines is a recreational park (Peñas Negras) with picnic and barbeque facilities. It is popular for fishing (swimming is not permitted), walking, biking, and horse-riding. Although the original mining infrastructure is no longer extant, there is a mining museum. The village itself has some interesting features: for example, while its architecture is of a style unique in the Basque country, the same construction is seen in a number of mining communities around Asturias and Cantabria. Perhaps also worthy of note is the fact that, with many of the miners coming from outside the Basque country, some of the local toponyms were “castilianized” (for example, Larrañeta to La Reineta). In socioeconomic terms, the importance of Trapagaran extends well beyond the village itself, as the mining industry enhanced Bilbao’s economic development a great deal. Although small-scale ironworks already existed in the area, 1902 saw an English‒Basque partnership that culminated in the creation of the Biscay’s emblematic Altos Hornos (a huge ironworks complex). With its mineral resources and proximity to the seaport, and the area’s metallurgical tradition, Bilbao was a prime location. After the Spanish Civil War, during Spain’s rural exodus, the Basque industry attracted people from all over the country. Altos Hornos turned out to be crucial for Bilbao’s industrialization.

• Unfortunately we know little about how the early mineral exploitation and possible settlements connect (or overlap) with the more recent ones.
• The landscape has changed considerably (certainly since industrial exploitation in the nineteenth century): with human settlement, mining infrastructure, the disappearance of a mountain, and the appearance of three new lakes. The vegetation has also now largely recovered from the scars inflicted by open-cast mining activity.
• The cable railway has become a tourist attraction and the area has a heritage center relating to the history of Bilbao’s mining past. One of the sociopolitical implications of this renaissance is the bringing together of the left and right banks of the Nervión River (margen izquierda and margen derecha). These neighborhoods were socially and culturally disconnected in the past: the left bank populated with migrants from all over Spain who had come to work at the ironworks and the right bank home to the more bourgeois local population.
• This place was more than an iron mine; it was also an economic mine for the social and economic development of Bilbao and for the industrial revolution in general. In this sense, it is hard to say where this anthropogenic landscape ends, because its influence stretches beyond the local environment.