David,
Do you sense that the conversation has ended? I'm with you on this, all the way.
If her objection relates to aesthetics, then perhaps she could post a Before picture for our enlightenment. If her objection is based on something else, then she ought to make it clear.
In NW Connecticut a decade ago, environmentalists successfully fought the construction of what would have been a fabulous course. It would have been built on a parcel of land that may have been the most beautiful intact parcel of land in the entire state, 550-acre Yale Farm. (No relation to the university.) Even though friends of mine owned the land, so I might have been able to play there, I'm happy thinking of it as pristine unspoiled "farmland" forever.
I can't say I feel the same about a reclaimed phosphate mine.