An Arizona mining town trudges toward growth

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SAN MANUEL – Just off the southeastern bend of Arizona’s Highway 77, where it curves up to follow the San Pedro River, the streets of San Manuel huddle together much as they have since the 1950’s. The main drag curves through Bonnie’s Café and the grocery, hardware, and convenience stores before ending abruptly at the town’s edge.

San Manuel was a mining town built on company land with company dollars. For almost four generations, the community kept to itself alongside the mine, mill and smelter plant that was its lifeblood.

Workers and their families lived side by side, covering the shifts that kept ore flowing out of one of the world’s richest copper mines. At the town’s edge, two 500 foot smoke stacks once stood as landmarks for miners to find their way home.

But after the smelters were removed last year to make way for growth, few plans have surfaced. Now the hype and heartbreak is over, the people of San Manuel are picking up the pieces and trying to fend for themselves while mine officials searching for financial suitors to develop 20,000 acres.

Townsfolk split on growth

Talk of the mine’s closure and the town’s uncertain future hushes the room in Keith Rae’s barbershop. Many assume San Manuel will become the next “bedroom community” for Tucson 75 miles away or a national retirement community if investors become keen enough on the area.

When business slows, Rae explains that most people are moving on.

“Some people are excited about growth,” he says, “but a lot of people don’t want it. They’re pretty content. There’s no stoplights in this town. People like that.”

Regardless, the town is changing. Many people aged 55 and up have stayed after the mine’s closure while new retirees have trickled in from all over. People who are still of working age head out of town for jobs, forcing San Manuel to lose its longstanding isolation. These new commuters spread news of San Manuel as a lifestyle option for middle-class families, then return craving the convenient, modern amenities of other communities.

This could create serious hardships for the town. The mining companies have historically handled everything from utilities to schools to lawn care. Now, as those companies cut ties with the town, the community is trying to pick up the labor and expense.

Residents once talked of incorporating – a move that where residents agree to tax themselves in order to raise money and run a town. But those talks quickly died over high initial taxes and the lack of new money coming in.

“It pretty much divided the town,” Rae says.

Big Copper pulls out

For most miners, working a mine is a lifelong career with seniority measured in the decades, and in San Manuel, business was good.

Magma Copper Co. began developing the land in the wake of the WWII copper boom, using $94 million in government subsidies. By the 1980’s, Magma operated the “largest underground copper mine in the world in terms of production capacity, size of ore body, and ‘installed facilities,’” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The facility stretched over 12,000 acres, employed 3,600 people, and produced up to half a billion pounds of copper per year.

In 1997, Magma sold the mine for $2.4 billion to Australia-based BHP Billiton Ltd., which sunk hundreds of millions of dollars into the mine for top-shelf upgrades the following year.

But work was suspended in 1999 after copper prices plummeted. By 2002, about 3,300 miners had been laid off.

The mine was eventually shut down, leaving many bewildered.

“It was a business decision,” says Jeff Parker, BHP’s head of community relations for San Manuel.

“It was unfortunate,” he admits in earnest.

While amends are hard following such a decision, few deny BHP’s support.

BHP has since been working to clean up the mine sites at a cost of $175 million to date. The company has continued to provide money to schools, negotiated to bring a plastics factory to town, and worked with state and Pinal County officials to plot San Manuel’s future course. At one time, it even hosted job fairs and offered scholarships to help displaced workers.

Never has BHP shut down such a large-scale operation.

“We had no roadmap,” Parker says. “This is our legacy.”

Residents ‘stuck with the bill’

None of the residents thought the operation would close. Mine officials had just upgraded the world-class smelter plant, which was already processing ore from nearby mines along with newly discovered copper deposits at the San Manuel site.

A former supervisor at the San Manuel plant remembers the closing of the mine well.

“They sent me to the front gate to turn people away,” he recalls. “To walk up to someone that had 36 years of seniority and say, ‘Sorry, it’s shut down. Go home,’ that’s hard. People I grew up with – people that were like my dad – I told them they don’t have a job.”

The former supervisor, who prefers that his name is not used, stayed in town with his wife and two kids after a 38-year run in San Manuel. He counts himself as one of the lucky ones: He found a job with a good salary and a 75-mile commute for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He says he watched a lot of people take jobs that paid less than half their mining wages.

“There’s still hostility towards BHP and Magma,” he says. The former supervisor, who was privy to the mine’s administrative meetings, says he blames impossible expectations of return on capital as one reason for its closing.

He also points to BHP’s interest in consolidating the world market. It is the world’s third largest copper producer with mines in Peru, Chile, and Australia and a wide investor base. So reducing the copper flow and focusing on foreign labor that works cheaper and under fewer regulations would benefit BHP more than keeping profitable yet more expensive operations like San Manuel going, he says.

The town has a long way to go toward independence from the mine.

“There’s a lot of things that need to be fixed before we’ll be stuck with the bill,” the former supervisor says. “These houses were built in the late 50’s.”

All the same, the longtime resident says he’s in it for the long haul.

“As long as I have a job that pays well,” he says, “this is home.”

Small-town feel brings youth back

The virtues of small-town communities are visible during an afternoon visit to the office of John Ryan, the principle of San Manuel’s high school. Passing through, some for business and others to pass the time, students address Ryan with the candid smile and inside jokes that speak of long semesters together.

“You really get to know your students out here,” Ryan says.

When school gets out, most students head to sports practices and club meetings with the peers they grew up with. From the gas station in the center of town, one can see some of the school’s athletes running in tight line down the main drag and through the neighborhoods.

Many students confess to boredom and say that they are anxious to get out of town. The University of Arizona is a favorite for those heading to college because many of them have already spent a good amount of time in the city.

Like their parents, the youths of San Manuel take jobs in Tucson or other neighboring communities for money. Another favorite is a resort in nearby Catalina.

But for all the talk of escape, many of them return to the town for family and a community they know they can trust.

Evolution hinges on apathectic public

Amy Whatton, a local Realtor, vows that new people moving in will be the future of San Manuel.

“This is Arizona, and it’s a gorgeous valley,” she says. Whatton, who has lived in the area since 1972, says the town’s cool weather and low prices continues to draw people.

As Tucson expands, she also believes San Manuel will be one of the last small town communities. Most houses are selling for under $120,000, she says.

But the deal-breaker for San Manuel’s future will be the sale of BHP land. There simply is not room to develop until that happens.

She is confident that the company is working in the town’s best interests.

“The things BHP did, I never would have thought of,” she says. “BHP doesn’t want to leave knowing the town died because they pulled the plug.”

Whatton says the company needs to collaborate more with public officials to spread word and gather ideas for the town’s development.

“We don’t know a whole lot,” she says. “We’ve been trying to get something going. But with the young people so busy raising kids and working two jobs, they don’t have time.”

“But the town is going to make changes,” she adds, “and I think most people are accepting of them. People do care. It’s not that they’re disinterested, but it takes time and energy.”

As the day wraps up, its restaurants fill with families, neighbors chat in the streets, and people amble out of the IGA with another day’s groceries. And an entire Arizona town puts worries of reinventing itself off for another day.

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>>Email the editor at aklaw@zoniereport.com .