Rosemont mine rich in copper, poor in public support

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NEAR THE SANTA RITA MOUNTAINS — This clearing, at an elevation of more than 5,000 feet and just below the peaks of the northern Santa Rita Mountains, provides a spectacular view of the rolling hills of grassland and oak that stretch across the valley floor below.

In spite of the beautiful views, it is not the seen but the unseen – specifically, the rich copper ore buried underground – that has made this wilderness area 30 miles south of Tucson the focus of extraordinary public interest.

In June, Rosemont Copper, a Canadian-owned mineral exploration company, submitted a mining plan of operations to the National Forest Service in a bid to construct an $800 million open-pit copper mine and ore-processing facility here.

The move ignited a smoldering controversy into one of southern Arizona’s most explosive land-use debates in years.

At more than a third of a mile deep, and encompassing nearly 1,000 acres, the mine’s open pit would gouge a vast crater out of these hills, displacing millions of tons of earth and rock. According to Rosemont’s estimates, the mine would produce 230 million pounds of copper, 5 million pounds of a steel-making alloy called molybdenum and 3.5 million ounces of silver annually.

“Payback on this property is projected right now, based on $800 million, within three years,” says Dennis Fischer, the project site manager for Rosemont. “That’s a pretty good payback.”

At that level of production, the Rosemont mine would be the fourth largest copper mine in the country, generating 5 percent of the United States’ copper needs for every year of its projected 19-year lifespan, company officials say. If things go the company’s way, the mine could be fully operational as soon as 2011.

But the true cost exceeds any dollar figure. One state wildlife expert said the mine would render the half of the Santa Rita Mountains “virtually worthless” to many species.

ROSEMONT CRITICISMS GET LOUDER

An increasingly prominent opposition – which includes the elected leaders of four Arizona town and city councils, Pima and Santa Cruz counties, Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano and Democratic U.S. Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords – hopes to stop them.

“I really don’t see that putting a mine here would be good for anybody except for Rosemont Copper,” says Lainie Levick, a University of Arizona research hydrologist and board member of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, an environmental group that opposes the mine. “It’s just a really bad idea. It’s a bad place for a mine.”

Rosemont’s opponents list a litany of reasons why the mine should not go forward, chief among them concerns about the project’s environmental impact and water use. Town councils from Sonoita, Patagonia and Green Valley, which sit close to the mine site, worry that increased noise and pollution will dampen tourism, a cornerstone of the regional economy. Local residents have also voiced concerns that heavy truck traffic will overburden the area’s two-lane highway and put themselves and their children at risk.

The mine will use an estimated 1.6 billion gallons of water each year from aquifers in the upper Santa Cruz basin near Green Valley. While the company has pledged to replace more water than it draws, some residents and experts fear that the area’s delicate hydrology could be badly damaged by the mine’s pumping.

“I’d like to hear about a mine that hasn’t had a leak or contaminated groundwater,” Levick says.

Company officials call environmental fears overblown, and insist that the economic benefit to the county and state from the mine far outweigh any potential negative impact.

In any case, they argue, the law is on their side.

“The law entitles us to pursue this operation and turn it into a profitable business,” Fischer says.

FOREST SERVICE HOLDS THE KEY

Whether or not Rosemont’s legal argument carries the day will fall first to officials with the U.S. Forest Service. Three-fourths of the proposed mine’s 4,400-acre footprint lies within the boundaries of Coronado National Forest, giving the Forest Service priority status in reviewing Rosemont’s proposal.

Under federal law, mining is an allowable use for Forest Service land.

“We do not have the discretion to pick and choose which legal use of the public land is presented to us, whether you’re presenting a plan for a mine, grazing or timber harvesting,” says John Able, a Coronado National Forest spokesman. “If it’s legal, we’re compelled by law to give that a consideration.”

While federal law may appear tilted in favor of Rosemont, a number of statutes could lead Forest Service officials to request major changes to the mine plan of operation, or even to deny Rosemont’s permit applications.

“Essentially, what we would have to do to totally stop that process would be to find a violation of the law, for which there would be no mitigation,” Able says. “If that were discovered, then that could theoretically stop the process.”

If they exist, major violations of the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act or the Endangered Species Act could all spell trouble for the project.

Rosemont, however, appears to have anticipated that environmental factors could derail the mine, and their plan of operations devotes significant attention to addressing concerns about air and water quality and impacts on wildlife. Company officials say they will employ sophisticated dust-control management techniques and water recycling to mitigate air and water pollution.

Several threatened or endangered species, such as the lesser long-nosed bat, the Chiricahua leopard frog and the American peregrine falcon, may also inhabit the area of the mine.

Joan Scott, habitat program manager for the Arizona Game and Fish Department’s Tucson office, has argued that the mine would have a devastating and permanent impact on the area’s wildlife. In a letter dated July 8, she urged the Forest Service to reject Rosemont’s permit application.

“We believe that the project will render the northern portion of the Santa Rita Mountains virtually worthless as wildlife habitat and as a functioning ecosystem,” she wrote.

Yet the mining plan’s authors suggest that Rosemont’s reclamation efforts will largely mitigate harm to wildlife, saying, “disruption to wildlife habitat and use will be minimal.”

Their plan involves launching reclamation efforts immediately after mining begins, instead of waiting until after mine operations are done. The restoration work would involve the contouring and re-vegetation of waste rock and tailings.

The plan of operations also addresses acid rock drainage, in which acid-bearing rock leaches harmful chemicals into streams and watersheds. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that acid rock drainage has contributed to the despoliation of 40 percent of U.S. headwaters.

Company officials say a high concentration of limestone naturally present on-site will act as a buffer against acid-generating rock.

“The chance of [acid] migrating through the waste rock would be small or minimal,” says Kathy Arnold, director of environmental and regulatory affairs for Rosemont.

COMPENSATION ISSUE LINGERS

Trouble for Rosemont also looms in the form of legislation introduced into the U.S. Congress by Rep. Raul Grijalva, D-Tucson, chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. The bill would withdraw Coronado National Forest lands in Pima and Santa Cruz counties from mining and mining-related activities, including those lands sought by Rosemont.

The law, if passed, could effectively stop the Rosemont mine, but at a cost: The withdrawal of lands from mining purposes requires claimholders be compensated for their losses. Compensation could either be arrived at through private negotiation or through the courts.

Rosemont would likely demand a huge settlement to recoup their multi-million dollar investment in the property, says Nyal Niemuth, chief mining engineer with the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources. “As they invest more and more capital, it’s more and more valuable to them.”

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, whose district includes the project area, is a co-sponsor of the bill. She addressed the compensation issue in a September 2007 statement.

“For such a route to be feasible, non-federal funding would almost certainly be necessary in order for the legislation to garner widespread support in Congress,” she wrote. “There is no legislative silver bullet to address the issue of existing, valid mining claims, including Rosemont.

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