Thin clouds settled above the Santa Rita Mountains, casting the northern slopes in languid gray shadows. A small plane hummed overhead, shimmering occasionally with brilliant glints of sunlight, before disappearing once more in the billowing haze.
Far below and several miles north, the final public hashing of the U.S. Forest Service’s draft analysis on the proposed Rosemont copper mine—slated for that very mountain range—was getting under way. Cars spilled across the huge asphalt lot encircling Sahuarita High School, and wedged into dirt tendrils stretching between ball fields and maintenance yards.
Beyond that lot, the low murmur of a hundred quick conversations wafted through gaping doors leading into the huge campus auditorium. On the auditorium stage (and reassured by the dozen or so cops present), Coronado National Forest officials sat with expressions suggesting they might be secretly whispering Zen chants, the ones meant to evoke a more harmonious mental hideaway.
Before them was a crowd of hundreds, in rows reaching wall to wall. Dotting the crowd were round green placards—curled fists, as it were—with upraised thumbs.
“Yes to Jobs!!!” the placards declared.
Heading the long list of speakers hoping to comment on that draft report was Ron Barber, an aide to U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Like Giffords, Barber was shot during the Jan. 8, 2011, rampage. Due to her injuries, Giffords would resign her post a few days later; Barber, who has since announced he is running to replace her, slowly took a spot on the podium.
“First of all, I commend everyone who has come out for the hearings,” he said. Giffords “has always believed an engaged citizenry is the best part of a democracy, and makes a democracy work.”
That sentiment had its limits, however. Giffords opposes the mine, a stance that apparently didn’t sit well with numerous folks in nearby seats. Nor did Barber’s spiel on her behalf. He was just finishing when the moderator motioned.
Barber stopped. “I’m sorry, my time’s up?” he asked. “I’ll conclude by saying …”
“Time’s up,” someone in the crowd behind him hollered.
“Sit down!” yelled another. The minutes ticked by as the hecklers continued, waving their little green fists, some attached to sticks.
Barber stood there, stoic, until the moderator eventually leaned into his microphone. “I’d appreciate it if you all could show a little respect here,” he said to the crowd.
“Can I conclude with one sentence?” Barber said.
“No!” someone behind him screamed.
He finished anyway, soon to be followed by a parade of others who either demonized the proposed mine or professed their undying adoration. Each was met with the requisite cheering or catcalls.
Meanwhile, out in the parking lot, a small crew of mine supporters hovered around a black Ford SUV. More specifically, they gathered at a white folding table near the SUV’s rear hatch, which was filled with small bags of Doritos, gleaming coffee canisters and more of the little green fists. The dapper young fellow tending this cornucopia wore a blue sport shirt with the logo “Rosemont Copper” emblazoned on the front. He explained that the ubiquitous fists were compliments of Rosemont.
“They purchased the paper,” he said as he straightened water bottles, also sporting Rosemont Copper labels.
Just then, Rick Grinnell strode to the table and reached for one of the water bottles. Grinnell recently made headlines by losing as a GOP candidate for Tucson mayor. He’s also a member of the obstreperous Rio Nuevo Board, and makes his living, at least in part, as a consultant for Augusta Resource Corp., the Canadian investment outfit hoping to dig the mine in the Rosemont Valley, and the parent company of Rosemont Copper.
Grinnell’s role within the Augusta schmooze machine is to get Tucson’s business community on board. As such, he regularly mingles with the big boys—the Clicks and the Diamonds—and is no stranger to a blazer and crisp tie. But that day, it could hardly be coincidental that he was dressed in good-ol’-boy denim, a green fist tacked to his chest. After all, you’ll never see a Click or a Diamond at these proletarian parleys. Instead, Grinnell was massaging the working man, those blue-collar citizens that Augusta routinely lures en masse to such meetings with abundant free chow—that afternoon’s lunch was at Sahuarita’s Rancho Resort Clubhouse—and the promise of plentiful jobs.
I asked him about their loutish behavior during Ron Barber’s talk. “Here’s what I told Ron,” Grinnell told me. “People are tired of being worried about where their paychecks are coming from. They’re tired of hearing that there are no jobs coming. They’re tired of hearing, ‘No, no, no.’ It’s too bad, but unfortunately, he was sort of the …,” he said, trailing off. “When is government going to stop saying no to opportunity?”
Later, I call David Steele, who offered a different take. He’s a founding partner of Tucson-based Strategic Issues Management Group, a PR firm in the employ of Dick and Nan Walden. The Waldens own 6,000 acres of pecan groves in Sahuarita, operated as the Farmers Investment Co., or FICO. They vigorously oppose the proposed mine for, among other reasons, its predicted heavy use of water.
Steele blamed Augusta for stoking the crowd that heckled Barber. He took particular aim at the Arizona Business Coalition, a group created specifically to support the proposed mine, and which laid out cash for the Rancho Resort soirée. He also took Grinnell to task for emailing invites to all attendees at that meal, which doubled as a session to write tightly scripted comments to Coronado Forest officials. Grinnell’s emails were signed by Rosemont CEO Rod Pace.
“They were holding the pre-event lunches and busing folks in,” said Steele, “and making all kind of promises about the glory land that this project is going to bring. Rosemont got these folks all ginned up, and they were just completely disrespectful to Ron. It was shocking.”
From Arizona State Route 83, the Rosemont Valley spreads west like a rumpled carpet toward the Santa Ritas. Dappled with juniper and stitched together by small washes, it is a picturesque backcountry where only plane flights break the hush.
But for all its perceived tranquility, Rosemont has long been bitterly contested. Modern clashes date back to mid-1995, when mining giant Asarco Inc. announced plans to dig a copper pit there. Although the proposal faced fierce opposition, it was crashing copper prices that ultimately drove Asarco to abandon the project.
Nearly a decade later, Augusta bought the 3,000-acre property, and announced its own plans to establish a copper mine on the site. Surrounding public lands are slated to be used to stash tailings piles.
The battle over the Rosemont Valley has raged unabated ever since, both here at home, and in the big leagues. It has rumbled through the halls of Congress, and just last week, the federal Environmental Protection Agency tossed a huge roadblock in Augusta’s path when it cited several factors that might lead to a rejection of Augusta’s permit application, required under the Clean Water Act.
Several key details make the Rosemont Valley perennially contentious. “You’ve got the obvious competition between resource use, proximity to a major city, and copper,” says Roger Featherstone, director of the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, which opposes Augusta’s project.
But Featherstone also says that interest in the Rosemont Valley’s copper deposit—which he calls mediocre and tough to access—only grows intense when high mineral prices justify the bother. “It’s a difficult ore body. Even though there’s a deposit down there, that’s the reason it hasn’t gotten that much intense pressure.”
Until now. “You’ve got copper sitting at $3 or whatever it is a pound,” he says. “When you’ve got copper getting that pricey, people do things that ordinarily, they’d be a little more prudent about. They get that fever going on.”
Indeed, that fever is an old acquaintance in these parts, and boasts a history of raucous political theater.
It was February 1997 when Tucson’s City Council voted to oppose Asarco’s planned mine in the Rosemont Valley. By that spring, the Pima County Board of Supervisors was puffing up to do the same. But on the day of the board’s planned vote, Asarco packed the meeting with 200 noisy mine sympathizers, and the decision was postponed.
“If I would have known that this was the type of turnout we would have gotten on the issue, I would have done it completely differently,” then-Pima County Supervisor Raúl Grijalva told the Arizona Daily Star at the time. “I didn’t understand the panic of the Asarco people.”
Two weeks later, the board appointed Ray Carroll to fill a seat left vacant by the recent cancer death of Supervisor John Even. Within minutes of his appointment, Carroll voted for a resolution opposing Asarco’s plan.
But by February 1998, Asarco had abandoned its fight in light of those dropping copper prices. In June 2004, the land was purchased for $4.8 million by hometown speculator Yoram Levy and his partners at Triangle Ventures. A few months later, Levy offered to sell Rosemont to Pima County as open space for $11.5 million.
But the county was strapped for cash, and by June 2005, Augusta had snatched up Levy’s 2,760-acre property for $20.8 million.
Experts have estimated that Rosemont could produce some $13 billion worth of copper, along with extra revenue from molybdenum and other minerals. Operation of the 800-acre open-pit mine would require adjacent federal real estate for tailings piles and other waste.
But the land was hardly just a pending industrial site. Wildlife surveys had found at least 10 threatened plants, a crucial wildlife corridor and the key to countless vital watersheds. And in a report on the mine’s potential impacts, Kerry Baldwin, of the Pima County Natural Resources, Parks and Recreation Department, called it “a massive project that will permanently alter the character of the land on well over five square miles of currently native habitat.
“The basic character of the land will be changed forever,” Baldwin wrote. “A significant amount of a nonrenewable resource will be extracted from the site permanently and no longer available to future generations; a huge pit and impact footprint will remain after the closure of the mine.”
But in terms of PR spending, Augusta had already left Asarco in the dust. Not only was the company touting a “21st century mine,” but it also fueled a cutting-edge spin campaign, with at least two local public-relations firms on its payroll at any given time. It regularly bought sponsorships on the local public-broadcasting station, and inundated Tucson’s business community with the message that this mine would prove a perfect antidote to hard times.
Augusta went so far as to fashion a surreal logo with a pigtailed little girl gazing toward the sky, a bit of agitprop eerily reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson’s 1964 “Daisy Girl” campaign ad that concluded with a mushroom cloud—and obliterated Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid.
But there were public stumbles as well. Copying Asarco, Augusta packed county Board of Supervisors meetings with fellows demanding gainful employment. But the company suffered embarrassment upon revelations that those would-be miners were just poor schmucks who’d been offered a free meal and a sweatshirt reading “I Want One of the 350 Jobs at the Mine.”
The board nonetheless voted to oppose the project. (The delayed vote came shortly after the Tucson Weekly ran a front-page editorial encouraging readers to voice their own opposition to the project.)
Then there’s the card Augusta honchos handed out at public events, touting the potential pit and asking recipients to state their own feelings about it.
“Tell Us What You Think,” read the card. Then folks were offered two choices.
Choice 1. “I support your plan to bring new jobs and an economic engine to Arizona.”
Choice 2. “I have comments or questions about your plan.”
Curiously, these cards offered no third option, such as, “I think your plan sucks.”
Later, the company began targeting areas of town with letters seemingly signed by neighbors who supported the mine. The effort suffered a setback, though, when it turned out that the letters had actually been written by Augusta’s in-house PR crew.
At the same time, Coronado officials were dishing up a few blunders of their own. For instance, rather than hosting hearings where the public could speak about the project, they initially opted for much-tamer “open houses,” which provided no opportunity for public give-and-take.
Frustration with that approach exploded at a gathering in Patagonia on March 20, 2008, when the Forest Service called in Santa Cruz County sheriff’s deputies and the U.S. Border Patrol after a local senior citizen got out of hand.
Then there is the matter of water.
Red flags went up in the summer of 2007, when the Community Water Co. of Green Valley announced a deal with Augusta that would have the mining company build a $15 million, 9-mile-long Central Arizona Project pipeline almost to Green Valley, from the current terminus at Pima Mine Road.
According to Augusta officials, this generous arrangement was aimed at easing Green Valley’s future water concerns and fostering good will toward the mine.
Others smelled a rat. Among them was Carroll, the county supervisor, who questioned Augusta’s promise to fund that pipeline regardless of whether the mine was ever begun—despite repeated assurances by Community Water president Arturo Gabaldón.
“Saying something 1,000 times doesn’t make it true,” Carroll told the Arizona Daily Star. “It’s certainly tied hand-and-glove to the mine.”
Only later was it learned that Augusta’s altruism included a valve on the Green Valley line to divert CAP water to the Rosemont mine.
Still, through it all, Augusta officials certainly seem to have had the ear of Coronado officials. In fact, mine opponents accused forest officials of hosting closed-door confabs with company representatives—a pattern that eventually sparked a lawsuit by those very critics, who argued that they were being locked out of the process. (The lawsuit was dismissed by a U.S. District Court judge in February.)
Tension only increased when the Forest Service repeatedly pushed back its timeline on issuing a draft environmental impact statement for the proposed mine, as required under the National Environmental Policy Act. During the down time, federal officials routinely offered contradictory statements about whether the analysis would include a preferred alternative that outright rejected the mine.
Outright federal rejection of the mine is considered a near-impossibility under the archaic Mining Act of 1872, initially passed to encourage frontier mining. Today, the law makes stopping even a nightmarish project nearly impossible.
There were also plenty of questions about exactly why Coronado officials uncharacteristically dragged out releasing their draft impact statement. It was certainly a cold dash of reality for Augusta, which had confidently hustled out a press release after the forest circulated a preliminary version in June 2011. The press release crowed that a “Record of Decision” to green-light the mine was nigh at hand.
“The Record of Decision (‘ROD’) for the Rosemont Copper project appears on track for January 2012,” it read, “and in-line with previous USFS guidance allowing for a 90-day public comment period after the publication of the draft EIS in August 2011.”
“Sidetrack” might have been the more operative term: Last October, Coronado officials finally released their long-awaited DEIS. Ultimately, the analysis was a sobering dose of bipolar bureaucracy. While acknowledging the potential violation of air- and water-quality standards—and the destruction of a popular public resource—it finally argued for the mine’s approval. The 1872 Mining Law perpetually lurked in the shadows.
Among key findings of the DEIS:
• Groundwater available for area residents could be greatly reduced as the mine pumps what it needs to process ore.
• It is expected to potentially violate Arizona aquifer water quality standards.
• It will likely have heavy impacts on surrounding riparian areas along Cienega Creek.
• Heightened risks will exist along area roadways—including scenic Arizona State Route 83—such as potential spills of hazardous chemicals.
• Damage to historic and cultural and archaeological sites is a given.
True, the alternative preferred by the Forest Service would shift the mine tailings up into Upper Barrel Canyon and lower Wasp Canyon. That would push them farther away from sensitive habitant in McCleary Canyon.
But perhaps the most-immediate impact of the DEIS was disdain for the quality of the analysis itself, compiled by the Forest Service after three long years of supposedly arduous study.
“The document is fundamentally flawed,” says Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry, a longtime opponent of the project. “It’s incomplete, and in fact, in certain locations states that it doesn’t have information or is waiting for information. I don’t know how you make judgments based on a lack of facts.”
Huckelberry has his own theories about why the DEIS was such a disappointment. “One, it’s a complicated process,” he says. “And two, the Forest Service, by the nature of the process, has relied exclusively on the proponent (Augusta) to prepare the technical documents. So those documents are going to be biased to begin with. … I think that’s why you see so much contradictory information.”
And that, he says, “certainly makes litigation a very real possibility over any decision that is made by the Forest Service.”
Soon after the DEIS release, Huckelberry dispatched a snarky letter to Coronado officials asking that they issue a supplemental environmental impact statement to fill in the gaps. “In short,” Huckelberry wrote, “the DEIS is so deficient, it has short-circuited the public-comment process.”
He says forest officials ignored repeated requests for additional studies regarding everything from fugitive dust and geochemistry to the socioeconomic impacts.
Ultimately, Huckelberry blames “the artificial pressure-cooker that (Augusta) is largely responsible for. They’ve run a very effective public-relations campaign: ‘Let’s forget the facts and repeat the mantra.’ Repeat it long enough, and it becomes the truth.”
But Coronado Supervisor Jim Upchurch defends the DEIS as a work in progress. “Essentially, what we have is a draft,” he says. “You put that out for review, and we expect people to come up with errors, omissions, things that need to be improved, things that need be fixed. That’s why you do a draft.
“We have 19,000 comments, and so there are lots of things to wade through to determine what needs to be changed, amended, improved.”
Upchurch also dismisses concerns that all the meetings and all those comments are just an exercise in futility, considering that Coronado officials plan to approve the mine regardless. “I wouldn’t buy that argument,” he says. “I think what we’re trying to do is come up with the best possible plan or project that we can. If people aren’t willing to participate in how that can happen, I don’t think that helps the process.
“It’s not just whether you have a mine or not. If you’re going to have a mine, how can you design the best possible mine that there is?”
As to charges that the Forest Service is starting from the presumption that the mine is a done deal, “that’s not my position,” he says. “It’s the law that if a mining proponent has a valid claim on a national forest, then they can mine.”
While the Forest Service may be unwilling to throw a wrench in the works, Pima County is not. In September, the county’s Department of Environmental Quality denied the necessary air-quality permit for Augusta. According to director Ursula Kramer, Augusta didn’t offer a compelling argument that federal air-quality standards could be met by its plan.
Augusta responded by threatening a lawsuit against Pima County, and floating plans to ask that oversight of the permit be handed to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality. That seems a long shot: ADEQ spokesman Mark Shaffer stresses that there’ “is no certainty” his department would accept oversight.
The crowd at the U.S. Forest Service draft-analysis meeting was starting to thin. Among a smattering of folks leaving the Sahuarita auditorium were Green Valley retirees Philip Stough and his wife, Dorothy, as well as their pal Sarah Freeman. Philip Stough didn’t care a bit for the heckling of Ron Barber.
“It was very rude,” he said.
That only added to his already fixed feelings. “The first impression is that the mine is here with money, and they hand out all these tags,” he said, referring to the green fists. “We’re opposed to it. It’s going to be a political decision, anyway, and Forest Service has probably already made up their mind.”
Dorothy Stough agreed. “But the thing I’m most concerned about is water,” she said. “I don’t care how much treatment they (promise). I truly believe that water is our most-precious resource. It’s called life. And I would hate to see the water be ruined.”
Sarah Freeman shaded her eyes with a raised hand. Aesthetics are her thing. “I’ve been here 30 years, and I hike regularly,” she said. “And I just don’t believe that it’s not going to affect the view for all these people who moved in for that view.”
Over at a truck adorned with anti-mine posters, Mark Williams and Greg Shinsky were chatting with passers-by. Williams couldn’t hide his sarcasm. “Rosemont did a great job of getting folks together, and their PR machine was really awesome,” he said. “I was so proud of them in there during Ron Barber’s speech.”
He pauses. Then his voice drops. “That was shameful,” he said.
But Shinsky, who lives within earshot of Arizona State Highway 83, was upbeat. “I’m much more optimistic as time goes on,” he said. “I thought we maybe had a 10 percent chance of doing anything on this in 2006, and now I’m very optimistic. Everything that Rosemont has been putting out is good news, and there’s nothing about the extended destruction or pollution or upsetting the flora or fauna. All the information we’ve tried to get from them is either misleading or out-and-out lies.”
But over at the Augusta hospitality wagon, perspectives were a bit different. Garry Smith was standing off to the side. He said he does a fair amount of prospecting in the desert. “This is the symptom of a much bigger deal,” he said. “The whole thing was the government: They make rules, but they don’t have to go by them. That gets me very, very upset.”
So it went, on that afternoon of uproar and cloudy skies. To wrap things up, I looked for Rosemont CEO Rod Pace, hoping to ask a few questions. Yet he was nowhere to be seen. A few days after the meeting, I phoned his office. A few days after that, I phoned again. Much later, I finally received a call back—from yet another Rosemont PR hack.
But at that point, it seemed, all my questions had been answered.
This article appears in Feb 23-29, 2012.
Just answer a few questions:
If we can’t mine copper in a historic mining district, where production has occurred since the late 1800’s, where can we mine copper in this nation?
How can we reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign goods and services, if we are unwilling to produce more of the basic goods and services we require to maintain the American way of life?
If mining companies are denied an opportunity to develop our nation’s mineral resources, they will relocate their high paying jobs and technical expertise overseas. How does that benefit our nation’s economy?
Chris, just a question…you obviously lobby for the mining companies, right?
Regina – I am not a lobbyist for the mining industry nor have been paid to post comments in this forum.
I am just one of many in this community who support Arizona’s copper industry.
We have an existing established industry that has a long term (not 20 year exhaustion) place in Southern Arizona, that yields $250million/year and over 3300 jobs and would be potentially significantly harmed if the proposed mining operation occurs – Astronomy. Both the light and dust pollution that Rosemont will contribute (2300% increase in light pollution) will decimate the progress and possibilities for further study in the field of Astronomy here in AZ.
If you look at the numbers that Rosemont Copper supplies, it is very clear that the sound economic choice would be to say no to Rosemont Copper’s proposal. Protect Astronomy in Southern Arizona.
Of course Chris is reimbursed in some way, maybe not in cash, but probably gifts like food. Why can’t he post one comment at a time? There is no way he voluntarily spends this much time posting the same PR gimmicky rubbish on all of the Tucson papers’ forums. To see how absurd his “questions” are just try to answer them:
1. Do a Google search: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copper_minin… there are more than a score of states where copper is mined
2. Not sure why you are derailing this into a topic on manufacturing, this is about copper. Augusta is a Canadian company and will be selling our copper to China. AZ nor the USA benefits at all. 63% of our copper is mined locally (in the USA), the other 37% comes from Chile, Canada, Peru, and Mexico (source: wiki article)
3. Mining companies are not denied across-the-board to develop minerals, just this mine and this company.
Chris Horquilla has been in this area for years promoting the Rosemont mine. He comments frequently on any article about it, including the Az. Daily Star. YES, he’s a “hired gun!”
The owners of El Charro Restaurant, Ray & Carlotta Flores, support the Rosemont Mine. They’ve fallen under the spell of Augusta’s PR and believe their restaurant business will be enhanced by this misbegotten mine. I used to eat at El Charro. Never, ever again.
I stopped in at the
“well protection” gathering last night, and noticed a huge lack of interest in turning over one’s water rights to Rosemont Copper. They sent out 250 letters to well owners and there were 5 people there at kickoff time. Another underhanded flim flam deal that went paws up. When will they learn that this mine is a disaster for the area? As for Horquilla’s pro mine rah rah, “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”, this same line of pro Rosemont candy coated spin has gotten to be like a broken record.
Outstanding piece, Tim. Once again, you’ve presented both sides of the story (or as much as Rosemont thought was pertinent) along with the complications of politics and gov’t beaurocracy (sic). I’m not even going to bother mentioning anything regarding our persistent commentator. The sad fact is, there have been many opportunities for Tuscon to bring in companies that would have resulted in badly needed jobs. As usual, they blow it. Anyone remember Spring Training and a stadium that should have been built across the river downtown? People are frustrated. People want jobs. But it’s not worth destroying our environment for what turns out to be a proverbial handful of positions.
I understand the enviormental factors and the resource factors along with the much needed jobs but what I am in wonder at is if we had the same enviormental protections at the turn of the century would we be a second rate agrarian country such as some in South America as exist now? Remember I said I understood the natural resource part but nothing gets done when leaning in that direction……
Ricardo wrote:
“I used to eat at El Charro. Never, ever again.”
I’m with you. That also includes any Sir Veza locations also owned by the Flores’.
Bob Cap alleges: “…I understood the natural resource part but nothing gets done when leaning in that direction……”
What gets done, Mr. Cap, is that the scenic beauty of Rosemont Canyon is preserved, the water table doesn’t plummet and require deeper drilling for neighboring residential water wells, real estate values near the mine don’t plummet, dynamite blasting doesn’t rattle surroundings, wildlife continues to exist on US Forest land, tourists continue to visit the area, truck traffic on the Sonoita Highway does not increase exponentially, air quality does not deteriorate, a future copper reserve isn’t shipped off to China and much more. That’s what gets done!
Leaning toward the natural resource part – the environmental protection parts – accomplishes a LOT.
And opponents complain about Rosemont Copper PR efforts. This article contains so many distortions of the facts its hard to know what is true or not.
“And a future copper reserve ….” In other words, we don’t want to mine the copper now because we might want to mine the copper at some point in the future.
An interesting argument which does not make any sense considering all of the objections you have to mining at this locality.
You guys are forgetting the one major point–this is our National Forests, which were created from timber production and watershed. neither the original purpose or the multi-use criteria include mining. 33,000 mature trees, many of the old-growth oaks with be destroyed, eliminating watershed, wildlife habitat, and urban recreation possibilities.
We have planty of wastelands in Arizona to obtain copper–but of course it is not free land like the 900 acres of patented land where the pit will be and 3,600 acres of unpatented land.
The 1872 Mining Act needs to be stricken; there’s no way it was intended to allow any & all giant thousand-acre open-pit mines. This is in an area that should be set aside for its recreational opportunities (the Arizona Trail goes thru the preferred alternative area), scenic value, and wildlife habitat, not marred for centuries for the sake of a few hundred jobs.
There are many business fat cats in Tucson who want economic expansion at any cost. Jim Click
wholeheartedly supports Augusta Resource/Rosemont. I have supported Click for 30 years, NOT
ANYMORE.
From the following, it is clear that the 1872 Mining Law does not enable this Augusta Resource Corp./Rosemont Copper Mine project and it is fallacious to insinuate that it does.
Would you guys please read the 1872 mining law that we keep blaming for everything!!
http://goldplacer.com/1872MiningLaw.htm
The 1872 mining states:
Claimants are to be citizens of United States :
CHAP. CL. II — As Act to promote the Development of the mining Resources of the Untied States.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That all valuable mineral deposits in lands belonging to the United States, both surveyed and unsurveyed, are hereby declared to be free and open to exploration and purchase, and the lands in which they are found to occupation and purchase, by citizens of the United States and those who have declared their intention to become such, under regulations prescribed by law, and according to the local customs or rules of miners, in the several mining-districts, so far as the same are applicable and not inconsistent with the laws of the United States .
The size of the claim is limited:
Sec.2. That mining-claims upon veins or lodes of quarts or other rock in place bearing gold, silver, cinnabar, lead, tin, copper, or other valuable deposits heretofore located, shall be governed as to length along the vein or lode by the customs, regulations, and laws in force at the date of their location. A mining-claim located after the passage of this act, whether located by one or more persons, may equal, but not exceed, one thousand five hundred feet in length along the vein or lode; but no location of a mining-claim shall be made until the discovery of the vein or lode within the limits of the claim located. No claim shall exceed more than three hundred feet on each side of the Middle of the vein at the surface, nor shall any claim be limited by any mining regulation to less then twenty five feet on each side of the middle of the vein at the surface, except where adverse rights existing at the passage of this act shall render such limitation necessary. The end-lines of each claim shall be paralleled to each other.
The non-mineral land that is used for milling, etc. can be patented, but it is not to exceed five acres per claim.
FORTY-SECOND CONGRESS. Sess. II Ch. 152. 1872. 96
Sec. 15. That where non-mineral land not contiguous to the vein or lode is used or occupied by the proprietor of such vein or lode for mining or milling purposes , such non-adjacent surface ground may be embraced and included in an application for a patent for such vein or lode, and the same may be patented therewith , subject to the same preliminary requirements as to survey and notice as are applicable under this act to veins or lodes : Provided, That no location hereafter made of such non-adjacent land shall exceed five acres , and payment for the same must be made at the same rate as fixed by this act for the superficies of the lode. The owner of a quartz-mill or reduction-works, not owning a mine in connection therewith, may also receive a patent for his mill-site, as provided in this section.
Source: http://goldplacer.com/1872MiningLaw.htm
The General Mining Law of 1872, as amended (30 USC 29 and 43 CFR 3860, provides the successful mining claimant the right to patent (acquire absolute title to the land) mining claims or sites if they meet the statutory requirements. To meet this requirement, the successful claimant must:
For mining claims, demonstrate a physical exposure of a valuable (commercial) mineral deposit (the discovery) as defined by meeting the Department’s Prudent Man Rule and Marketability Test.
For mill sites, show proper use or occupancy for uses to support a mining operation and be located on non-mineral land.
Have clear title to the mining claim (lode or placer) or mill site.
Have assessment work and/or maintenance fees current and performed at least $500 worth of improvements (not labor) for each claim (not required for mill sites).
Meet the requirements of the Department’s regulations for mineral patenting as shown in the Code of Federal Regulations at 43 CFR 3861, 3862, 3863, and 3864.
Pay the required processing fees and purchase price for the land applied for. http://www.blm.gov/wo/st/en/info/regulations/mini…
From the 1872 Mining Law, we find four discrepancies with the current Augusta Resource Corp./Rosemont Copper Mine project:
1) Augusta Resource Directors and stockholders are not U. S. Citizens.
2) It is clear that the mining claim for the individual prospector is limited.
3) Land intended for milling, etc. is to be patented.
4) Patented land intended for milling, etc. should not exceed five acres.
In addition, the BLM website outlines statutory regulations that would nullify any permitting of the Augusta Resource Corp./Rosemont Copper Mine Mine project.
1) The company does not have clear title to the mill site. It is required by 1872 mining law that the land be patented by purchase.
2) The company must have done assessment work and/or maintenance fees of at least $500 for the life of the claim. Therefore, these claims were null and void at the time of their purchase from ASARCO. The records that show that Augusta Resource Corp./Rosemont Copper Mine has fulfilled this obligation on all their claims must be shown—except for 5 acres allowed for mill sites.
3) The company has not paid the required processing fees and purchase price for the land they have applied for to be used as waste and tailings dumps.
Terrific article, Tim! Thanks.
This article was very well written as it featured both sides to the story.
Personally, I do not believe our landscape should be destroyed for only a supposed 20 year mine, to a company, which is based from CANADA. Besides there is already a copper mine that looks towards the Santa Rita’s. It’s called Freeport. We do not need another mine and frankly people need to stop trading their souls for a free meal from Rosemont.
Here’s Chris, just like Chris is the first and frequent poster on Starnet regarding Rosemont. Hint: he’s a company shill.
As the hard facts about this proposed boondoggle become more widely known in Southern AZ, I can only hope that the augusta/rosemont/strongpoint pr lies & spin are going to be seen for what they really are.
Any rational person can appreciate the extremely negative impacts to the environment, scenic beauty and natural intrinsic value of the Northern Santa Rita’s a gaping open pit mine and the thousands of acres of waste rock and toxic mine tailings would cause forever…..yes FOREVER….& don’t get me started about groundwater, native habitat and air & light pollution, SR 83 safety issues etc. etc…
And any rational person would also realize that right now the growing regional Geotourism industry and all associated jobs & revenues created by it far exceed any supposed economic benefits a mine would create. FACT.
Q: When the mine closes in a few years after the permanent & irreversible destruction is done to the area who’s left with the mess after the extractors have made their $ and bailed?
People who care about REAL Sustainable Economic Development in Southern Arizona need to get educated, get motivated, get vocal and get rid of rosemont!
NanFree – Your statement concerning our nation’s mining law’s leaves alot to be desired.
The General Mining Act of 1872 upon which you have based your arguments has been updated many times since its inception.
Mining claims may be located only by citizens of the United States, persons who have declared an intention to become citizens and by corporations organized under any State law. Rosemont Copper is organized under the law of the state of Arizona.
Compulsory annual assessment work is no longer required. Revisions to the mining law during the mid-1990’s only requires a company to pay a set annual fee per claim to the federal goverment to keep their claims valid.
I have been down there on one of the mine’s own tours. The mine will eventually be 1200 feet deep. The water table – they told us that day – is down 900 feet. So there will be constant pumping to keep the water out of the bottom of the mine. And once the mine is finished, in 20 years, they will not fill in the mine. So the aquifer that is left will then flow into the bottom of the mine, now loaded with chemicals. It sounded to me like the water would be very polluted once the mine reached the aquifer level and thereafter.
I found the following list of local business mine supporters. While most on the list I’ll never have occasion for contact, I am adding McMahon and Ang restaurants to my “Do Not Patronize” list. I’ve also printed out the list for future EZ reference. These businesses only care about their 30 pieces of silver. I choose to spend my silver elsewhere.
http://www.rosemontcopper.com/supportlist.…
Boycotting a business for one reason or another is one thing. However, you know that it is really getting ugly, when the opponents of the Rosemont Copper project target businesses who support Rosemont with harrassing phone calls threatening to put them out of business unless they comply with their demands.
Chris, please don’t start with ethics and using your beloved Rosemont carpetbagger liars as a model for ethics. It doesn’t hold water, unlike the festering open pit hole you want so bad.
Chris,
I admire your knowledge of the mining industry and the explicit history you quote.
However, I would be more inclined to appreciate your comments and your position if you were honest about your background. Most of us our just citizens with serious concerns about the environmental impact the proposed mine would have. You appear to have a serious agenda supporting the mine, and the jobs that it may bring, as well as a lawyer’s perspective about mining law.
So, come on, what is your position? Who do you work for?
There is only one place for mines, power plants, and anything that provides business, industry, or economic growth to Tucson – Not In My Back Yard.
They could steal the water and dirty the air very, very far from your backyard. That is the rub with this nightmare.
Our hunger for jobs today should not starve our children of clean water, clear skies and mountainscapes in the future. Sustainability is what it’s all about. Let’s think about how our decisions will affect the next seven generations, please.
Have yet to see substantiated figures on the exact numbers and types of jobs, and the expected duration of said jobs, that Rosemont claims to be offering if the mine is opened.
It is my understanding that modern mining operations actually employ very few actual labor types, most employees being engineers and technicians.
Rosemont–care to weigh in on this?
If this proposed mine happened to be in the CATALINA Mountains, instead of the Santa Ritas, ALL of Tucson would be up in arms fighting against it.
Jesus on a 2 wheeler Perimeter Bicycling Association of America is backing this friggin nightmare,Have these grant monkeys ever biked around mining trucks?
This just in:
In a Feb. 21 letter to Coronado National Forest Supervisor Jim Upchurch (http://www.scenicsantaritas.org/USEPARosem…), EPA Region IX Administrator Jared Blumenfeld stated that the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed Rosemont mine was “environmentally unsatisfactory” because it provided “inadequate information” to the public and decision makers.
“The Draft EIS does not adequately assess the significant environmental impacts of the proposed project,” Blumenfeld stated.
As a result, EPA is requesting the Forest Service to prepare a supplemental draft EIS “prior to the issuance of any decision regarding the project.” A supplemental DEIS would be subject to public review and comments, a process that will extend the permitting process for many months, if not years.
As reported in the Green Valley News on Feb. 23rd, Carter Jessup, the EPA’s chief EIS reviewer on Rosemont, said the EPA’s Region 9 has previously given this low a rating to a DEIS or EIS four times since 1989. They review about 120 draft and final EIS’s per year.
So, I would not patronize those businesses who are listed as supporting the mine. However, as the list was generated by Augusta, I really don’t know how “supportive” the businesses really are. Guess I don’t believe many, if any of Augusta’s claims. Anyone have a clue about how valid this list is
If Augusta lists a business as supporting the Rosemont Mine, Lou Schatz, it is the responsibility of that business to demand removal from the list, if the business does not support the Mine. Every business on that list should NOT be patronized. The list should be published in local newspapers to identify these short-term money grubbers.
So Rosemont Copper resorts to coercing cheap public support by giving Dorito’s and free lunch to anyone who will wear the green thumb’s UP? And a loser in the Tucson mayoral contest takes a free lunch and tosses in with Rosemont. Reminds me of a great band’s “Cheap Tricks”, as their antics reflect the bands name. The latest call by EPA and Corp of Engineers for Rosemont to answer the tough questions is just the beginning to the end to Rosemont. They will not be able to address these questions, for if they do they will give away the secret. The secret will reveal the deceit, lies, and illegal activities that define Rosemont project. Stay tuned… more from the source
more liberal bull from the left on this bais paper…. I can’t wait for Rosemount to win so it will shut the libs up…..
I find it odd that there are comments focused on “reducing our nation’s dependence on foreign goods and services”.
In weighing benefits, please take note of the following quote that appeared in the Arizona Daily Star: January 8, 2012: “Rosemont seeking $404M in construction loans, Tony Davis”:
“The Korean bank is getting involved in the project because Rosemont has already agreed to ship 30 percent of its copper concentrate to Korea under a long-term contract, Clausen said. Augusta will be getting a loan from a German bank under an arrangement in which the mining company will send some of its product to a German smelting company for smelting, Clausen said. A Danish company will supply major crushers and mills to the Rosemont mine, and a Swiss company will be providing a lot of gear for the project, Clausen said.”
To be clear, this project is being managed by a Canadian company (Augusta Resource Corporation) which is promising exports of 30% of the sites copper to Korea, contracting supply requisitions to Denmark and Sweden, and smelting operations to Germany in exchange for non-domestic financing. Is all this really being done to “secure our nation’s economic competitiveness”?
This “economic benefit” is not transparent to me. As it now stands, the project is presented on Rosemont’s website as a wholly domestic endeavor focused on U.S. national competitiveness. Rosemont should be clear about who exactly this will benefit.
@transparent:
There are three (3) functioning copper smelters I’m aware of left in the United States: one in Miami, AZ that is run by Freeport McMoran, one in Kearny that is operated by ASARCO, and one in Magna, UT run by Kennecott. The one in El Paso? Closed and torn down. The one in Hurley, NM? Closed and torn down. The one in San Manuel, AZ? Closed and torn down. The Hidalgo smelter in Playas, NM? Closed and torn down. And environmentalists want to close the remaining three down as well.
There are no domestic manufacturers remaining for the very large crushers and mills used by modern mining companies. They’ve been put out of business here.
It’s not NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) anymore, it’s the far more accurate BANANAs – Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything. Arizona Clean Fuels has been trying to build an oil refinery near Yuma for the last decade at least, the first new refinery in this nation in something like 30 years. It’s literally easier to get a permit to build a nuclear reactor than it is to build a new refinery.
Fracking for natural gas and oil? Oh no! Can’t do that! It might harm the environment! Drilling for oil off our own shores? Oh no! Can’t do that! It might harm the environment! Meanwhile other countries will drill off our shores. Build a pipeline from Canada to Texas? Oh no! Can’t do that! It might harm the environment! Instead, Canada will build a pipeline across the Rockies, ship the oil to China, and probably get some of it back from Chinese refineries where they don’t have the EPA to protect their environment.
No one will convince me that the opposition to Rosemont is because the company is Canadian – it’s people who don’t want to see anyone mine anything anywhere. Astronomy? Astronomy produces wealth? No, Astronomy redistributes other people’s wealth, either through taxes or from philanthropy. Astronomy does not contribute to the nation’s GDP.
We cannot import everything from nations that we don’t care about polluting. Like your Prius? Have you seen the mine from which the nickel for the batteries is drawn? Like your iPod earbuds? Seen the rare-earth mines in China where the neodymium comes from? (Same place the rare-earths come from for that Prius motor, BTW.) So, what the hell, let’s not bother opening the Rosemont mine! We can buy the copper we need from China like everything else! We won’t have to see that ugly hole in the ground, or the tailings piles. Of course, the Chinese don’t have to meet our air quality standards, or safety standards, or water quality standards or any of that, but hey! It’s not in our back yard!
Grow up. Face reality. Natural resources come out of the ground. Deal with it.
KBaker, The mesquite forest that used to line the banks of the San Pedro River is gone, because the San Manuel smelter smoke killed all those big trees. The SO2 coming out of the smoke stack settled in an inversion layer along the River and turned into H2SO4, sulfuric acid. Smelters are noxious killers. It would be interesting to analyze the lung diseases of the people who lived in San Manuel, when that smelter was still operational. Fracking for natural gas ruins water sources and destroys the underground aquifers. The point is that the things you vehemently support have caused environmental degradation that is dangerous to human health, as well as the health of numerous other species of animals. Jobs are NOT the overriding priority that justifies destroying our planet. We are quickly approaching a point of no return in resource consumption and have to conserve. Profligate consumption, as you advocate, has an end point. The earth is not Homo sapien’s to use up.
Thanks for covering Rosemont Copper, especially the negative news detracting from support for this asinine project. The Daily Star’s Tony Davis seems tasked to cover the basic news items, but there’s a curious omission of sustained news in the ADS on this very important issue. I guess as our city’s major paper, the less negative news that hits the wire, the better. As for Horquilla Chris, I have pressed him on ADS boards and am convinced he is Chris Jones, president of Wildcat Silver Mining Co., which is seeking do exploratory silver mining on some claims down near Patagonia, AZ. You might say he is more than a mere hired gun.