Pima County reaffirms resolution opposing Rosemont Mine

The Pima County Board of Supervisors on April 16 reaffirmed a 2007 resolution opposing construction of the proposed $1.9 billion Rosemont Copper Mine.

The 3-2 vote, which fell along party lines, included language to direct County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry to “take all necessary measures to protect the health, safety, and welfare of southern Arizonans” when it comes to the possible development of the massive open-pit mine in the Santa Rita Mountains southeast of Tucson, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc. last month received a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers clearing way for the company to begin construction of what could become the third largest open-pit copper mine in the United States.

The three supervisors who voted in favor of the resolution said they may take future action to join legal challenges that have already been filed against the project, the Arizona Daily Star reported.

Late last month four conservation groups filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Army Corp’s decision to issue a CWA permit to Rosemont. Three Arizona Indian Tribes also filed a federal lawsuit on April 10 challenging the CWA permit.

“We need to protect our water,” Board Chairman Richard Elias, a Democrat stated during the hearing, according to the Arizona Public Media. “We need to protect our air. We need to make sure we have a healthy place without the fear of having our children and our elders live short lives. The truth remains the wrong project, wrong place, wrong for the people of Southern Arizona.”

Pima County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry

Huckelberry provided the board a nine-page letter along with additional documentation supporting the resolution. Huckelberry was sharply critical of how federal agencies and Hudbay handled the permitting process and the lack of mitigation for the massive environmental damage the mine would inflict.

“After nearly a decade of controversy, it is clear that meaningful mitigation of this mine’s impacts has not been achieved,” Huckelberry stated. “If anything, regulatory agencies and proponents involved appear to be backsliding on their previous and specific commitments.”

Huckelberry was particularly pointed in his criticism of the Army Corps’ decision and rationale to reverse a 2016 recommendation by its Los Angeles district office to deny the Rosemont project the Section 404 Clean Water Act permit.

“Reducing the scope of analysis to only the initial vegetation clearing, grubbing and grading has enabled the (Army Corps) to essentially ignore the very significant adverse impact from mine development and operations, and grant the permit,” Huckelberry states.

The Army Corps sharply reduced the scope of its analysis of the mine’s environmental impacts on seeps, washes, springs, and creeks, all considered “waters of the United States”, by not including hundreds of millions of tons of waste rock and mine tailings that will be dumped on more than 2,500 acres of Coronado National Forest in its analysis.

Instead, the Army Corp only took into account the initial earthmoving and grading at the site and subsequent placement of “native” soil in the rare desert aquatic waterways. Any additional material placed on or behind the initial infill of the waterways was excluded from Corps’ environmental impact analysis.

The Army Corps stated that because “the placement of excavating material from the mine pit would occur only after the waters of the U.S. have been filled with native material…the operation of mine is not within Corps jurisdiction.”

Huckelberry said the Army Corps was using a “tortured rationale” to exclude the mine’s operation from its jurisdiction. “This is perhaps the most bizarre rationale I have experienced in my 40 plus-year career in public service,” he stated. “If this stands up to legal scrutiny I would be surprised.”

Huckelberry is not alone in his assessment that the Army Corps permitting process is legally flawed.

U.S. House of Representatives Natural Resources Committee Chairman Raul Grijalva and Arizona Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, in whose Congressional District the mine is located, warned the Army Corps in a Jan. 23 letter that Hudbay’s mitigation plan does not meet legal muster.

In addition to the recent federal lawsuits filed against the Army Corps by conservation groups and Indian Tribes, three additional federal suits are pending:

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in September 2017 alleging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it issued a biological opinion approving the mine.

Two months later, four environmental and conservation groups filed a lawsuit alleging that the Forest Service’s approval of the project violates nearly a dozen federal laws, including the National Environmental Policy Act.

Three Native American Tribes filed a lawsuit in April 2018 alleging the Forest Service violated federal laws including the Forest Service Organic Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and the National Historic Preservation Act when it issued the ROD.