Donald J. Trump’s election to President doesn’t mean the federal regulations that have so far blocked Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ plans to construct the $1.5 billion Rosemont copper mine will be easily eliminated clearing the way for construction of the controversial open-pit mine, The Arizona Daily Star reported Sunday.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles district office last July recommended denying issuing Hudbay the crucial Section 404 Clean Water Act permit for the Rosemont project. The Corps’ San Francisco division office is expected to make a final decision in the near future.
If the division office also decides to deny the 404 permit, then the new Trump administration would be faced with a difficult challenge of overturning the decision, according to the Daily Star.
The paper reported:
“If the Trump administration wanted to overturn an unfavorable decision, it would have to reopen a very detailed record and develop additional facts or analysis,” said Tracy Mehan, an assistant Environmental Protection Agency administrator under President George W. Bush and now head of government affairs for the nonprofit American Water Works Association.
Agreeing, University of Colorado law professor Mark Squillace noted that if the Army Corps of Engineers left behind a strong record backing denial, it would include “everything that suggested the agency thought approving the permit was a bad idea.”’
The Corps’ new division commander, Col. Pete Helmlinger, will visit the Rosemont site 35 miles southeast of downtown Tucson in the near future.
The Corp has no timetable for making a decision on the mine, said Corps spokeswoman Heather Babb, and it’s not publicly known if the agency will decide before President Obama leaves office, the Star reported.
That’s good news. Fear President Trump will not support the environment no matter where or when. Thanks for sending the AZ Star info.
Finally , the ROSEMONT PROJECT has moved from a MINE PLAN to a POLITICAL PLAN .
Once politics takes over the decision making process , technical decisions often take a turn for the worse . The layers of government bureaucracy dealing with the decision making process that will decide the fate of the ROSEMONT PROJECT are overwhelming to say the least . How many government agencies does it take to change a light bulb ?
ROSEMONT has become a case of many , many WHAT IF this , that or something else should happen . The FOREST SERVICE is mandated to make a final decision based on a proposal submitted originally by AUGUSTA and apparently fully endorsed by HUDBAY at the time that they acquired AUGUSTA . However , since then , HUDBAY appears to have been undertaking activities related to ROSEMONT that would suggest that the original proposal and mine plan as submitted are subject to a major revisions .
HUDBAY has time on their side . Will the new administration in Washington simply cancel the project and the president-elect tell HUDBAY that they are fired ? I doubt that this will happen . ROSEMONT could easily sit idle for four years and remain , out-of-sight , out-of-mind . The president-elect has far bigger fish to fry .