Deceptions
Here is a list of some of the deceptions we have heard from Rosemont Copper:
Rosemont Copper’s high-powered PR campaign tells citizens that its open pit mine will be a “state-of-the-art, first class mine” that will employ “21st Century” technologies. The company, however, tells Arizona regulators the mile-wide, half- mile deep mine is just another “typical open pit copper mine.”
Augusta Resource Corp. the Vancouver, B.C. owner of the Rosemont Copper Company, repeatedly states in regulatory filings that it is prepared to immediately begin construction once it receives final permits. However, the company fails to explain how this is possible since the company suspended engineering on the mine in July 2011.
Coronado National Forest Jim Upchurch cast doubt on Rosemont Copper’s truthfulness in regulatory filings when he ordered his staff to review the accuracy of Rosemont’s explanation for its sudden abandonment of the mining plan that was the basis of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement. Once the comment period was closed on the DEIS, Rosemont released a new mining plan that increased sulfide ore production by 34 percent.
A central pillar of Augusta Resource Corporation’s PR campaign is that the Rosemont Copper project will reduce the nation’s dependence on imported copper. In fact, Augusta has already pledged 50 percent of its copper production to Korean and British partners and states in regulatory filings that it is in negotiations with foreign smelters to purchase the balance.
Rosemont Copper has issued wildly divergent estimates of the company’s impact on jobs in Arizona ranging from 406 to 9,000 jobs. Augusta Resource’s regulatory filings, however, state that Rosemont’s employment will average 448 workers over the life of the mine.
Rosemont executives have repeatedly made statements to the press that the company has no plans to develop three adjacent mining claims to the Rosemont mine site. The claims cross over the ridgeline of the Santa Rita Mountains and onto the range’s western slope. However, the company is telling regulators and investors that one of the claims could be included in the Rosemont Copper project as a “satellite development”.
Augusta Resource Corp. states in regulatory filings that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency only plays an “advisory” role in whether the company receives a Section 404 Clean Water Permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Augusta, however, ignores that fact that EPA can veto any 404 permit issued by the Corps.
Rosemont Copper claims it doesn’t have to abide by Pima County’s outdoor lighting ordinance and that it plans to voluntarily reduce lighting impacts below the “intent” of the county’s 2011 code. Pima County, however, made it clear in a September 2012 letter to the Coronado National Forest that the lighting code applies to the Rosemont mine.
source: www.RosemontMineTruth.com
