SSSR reveals Town of Sahuarita agreement with Hudbay that threatens aquifer
Tucson—Save the Scenic Santa Ritas revealed how the Town of Sahuarita’s agreement with Hudbay Minerals threatens to deplete more than a half-million acre-feet of groundwater beneath Sahuarita and Green Valley Saturday during a Town Hall meeting before more than 450 residents at the Sahuarita Unified School District auditorium. (An acre-foot is equal to 325,851 gallons.)
The 2013 agreement requires the town to provide a Right of Way for the installation of a water pipeline along Santa Rita Road that would connect Hudbay’s groundwater well field with the mine site. In exchange for the Right of Way, Hudbay pledged to replenish 105% of the groundwater it will withdraw in the immediate area with Central Arizona Project water.
“There is no chance Hudbay can fulfill its agreement to replenish 105% of the groundwater it withdraws with CAP water in the Sahuarita/Green Valley area,” says John Dougherty, executive director of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas. “The town should immediately move to renegotiate or rescind an agreement that Hudbay has no possibility of fulfilling.”
The town signed the agreement with Rosemont Copper, which Hudbay purchased in 2014 and assumed the agreement’s obligations. The CAP transports Colorado River water across the desert to Maricopa, Pinal and Pima counties. The ongoing drought is slashing CAP distributions to Arizona.
Hudbay is planning to construct the Copper World mine on the northwest flank of the Santa Rita Mountains. According to a 2022 Hudbay technical report, the mine will require 188,000 acre-feet of water over the first 20 years of phase one of the project and more than 526,000 acre-feet by the time mining is completed in 44 years.
Hudbay has only stored 1,683 acre-feet of water at the Pima Mine Road Recharge project north of Sahuarita. The company has a 10-year agreement with the CAP that began in 2021 to purchase 1,124 acre-feet of low-priority CAP water a year.
Hudbay’s CAP water allocation has already been reduced to 843 acre-feet in 2024 and in 2025. Future allocations of CAP water are in serious doubt because of the severe drought and anticipated reductions in allocations of CAP water from the Colorado River. (See Rosemont/Hudbay water purchases of CAP water and storage locations here.)
“Hudbay’s massive groundwater pumping without any meaningful replenishment will further deplete the already steadily declining aquifer beneath Green Valley and Sahuarita and will drive up water bills for tens of thousands of residents,” Mr. Dougherty says. “The Town of Sahuarita has the power to stop this, but so far has done nothing to address the one-sided agreement.”
The presentation also focused on Hudbay’s heavy truck traffic that will send more than 40,000 trucks carrying explosives, hazardous chemicals and copper concentrate across seven miles of unpaved road through the Santa Rita Experimental Range and downtown Sahuarita.
The presentation concluded with a review of Hudbay’s egregious human rights violations including the murder and shooting of indigenous Mayans in Guatemala opposed to a Hudbay mine and the teargassing and beating of indigenous people in Peru protesting Hudbay’s Constancia Mine.
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