Army Corps’ recommendation to deny Rosemont a Clean Water Act permit follows years of warnings that the proposed mine fails to comply with the law

(Tucson, Ariz.) Last month’s recommendation by the US Army Corps of Engineers Los Angeles district to deny a required Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for the proposed Rosemont mine is consistent with repeated warnings by state and federal agencies that the project failed to comply with the law.

Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc., the owner of the Rosemont project, has failed to submit a mitigation plan to compensate for the destruction of desert wetlands that meets the CWA’s requirements under Section 404 of the law.

In 2014, the Army Corps notified the previous owners of the Rosemont project that its Sec. 404 mitigation plan was insufficient. No new mitigation plan has been offered since that time.

The Corps’ district recommendation has been forwarded to the San Francisco regional office, which is expected to make a final decision in the near future.

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As expected, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service today issued a biological opinion that Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ proposed massive Rosemont open-pit copper mine “is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence” of a dozen threatened and endangered species including the only known wild jaguar in the U.S. Release of the opinion clears the way for other federal agencies to make crucial regulatory decisions on the ultimate fate of the Rosemont project.

“For years, the Fish and Wildlife Service has issued biological opinions that have been successfully challenged in Federal Court, and we expect that is what will happen here,” said Gayle Hartmann, President of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas. “The Rosemont project will destroy the habitat of endangered species with its half-mile deep open pit and mine waste piles stacked 600-800 feet high spread over five square miles of the Coronado National Forest.”

Rather than stopping the mine, the biological opinion calls for “reasonable and prudent measures” to minimize mine impacts including some that are left to the discretion of relevant agencies.

The FWS biological opinion is in stark contrast to the views of the other wildlife managers. The Arizona Game and Fish Department concluded: “the [Rosemont Copper] project will render the northern portion of the Santa Rita Mountains virtually worthless as wildlife habitat and as a functioning ecosystem, and thus also worthless for wildlife recreation.”

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TUCSON, Ariz., Feb. 8, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — A trail camera video of America’s only known wild jaguar is attracting widespread media and focusing attention on the direct threat to the survival of this endangered predator by the proposed Rosemont Copper Mine.

The video clips taken by the Center for Biological Diversity and Conservation CATalyst show the jaguar prowling through mountain woodlands and desert streams that would be impacted by the proposed mile-wide, half-mile deep copper mine that will dump hundreds of millions of tons of potentially toxic mine waste on the Coronado National Forest.

Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc. is seeking state and federal permits to construct the open-pit mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest southeast of Tucson. The proposed mine would destroy more than 3,000 acres of national forest, obliterate miles of rare desert waterways that support a dozen threatened and endangered species including the jaguar and threatens the water supply for the fragile Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service is preparing a biological opinion on the mine’s impact on endangered species, including the jaguar.  If FWS determines the mine project may adversely impact an endangered species, but not jeopardize its continued existence, the FWS may allow the “incidental take” of an endangered species that could result in the death of the jaguar known as El Jefe. [Read more…]

Court Overturns Rosemont Air Pollution Permit ADEQ decision ruled “not supported by evidence” and “an abuse of discretion”

(Phoenix, Ariz.) A Maricopa County (AZ) Superior Court today overturned a key air pollution permit for Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ proposed Rosemont copper mine. Judge Crane McClennen ruled the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) acted “contrary to law” in its January 2013 decision to issue Rosemont the permit.

In completely adopting the evidence and arguments presented by SSSR, the court found the state relied on flawed data provided by Rosemont that was designed to understate the air pollution impact of the proposed $1.5 billion open pit copper mine.

McClennen stated in his ruling that ADEQ’s decision to issue the permit “was arbitrary and capricious,” an “abuse of discretion,” and “not supported by substantial evidence.”

The ruling came in response to a lawsuit filed by Save the Scenic Santa Ritas (SSSR), a southern Arizona coalition opposing the mine. SSSR provided evidence that Rosemont had manipulated its data in an attempt to convince ADEQ that pollution from the mine would not violate applicable air quality and health standards. SSSR showed if appropriate modeling were used, Rosemont’s operations would indeed violate these standards. [Read more…]