Are Rosemont mining claims valid?

Dig, baby, dig? Or wait, baby, wait? Those questions loom large for the proposed Rosemont Mine in the Santa Ritas as officials debate whether the federal government must check out the validity of claims before deciding on a mining application - and if so, whether that means, contrary to more than a century of tradition, that the feds can say "no" to a mine. A January 2010 letter from U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack promised Pima County officials that the feds wouldn't decide on Rosemont until they did a "thorough review" of whether its nearly 900 mining claims are valid. That process, rarely done, can cost tens of thousands of dollars and take up to five years, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said. And it could significantly delay the Rosemont project at a time when it hopes to win federal approval and start construction by the end of this year and begin mining by 2012. In a court filing in late March, the Obama administration seemed to take the opposite tack. Responding to an environmentalist lawsuit, the administration said on March 30 that it would defend rules handed down in the waning days of the Bush administration that said the feds don't need to review the validity of claims. But in an interview last week, Vilsack deputy Jay Jensen indicated that the court filing and the letter don't mean what they seem on the surface...more