Copper Mine Battle Heats Up in Arizona

In a lawsuit filed Monday against the U.S. Forest Service, a coalition of conservation and business groups has asked a federal district court to halt the agency’s “violation of the law” in its preparation of an “environmental impact statement” for the proposed Rosemont Mine in southeast Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains The draft impact statement is expected to be published this month. Copper - used in everything from hybrid vehicles to computers - is the mineral everyone seems to want and multiple new mine projects have been proposed or are at different stages of development in the area. A November 2009 report from Arizona State University concluded that the Rosemont Mine would stimulate a total of $15 billion in new economic output for the region over the life of the mine, including an average of 2,100 jobs annually. According to Rosemont Copper, the project is expected to yield 221 million pounds of copper annually and approximately 15,000 ounces of gold as a by-product over the mine’s 20-year life span. Yesterday’s lawsuit alleges the Forest Service violated the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires the federal agency be open to public participation. The suit alleges Coronado National Forest allowed representatives of Rosemont Copper to actively participate in closed-door meetings held since early 2009, excluding members of the public. The lawsuit requests that the court force the Forest Service to produce public records of those meetings, requested under the Freedom of Information Act in September 2010 by the Center for Biological Diversity...more