A controversial open-pit copper mine proposed for the
Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona (HCN, 9/1/97) has been put
on hold. In a Jan. 21 letter from ASARCO Inc. to the Coronado
National Forest, the company blamed low copper prices for the
pullout and said the project would be delayed for “at least a
couple of years.”
ASARCO proposed to develop its
mine on 2,800 acres of private land in the Santa Ritas, but also
wanted to expand its property in the mountains through a land swap
with the Forest Service. The trade would have given ASARCO 13,272
acres of Forest Service land while the agency gained 2,222 acres of
company property around Arizona. It would also have eliminated most
federal oversight of the mine. But on Jan. 30, Coronado National
Forest Supervisor John McGee announced that the land exchange
process was officially terminated.
“It doesn’t
make sense to us to maintain a proposal that’s not going to have
any work done on it for the next couple of years,” says agency
project leader Steve Christiansen. But, he adds, “this doesn’t mean
(the project) is forever dead. It’s quite likely that another
proposal will come through the door.”
The
scattered ASARCO properties offered to the Forest Service in the
land swap represented part of an agency “wish list,” says Aimee
Boulanger of the Mineral Policy Center, and included acreage in
popular recreation areas like Madera Canyon and the Chiracahua
Mountains. Although the properties have little to no mineral value,
she says, the company may sell the parcels for development or use
them as leverage in another land swap.
Randy
Serraglio of the Sonoita, Ariz.-based conservation group Save the
Scenic Santa Ritas says vocal community opposition contributed to
the company’s pullout. “We’ve proved to ASARCO that it would be a
difficult and costly process (to develop this mine),” he says.
“This area has a big scarlet letter on it now.”
*Michelle Nijhuis
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline A scarlet “A’ for ASARCO?.
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