Augusta stores water for mine

A Canadian company hoping to mine copper and molybdenum in the Rosemont area for the next 20 years has already stored two years of water for its operations, company officials said.

Last year, Augusta Resource Corp. secured an allotment of Central Arizona Project water brought by canal and pipeline across the desert from the Colorado River and stored at various points around the Tucson valley.

The plan, according to Jaime Sturgess, Augusta’s vice president for projects and the environment, is to lessen the mine’s impact on the basin’s groundwater supply by storing CAP water, which can then be used to replenish the greater Tucson aquifer.

By the end of the year, Augusta hopes to store some 15,000 acre-feet of water in the Greater Tucson aquifer, the company said in press release issued this week.

“By the end of this water year, we will have invested over $1 million in replacing water,” Strugess said. “This is follow-through on what we said we’d do; we are walking the walk.”

Sturgess and his company faced tough questions a few months ago from Southern Arizona’s congressional coalition and Pima County supervisors, both of which argued that the dubious environmental history of open-pit copper mining in Southern Arizona made a new, 20-year mine in the Santa Rita Mountains a questionable bet for the area.

Augusta has said, and is reiterating it with this water news, that it plans to be a different kind of copper company, using cutting-edge techniques to save water and to keep its imprint on the land as small as possible. It hopes to achieve a 50 percent to 60 percent reduction in water use compared to a traditional mine.

Sturgess said Friday that the company’s long-awaited comprehensive plan of operations will be available and distributed in July.

After that, the U.S. Forest Service will determine if the company has given enough information to start a review under the National Environmental Policy Act, which, when put into motion, will take from 18 to 24 months and will likely include a lengthy public comment period.

Even though the company owns the Rosemont property, the Forest Service must sign off on the project because Augusta wants to use public lands in its mining operations.

Tim Hull is a freelance writer. He can be reached at trhull@gmail.com.