Augusta submits mining plan

It’s official: August Resource Corp. has laid out its plans for how it will operate the Rosemont Copper Mine in the Santa Rita Mountains east of Green Valley. It includes a unique in Arizona plan to hide and quickly reclaim tailings.

The official 86-plus page plan of operations was submitted July 11 to U.S. Forest Service officials who have up 60 days to review it and decide whether it is complete enough to move on and request Augusta complete an environmental impact statement and conduct public meetings on the scope of the mining project.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors has already gone on record with a resolution asking the federal government to not permit its operation.

But in its plan, Augusta says this mine will be different from others. Its most unique feature is that its tailings - what’s left over after the ore is extracted - will be deposited in a new fashion.

As explained by Gil Clausen, president and CEO of Augusta, it’s almost backwards from a traditional mine.

“The first thing we will do is extend a natural berm out around the perimeter and put in vegetation,” Clausen said. “From then on we will work behind the berm.”

A traditional mine continues piling tailings on top of each other and as the tailings go higher, the base gets wider. Under that kind of traditional dumping of tailings, reclamation cannot begin until after the mine’s life is over and it is shut down.

But, by building the berm first and depositing the tailings evenly over the area, reclamation can begin during the first year of this mine project, according to Jamie Sturgess, Augusta’s vice president of projects and environment.

Greenhouse studies will be used to select the optimal plant materials to use on the reclaimed land to minimize the visual impact from State Route 83, according to the plan.

While the plan for tailings is unique to Arizona, Sturgess said it has been done before at mines in Alaska and South America.

Besides, their proposal for the tailings, Clausen and Sturgess said they are most proud of the water conservation plan for the mine. During the active mining process, Rosemont Copper plans to use water conservation and recycling methods to use half, or less, the amount of water used in a traditional mine.

In June, the company announced it is already buying and storing water and by year’s end will have banked three year’s worth of water.

Further, the plan says, Rosemont will import more water than it will use in the mining process leaving behind a 5 percent net water gain.

The plan says this specifically avoids any negative impact to the Davidson Canyon and Cienega Creek watershed.

Other highlights of Rosemont’s operation plan are:

Establishment of a $50 million Santa Rita Mountains Regional Endowment Trust, half of which can be used during the 20-year life of the plan and the other half will be left as a permanent endowment to be used in the area. Sturgess said a committee would be established to decide how the money might be spent but, as an example, he said it could be used to maintain horse trails or other public use facilities.

The more than 230 million pounds of copper the mine will produce each year will account for 10 percent of U.S. copper production for 20 years. The mine will have 500 high-paying jobs, which in turn results in the creation of at least 1,000 indirect jobs, adding more than $500 million in local payroll over the life of the mine.

Augusta Resource Corp., based in Vancouver, B.C., and with offices in Denver, acquired the Rosemont Mine property in 2006 for $20.8 million.

Rosemont Copper will actively operate on 530 acres of its own private property and 3,670 acres of Coronado National Forest land on which Augusta patented claims. The entire project is divided into three broad categories: the plant site, including roads and ancillary facilities, will take up 355 acres; the open pit will be 950 acres and the bermed tailings and leach facilities will take up 2,895 acres.

“I think the important thing is that we understand what’s at stake here,” Clausen said. “We’ve heard the concerns and we’re addressing them. That’s why Rosemont Copper will be a unique project.”

David Hatfield is editor of Inside Tucson Business. Contact him at dhatfield@azbiz.com or (520) 295-4237.