Carroll condemns pipeline as ‘con job’

Pima County Supervisor Ray Carroll on Tuesday called a mining company’s offer to build a 36-inch water line to the Green Valley “a con job.”

The supervisor is an outspoken opponent of Augusta Resource Corp.’s plan to develop an open-pit copper mine in the nearby Santa Rita Mountains.

And he has repeatedly criticized the company’s plans to build water lines to benefit local water companies as a kind of Trojan horse — it will win community support for the mine with an offer of a free pipeline that may never be built.

He likened the offer to Augusta’s free dinner to out-of-work Tucsonans earlier. The object was to get them to sign petitions of support, although there won’t be jobs for months.

He said it was “like something you want, dangled in front of the economically disadvantaged.”

“We ought to have patience” to see if the mine is actually going to be built before championing the cause of a 36-inch pipeline from a Central Arizona Project connection point to a recharge point east of Sahuarita.

He pointed out that there’s not enough CAP allocated water to fill a 36-inch pipe capable of delivering 30,000 acre-feet of water a year. An acr-foot of water per year amounts to about 325,000 gallons.

The smaller, 20-inch line Augusta first offered to build for Community Water Co. would cost $11 million to $15 million.

The 36-inch line would cost an estimated $15 million to $18 million.

Mine opponents say an open-pit copper line would wreck part of the Santa Rita Mountains and leave piles of waste that may never be removed.

The ore would be refined elsewhere, taken there by large trucks over state and local roads.

Carroll said the new water conservation group, Upper Santa Cruz Producers and Users Group, now supports the 36-inch pipeline “giving credence to Rosemont’s offer.”

Rosemont has drilled at least one well in the east Sahuarita area, and private well-owners worry that the company well will dry theirs up.

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