Rosemont will put millions into well protection fund

The owners of the Rosemont Copper mine are expecting to put “several million dollars” into a well protection program for Sahuarita Heights well owners, a mine official and a lawyer representing well owners said.

Rosemont Copper, a subsidiary of Vancouver, British Columbia-based Augusta Resource, has proposed digging a copper mine on the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains and has dug two well fields in Sahuarita Heights to supply groundwater to the mine site. The mine proposal is up to the Forest Service.

Jaime Sturgess of Rosemont said Monday he expects the company will put several million dollars into a trust fund that would pay for pump replacement for well owners who need deeper wells as a result of localized drops in the aquifer.

Hugh Holub, a semi-retired Tubac lawyer who is representing well owners for free, said he hoped Rosemont would put between two million and four million dollars in the fund, but said the exact amount would depend on details of a hydrological study under way by Erroll Montgomery, a Tucson consultant. Holub said such studies are reasonably good predictors of aquifer drops.

Holub and Sturgess said monitoring of wells near the FICO pecan groves has shown that the aquifer has dropped and rebounded by some 50 feet to 60 feet during and after the growing season, and that the land there has subsided by 2.5 inches, but has risen by 2 inches after the growing season.

Rosemont has recently released a draft agreement it will offer well owners to allow them to sign up for well protection and so far the owners of some 51 wells have said they plan to sign the agreements.

Holub spoke to well owners at a May 29 meeting, along with Sahuarita Heights Well Owners co-chair Thomas Perry as well as Jeff Tannler, area director of the Tucson Active Management Area for the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR).

Tannler told about 60 residents that there is nothing in current state law to prevent the mine company from drawing from the local aquifer as much water as it can demonstrate a need for. He noted that the mine would only have to file more paperwork to increase its current permitted level of 6,000 acre feet a year.

Tannler demonstrated the local effects of a deep well, asking several residents to hold a piece of plastic wrap and poking it to show the “cone of depression” that represents the localized drop in aquifer surrounding a deep well.

pfranchine@sahuaritasun.com | 547-9738