Guest Comment: Sending a message to the USDA

I attended the public meeting called for the purpose of informing Deputy Under Secretary, USDA, Jay Jensen of the impact the Rosemont project is going to have on our national forest and the entire region.

Again, another professionally organized and executed public meeting thanks to Rep. Grijalva and especially Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and her staff.

I hope Mr. Jensen came away from this meeting recognizing we are a very diverse and well informed citizenry which values this land we came to live on and care for while we are here.

It is clear that the citizens of Southern Arizona value the national forest and all its resources.

We value the sacred and historical memory and artifacts of those who first inhabited this land.

We value the aesthetics of a scenic range of mountains in our backyard.

We value the ecosystem and the flora and fauna which thrive there.

We value the opportunity we have to spend time there.

We value the clean air and clear dark nights which give us a view into the far reaches of space.

Yes, we even value the rocks and minerals which lie upon and beneath these ancient and rugged mountains. We value copper.

However, copper has no value so great as to force most of us to abandon any or all of the values we hold for this land of ours.

Rosemont may convince the Forest Service and some of us that they can mitigate the negative impact a copper pit mine will have on some of these values we hold but they will never insure mitigation of the impact on the resource absolutely necessary to our survival—WATER.

Rosemont tells us they will replace the 6.000 acre-feet of groundwater they plan to pump annually by recharging with CAP water near Marana?

Even if they build a pipeline to Nogales, it’s a cruel and false promise.

Have you been to Lake Powell recently? My wife and I crossed the Colorado on Highway 95 at Hite a couple of weeks ago.

We stopped at the overlook on the far side, heading north, and looked down at a ghost town. Hite, once the uppermost marina on the lake is high and dry. Closed. The boat ramp leads to a vast mudflat. What CAP water?

Are we going to allow a Canadian, so called mining company, to take our water and our national forest land, it is ours you know, to produce a product they plan to sell to China, leaving us with a pit, a pile of waste and devastated values?

Gifford Pinchot, Bull Moose Progressive, friend and colleague of Teddy Roosevelt and the first chief of the Forest Service, had this motto to guide his management of the national forests; “the greatest good for the greatest number in the long run.”

I don’t believe Chief Pinchot was thinking of the Canadians, their investors and China when he established this principle.

Save the Santa Ritas for all those who came before, who are here now and those yet to come.

Green Valley resident Jim Pierce is retired from the U.S. Forest Service. The views expressed are the writer’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of this newspaper.