Hudbay will clear land this month - Complete article Hudbay Minerals Inc. will begin clearing and grading land this month for its goal of building five open-pit mines on the western slope of the Santa Rita Mountains, it told Pima County officials.
Hudbay’s Arizona-based subsidiary, Rosemont Copper, expects “clearing, grading, stockpiling and tailings and other earthquake activities related to the construction of waste rock facilities” in April on its private land on the West Slope, Hudbay vice president Javier Del Rio said. Wrote March 10 in the Pima County Regional Flood Control District.
The letter said the company plans to begin taking permits from “various state agencies” later this year to allow construction of its entire Rosemont Copper World project on the West Slope. In addition to the waste rock and tailings facilities, the company is also planning a pile leach pad, several open pits and a plant site of some sort, it wrote.
“Preliminary work includes ground preparation activities for tailings and waste rock storage areas on Rosemont’s private property. As always, Hudbay will take great care to ensure that we minimize disturbances to the environment and that all federal, Comply with state and local requirements, Hudbay said in a statement to the Star on Monday.
The company does not yet have a specific manufacturing start date, it said on Monday.
The company would need three state permits to build Copper World on the western slope, it told the Star. They include an aquifer protection permit, an air quality permit, and a surface water quality permit for stormwater runoff from the site, Hudbay said without elaborating, “among many other approvals prior to commencing operations”.
A set of maps Hudbay sent to the county shows five open pits on the West Slope, two more than the company had previously shown on earlier maps of potential West Slope mining plans in the mountain range southeast of Tucson. The maps also show that the site is directly east of Green Valley.
In response to Hudbe’s letter to Pima County, an environmental law firm representing three Arizona tribes sent the mining company a notice Monday that it intends to file a lawsuit for blocking construction activity on the West Slope. The notice stated that grading and clearing activities would violate the Federal Clean Water Act’s prohibition of “any unrestricted discharge” into federally regulated washes.
Under federal law, however, tribes cannot file a lawsuit until 60 days after giving notice, meaning they cannot seek an injunction to block construction until after construction is likely to begin.
A developer of a mine or housing must obtain a Clean Water Act permit if the federal government determines that construction work will require the deposit of fill material in neighboring washes to be considered eligible for federal regulation.
Due to recent conflicting federal actions and a 2021 federal court ruling on the issue, it is unclear at this time whether transient washing at the Copper World site will be regulated. The Army Corps of Engineers has yet to respond to Starr’s questions about Hudbe’s possible activity at the site.
Responding to Star’s questions, Hudbay denied that its planned activities would harm federally regulated Wash.
Site preparation work is being carried out exclusively on Hudbay’s private property, where no dry wash has ever been designated as “United States Waters,” the company said. The area includes Helvetia, “a historic mining district with dozens of old mines, exposed works, and the remains of a 19th-century smelter and associated slag pile.”
Additionally, the company said, “Hudbay has all the approvals needed for this initial site preparation work on Rosemont’s private property.”
“The proposed mine site has a dense network of ephemeral streams that qualify” as federally regulated water protected by the Clean Water Act, states the notice of intent to sue.
The notice was filed by EarthJustice Law Firm on behalf of the Tohono O’Odam, Pascua-Yaki and Hopi tribes.
EarthJustice Attorney Stu Gillespie wrote, “Hudbe’s operation will result in significant damage, not just catastrophic damage to our nation’s waters. Hudbay will destroy the network of ephemeral streams at the site, causing ‘irreparable damage to the environment’ and downstream water damage.” Will be done.” Army Corps on 28 March.
Gillespie said he expects Hudbay or the Army Corps not to begin construction or allow construction until the company gets the Clean Water Act’s nod.
As for the letter Hudbay wrote to county flood control officials, Hudbay said it was submitting the information only “for review and comment.” Hudbe said the flood control district has no authority under state law or county code to prohibit construction or require a floodplain use permit for the construction of waste rock disposal areas or tailings dams.
If any other planned facilities are not exempt from county floodplain requirements and are located within a specified floodplain, Hudbay will “at an appropriate time” request the county’s permission to use the floodplain for them, del Rio Wrote , Vice President of Americas and South America operations of Toronto-based Hudbay.
The flood control district does not disagree with Hudbay’s stance that tailings dam and waste disposal areas are exempt from permission, Deputy District Director Eric Shepp replied to Hudbay on March 28. But the district believes that other planned development activities at the site are under the county. Floodplane management rules, Shepp wrote.
Shep requested more information from Hudbay to meet county requirements for sufficient information for district review and comment before construction began.
Hudbe’s submitted plans “appear to be concept level plans rather than construction plans,” while Pima County code requires formal construction plans to be submitted, Shepp wrote.
“This provides an opportunity for the district to provide meaningful and genuine comments on what it considers the most effective design,” Shepp wrote.
When asked about this by Star, Hudbay replied, “Hudbay belongs to the flood control district and is currently awaiting the district’s comments on the plans provided by us.”
Copper World extends from near the company’s proposed Rosemont mine site to the historic Helvetia mining area in the west on the eastern slope of the Santa Ritas, where copper was removed from the 1880s to the early 1960s. Hudbe has said that about 1,290 acres of land will be affected by the construction of Copper World. The Rosemont project is pending in federal court and on hold.
The company received approval from the Arizona State Mine Inspector’s office in October for the Copper World Reclamation Plan. Hudbe has repeatedly praised the Copper World deposit because it is of higher grade and is closer to the ground surface than its Rosemont deposit.
“The initial resource for our Copper World project is large and is expected to have a high degree of geological confidence this year due to the exploration team’s success in discovering multiple quality deposits through an extensive drill program,” said Peter Kukielski, Hudbay said the president and chief executive officer in a news release about the site in December.
“Metallurgical testing and mineralogy studies on Copper World are well advanced,” and the company will issue a preliminary economic assessment in the first half of 2022, Kukielski said.