Copper World’s Mining Plan
OVERVIEW
Copper World is a proposed open-pit mining complex owned by Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals.
Situated in Ce:wi Do’ag (“Long Mountain”), known also as the Santa Rita mountains, the complex would consist of two pits on the west flank, one pit on the ridgeline, and one pit on the east flank of the mountains.
The Rosemont pit on the east side would be about 1.5 miles in diameter and 0.5 mile deep. The other three pits would each be over 1 mile in diameter and 520 ft deep – just over the height of a 43-story building.
Copper World will begin mining on the west side of the mountain but by the fifth year of operations all excavation will be from the Rosemont pit. During the first 20 years, all waste rock and mine tailings will be dumped on the west side of the mountain.
Hudbay has stated it intends to seek to expand the Rosemont pit in the second, 24-year phase of mining another .5 miles into the Coronado National Forest. The company intends to dump waste rock and tailings near the Rosemont pit once it obtains federal permits.
WATER
Copper World would use an estimated minimum of 9,000 acre-feet of water a year for operations. An acre-foot of water is equal to 325,851 gallons. Most of this water would be pumped from Hudbay’s wellfield planned next to the Santa Cruz River in Sahuarita.
Copper World is projected to last 44 years, over the course of which it would use 526,400 acre-feet of water.
In 2013, Sahuarita signed an agreement with Hudbay alllowing the company to install an underground water pipeline from its main wellfield along the portion of the Santa Rita Road within the town’s limits. The agreement requires Hudbay to replenish 105% of the water they use with Central Arizona Project (CAP) water in the immediate area from where it is withdrawn.
But this is mathematically impossible. Hudbay has only stored 1,600 AF in groundwater recharge basins north of Sahuarita. And the company only has a 10-year contract for CAP water of 1,124 acre-feet/year. Hudbay received the full allocation in 2022, no water in 2023 and 843 acre-feet in 2024 and 2025.
Arizona is facing serious cuts to Colorado River water, which will undoubtedly impact CAP allocations.
SSSR has requested Sahuarita to hold a public hearing and determine whether it is possible for Hudbay to comply with the contract. If not, then Sahuarita should cancel the agreement that allows Hudbay to install the water pipeline in the Santa Rita Road right-of-way.
TRUCK TRAFFIC
Copper World operations will send an estimated 40,000 trucks per year through Sahuarita. That’s roughly one truck every 15 minutes 24/7.
These trucks will be traveling on roads that were never built for this volume of industrial traffic, generating extreme levels of dust and straining infrastructure.
Copper World will rely on these massive trucks to haul copper concentrate, explosives, and sulfuric acid, posing serious risks when one of these trucks inevitably ends up in a crash.
The increase in truck traffic through the middle of Sahuarita and along I-19 will lead to greater risk of dangerous accidents for pedestrians, cyclists, and other motorists.
ECONOMIC IMPACT
Copper World will hurt the Pima County economy.
Communities with mines have less economic vitality than communities without mines. Copper World will harm other economic sectors, including recreation and tourism.
Our Economic Impact Study report projects a $100 million drop in housing values in Corona de Tucson alone.
Copper World will export copper overseas, extracting resources from our community and giving back nothing but destruction in return.
Hudbay plans to export all of Copper World’s copper concentrate for at least the first four years of operations. This is because there is no place in the United States where Hudbay can send it be processed into refined metal.
Thanks to a $600 million investment from Mitsubishi, Hudbay will allow Mitsubishi to export 30% of Copper World’s projected production to Japan.