The Agreement
The 2013 Rosemont-Sahuarita Right of Way Encroachment Agreement requires Hudbay to replenish 105% of the water it pumps from the aquifer beneath Sahuarita and Green Valley in the immediate area. In exchange, the Town of Sahuarita granted Rosemont, which was purchased by Hudbay in 2014, the right to install and an underground water pipeline along the Santa Rita Road through the town limits to the mine site on the western flank of the Santa Rita Mountains.
The Evidence
There is overwhelming evidence that Huday cannot possibly replenish 105% of the groundwater it pumps.
Action
Therefore, the Town of Sahuarita should immediately hold a public hearing to formally determine whether Hudbay can meet the term of the agreement. If not, the Town should cancel the agreement.
The Impact
If Hudbay is allowed to install the pipeline and begin pumping more than 3.2 billion gallons of groundwater a year, the aquifer, which is already declining more than 3 feet a year, it will drop even faster from Hudbay’s massive pumping. This means that Sahuarita and Green Valley water users will see higher water bills as the aquifer declines. Hudbay wants you to pay for the groundwater it extracts.
Key Facts:
1. Copper World would drain more than 520,000 acre-feet (AF) of water from the aquifer beneath Sahuarita and Green Valley, portions of which are already in a state-classified subsidence zone. A table in a 2022 Hudbay technical report indicates Copper World will pump 9,409 AF/year in Phase 1 of the project that lasts 20 years and 14,100 AF/year during Phase II of the project that will last 24 years. (An acre-foot is equal 325,851 gallons.)
2. Hudbay has no ability to replenish even a fraction of the groundwater it will pump in the immediate area with CAP water. Hudbay, and its predecessor Rosemont Copper, have stored 47,810 AF of CAP water since 2007. Nearly all of it, 46,127 AF, has been stored in Lower Santa Cruz Recharge Project in Marana, 45-miles north of where it will be withdrawn. Only 1,683 AF has been stored at the Pima Mine Road Recharge Project north of Sahuarita.
3. Hudbay has no way to deliver CAP water to Sahuarita/Green Valley. The company promised Community Water Company it would pay for a pipeline and replenishment ponds to bring CAP water to Sahuarita and Green Valley. But the $30 million project is only 20% complete. And CWC’s CAP allocation of 2,585 AF a year is in jeopardy because the drought is causing major cutbacks in CAP allocations.
Hudbay is in its fifth year of a 10-year agreement to purchase 1,124 AF a year of low-priority (Non-Indian Agricultural) CAP water. But Hudbay only received the full allocation in 2022, no water in 2023 and only 843 AF in 2024 and 2025. The Colorado River crisis is reducing future CAP allocations and whether Hudbay will receive a future allocation and for how much is unknown.
4. Even if Project Renews is constructed and CWC gets its full allocation of CAP water, that amount is less than one-third the amount of water Hudbay will pump each year for the mine. There simply is not enough available CAP water to replenish 105% of the groundwater Hudbay will pump for Copper World.
Leave a Reply