SSSR files lawsuit to rescind Hudbay’s purchase of State Trust Land for Copper World

Tucson—Save the Scenic Santa Ritas filed a special action lawsuit in Pima County Superior Court on Thursday seeking to rescind Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals’ purchase of 160 acres of State Trust Land to be used as a waste dump for its proposed Copper World mine.

“We are alleging the Arizona State Land Department illegally changed the auction location without providing required public notice and therefore the land sale should be nullified,” Save the Scenic Santa Ritas Executive Director John Dougherty said.

Hudbay was the only bidder at the April 29 auction that lasted about three minutes. Hudbay’s initial bid of $993,000, which was equal to the state-approved appraisal, was accepted as the highest and best offer.

The state Constitution (Article 10, Section 3) and a state statute require auction notices to be published for 10 weeks in the newspaper closest to the pending land sale and in a Phoenix newspaper. The Constitution requires the department to publish a notice that contains the “full description” of the property to be sold and the “nature, time and place of the transaction.” The state statute requires the notices to state “the time, place and terms of the sale”.

ASLD began publishing weekly legal notices in the Arizona Capitol Times and the Green Valley News in mid-February. All 10 weeks of newspaper notices stated the auction would be held at 11 a.m. at the Herbert K. Abrams Public Health Center in Tucson. The last notice was published in the Green Valley News on April 19.

But rather than holding the auction at the health center as advertised, the land department held the auction four miles away at an Arizona Department of Transportation building. The auction began at 11 a.m.

“The state failed to hold the auction in the location the department advertised in two newspapers for ten weeks,” Dougherty said. “This is not a complicated matter. We are hopeful a judge will rule the land department violated state law and the Constitution when it moved the location without legal notice and void the land sale.”

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