CORONA DE TUCSON, Ariz. — A Tuesday night meeting hosted by the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality gave community members a public stage to voice their opinions about the Copper World Mine coming to the Santa Rita Mountains area.Meeting attendees were able to ask ADEQ questions about the Aquifer Protection Permit Hudbay applied for.Residents expressed concerns about Hudbay monitoring its own wells, some calling it a"fox watching the hen house" situation.
“This is not done in a vacuum," said Rick Grinnell, co-founder of the Southern Arizona Business Coalition — a group that works collaboratively with Mining Matters. Hudbay has full confidence in ADEQ’s rigorous review of our permit application. We firmly believe that the agency would not proceed with this permit unless we had demonstrated that Copper World's operations will meet Arizona's environmental standards, including groundwater quality.
This cast even more doubt on the Copper World plans, so the group invested in a hydrologist and mining engineer to look at the aquifer protection permit too.Tuesday's meeting was an informal gathering, but the public hearing on the permit is scheduled for Tuesday, March 5.