Local opinion: Arizona’s mining future collides with water reality

HARSHAW — A bumper sticker touting yet another massive hard-rock dig by the Mexican border reads: "If it can't be grown, it must be mined." But once mining starts, forget growing anything nearby. And if Arizona's water runs out, forget everything.

A quick AI search says those old five Cs — copper, cattle, cotton, citrus and climate — powered Arizona's past economy and now give hope to new generations. Being more artificial than intelligent, it misses human realities.

Cattle, cotton and citrus are mostly gone. Climate is as much a curse as a blessing. And copper could still go either way. That depends on a sixth C — carpetbaggers, who come to Arizona and heedlessly squander the water that makes it habitable.

Water defies negotiated "exchanges." Groundwater dwindles. On the surface, it evaporates in uncovered canals and dammed reservoirs. We paid little heed when rivers ran, rains came and summers were shorter and milder.

After prolonged drought, lower basin states suck drastically reduced amounts from the Colorado River, and Arizona has the shortest straw. Today's kids may need holidays in hell to cool down.

Agriculture and high-tech industries consume vast amounts. Families come from colder climes to live among lush gardens and pools as if there was no tomorrow. Others retire to communities in severely water-stressed areas.

But focus on mining. Arizona produces 70% of U.S. copper, along with much else. To meet a soaring global demand for strategic metals, the world's largest mining company — BHP in Australia — is digging in fast. So are many others.

The Grand Canyon State is losing much of the most spectacular and biodiverse wild country in North America, from vanishing wetlands to southern Arizona's "Sky Island" mountain peaks that rise toward 10,000 feet.

This goes beyond "not in my backyard." All backyards are different. Rich mineral reserves abound in remote parts of countries eager for foreign exchange and jobs. Big companies are drawn to U.S. law, infrastructure and Arizona's pro-mining bent.

The General Mining Act of 1872 was meant to help domestic prospectors and producers compete with foreigners to develop the West. It exempts hard-rock miners from paying royalties on what they extract. Never modified, it also covers those foreigners.

Rep. Raul Grijalva tried hard to reverse it while in the Democratic minority. He retired, then died, and it remains an uphill fight.

Resolution Copper near Superior, owned by BHP and Rio Tinto in Britain, estimates its $64 billion mining project would run over 60 years. When it was first announced, a Pinal County official told me it would only pay what amounted to a token property tax.

Discovery Alert, an independent mining analyst, reported that BHP's substantial operations in Chile paid $9.4 billion in royalties and taxes during 2024 alone. Clearly, there is a huge difference in scale. Yet the point is clear.

Freeport-McMoRan in Phoenix operates the giant Morenci Mine near the New Mexico border, a vast deep gash for miles up the Coronado Scenic Highway, visible from space. It owns three others across the state, along with large copper mines in Africa and Asia.

Most other major mines and big-money projects in Arizona belong to Mexicans, Canadians, Australians and Britons, with increasing investments from Japan.

When mines play out, U.S. taxpayers risk facing an ungodly mess to be cleaned up, if possible, at incalculable cost. Open pits refill permanently as water evaporates, emptying rare marshes and subsurface streams.

Mining releases toxins into aquifers, particularly when sulfuric acid is used for leaching. Despite the best intentions, stuff happens.

Under recent presidents, the EPA, U.S. Forest Service and Army Corps of Engineers imposed strict controls. Lawsuits by environmentalists, public health advocates and Indian tribes could stall problematic mines almost indefinitely.

Donald Trump is changing all that. His scramble for strategic minerals enables almost anything if labeled "national security." He says America needs to bring mining home so it does not depend on foreigners. But under the 1872 act, it does that more than ever.

Pre-Columbian tribes learned to thrive on arid lands millennia ago. Today, giant machines bulldoze their heritage, sacred sites and modern remnants. With new technology, companies extract low-grade ore and encroach on urban areas.

In the 1960s, I loved to prowl ghost towns near abandoned mineshafts. Back then, U.S. companies still predominated. Now the new juggernaut is blotting out much of Arizona's colorful territorial past.

I just took my old Toyota down rocky dirt tracks toward my favorite haunts. Much of the wildlife has gone elsewhere. Majestic cottonwoods are dying of thirst. Guards block access to old roads and new paved shortcuts on mine property.

Harshaw, between Patagonia and the Mexican border, was a 19th-century boomtown of 2,000 people — general stores, churches and bawdy houses with daily stagecoach stops. I found only one collapsed mud building near a weed-choked cemetery.

A Forest Service road to the nearby former townsite is now blocked by a private fence, one of many historic ranches and other properties bought up by an Australian mine for access and power lines.

South32, a BHP offshoot, plans to extract manganese, zinc, silver, lead and copper from its Hermosa mine over the next 70 years. Mining companies tend to avoid reporters like the hantavirus. Pat Risner, the chief executive, spent an hour answering questions.

He is trying to limit the mine's impact and fit into its neighborhood. He outlined a plan to dig a mile down from two 20-story headframes on a footprint of 750 acres, expanding underground in multiple galleries.

Its website and publications add up to a fat book. Visitors can view the site on guided tours. For ingenuity and engineering, it is impressive.

Electric-powered ore shovels and carriers will be operated remotely from Nogales. Risner expects to train a local staff, about 900 at peak periods, so South32 could leave behind a thriving Santa Cruz County.

That would be nearly 2,100. If Arizona has not dried up and blown away by then, it will have lost incalculable income from Americans and others who would cross oceans to spend holidays in a place that once qualified as unique.

Free of royalties and granted public land use for a few token dollars, Risner says South32 would pay property taxes that are now only $14 million a year.

I erred in an earlier column. Local sources told me the project considered an open pit. Risner scotched that idea when he took over in 2018. But in the end, it is a very large mine. Omelets, inevitably, mean broken eggs.

Slag heaps would fill nearby canyons. Trucks would rumble down freshly cut roads to main highways 24 hours a day.

Russ McSpadden of the Center for Biodiversity, a seasoned expert, describes South32 in a single word: nightmare. He includes Copper World nearer to Tucson, where Hudbay Minerals of Canada is to truck ore from multiple open pits in its own nonstop convoys.

And there is the water. Risner says South32 will use 90% less than open-pit mines. That is still a lot. First, it must pump out and treat toxic water flooding the original shaft, where it goes into nearby streams, then mostly evaporates.

Risner said critics exaggerate by citing worst-case statistics. The mine is permitted to discharge up to 6.5 million gallons daily. For now, it is closer to 2 million, and that is already serious.

Robert Gay and Carolyn Shafer in Patagonia have spent decades watching mines across Arizona. We followed Harshaw Creek on a parallel road at times impassable to bikers and hikers, where discharge floods the dips before it evaporates in the sun.

Gay's intricate maps trace Arizona mining to its earliest days. Shafer has assembled tomes of hard facts on hydrology and history. In their low-range power wagon, we jolted up harrowing roads, deteriorating fast because of Forest Service budget cuts.

From a high overlook, we surveyed Mexican mountains, part of a symbiotic ecosystem abruptly divided by Trump's grim metal wall and disfigured by yet another sprawling mine site. We spoke for hours, but this piece is already long.

In short, Arizonans need to wake up fast. No one should be fooled by massive ad campaigns by foreign companies touting American copper for Americans. Hardy people can survive without a lot of basics. But not water.