Residents of Red Rock Acres said they got some good news and some bad news at an April 10 meeting held by Santa Cruz County government officials regarding construction of the Cross Creek Connector (CCC) road outside of Patagonia.
The CCC is being constructed by South32 (S32) to run from Harshaw Road east of the Town of Patagonia to SR82 north of Patagonia. S32 intends to use this road for transportation during construction of its Hermosa project and then for the initial period of the project’s mining operation, which could begin as soon as 2027. The CCC will be abandoned sometime in the future when, and if, S32 gets permission from the Forest Service to construct a new road south of Patagonia.
County Supervisor Bruce Bracker, Director of Public Works Leonard Fontes Jr., County Manager Jesus Valdez and engineering consultant Rob Lane spoke at the April 10 meeting held at the Patagonia School cafeteria, which was attended by about 60 people, almost all of them local residents.
At the meeting, county officials announced that the CCC will be closed to public access. It will be open only to S32 related traffic and for residents of the area, a reversal of the County’s previous decision to have the road open to all traffic.
“We are very pleased by that change,” said Linda Shore, a resident of the abutting Red Rock Acres, in a recent interview. “We, the Red Rock Board, have said that we didn’t want to have ATVers, and random trucks cutting through It’s going to be bad enough having 300 mine-related vehicles.”
(Lane, the County’s engineering consultant, estimated that there would be 227 vehicle trips/day on the CCC during construction, and 330 trips/day when the mine opens. 63% of that traffic will be heavy vehicles.)
Red Rock residents at the April 10 meeting were less pleased to learn that the road surface of the bridge over Red Rock Wash will be an open metal grate. This type of bridge is very noisy when vehicles cross.
“It will just echo through up to our houses,” said Shore. “It’s very close to all of us on Sonoita Drive.”
Members of Patagonia’s Flood and Flow committee complained that the County had not consulted with them during the permitting process.
“We’ve been asking to be a part of the permitting process and we have yet to hear anything about it,” Kathy Pasierb, a member of the committee, said.
“We don’t do that with any other permits,” Valdez replied.
Public Works Director Fontes described the three phases of the road permitting process. Phase one was the permitting for the interior section of the road, phase two is the intersection of the CCC with Harshaw Rd., and phase three is the intersection with SR82 north of Patagonia, which requires ADOT permitting.
“I’m comfortable that approvals will go through,” Fontes said at the meeting.
“The Harshaw Road intersection has not been permitted yet,” Bracker clarified in an interview following the meeting. “The ADOT permitting process is pretty far along.”
Although several members of the audience expressed their frustration with the County, and with the CCC, the April 10 meeting was a much more civil affair than the previous open house held last September at Cady Hall, which was marked by confusion, public outcry and a call for back-up deputies.