“What are your thoughts and questions about water in this region?” at the Aug. 21 meeting in Patagonia.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) held an informal community meeting at Patagonia High School on August 21 to listen to community concerns on the current revision of the South32 Aquifer Protection Permit, which would allow discharge of pumped water from the Hermosa Project.
Copies of the revised Draft Permit and Executive Summary were available. About ten ADEQ staff were present, including engineers, hydrologists, community engagement team, and citizen science staff. There were roughly 30 citizens present.
The permit deals primarily with tailings storage and water monitoring. The existing first tailing storage facility is requested to be a maximum of 273 feet, on a footprint roughly doubling in size.
The evening had a lively audience participation activity. People wrote their concerns on sticky notes, which were then organized on a wall, grouped under headings that included ‘tailings,’ ‘closure,’ ‘biodiversity,’ ‘core mission (of the agency),’ ‘testing’ and ‘enforcement-compliance.’
A “Q and A” session followed with audience comment and questioning, ranging from personal concerns to technical issues, legal concerns, omissions and biases of the permit.
This informal hearing was preliminary to two modes of “official” citizen comment. A 45-day period for those comments began August 23, and runs till October 6. In October there will be a formal hearing, also at PUHS. Permit documents can be viewed
at https://azdeq.gov/wqd/hermosa-south32. Comment submissions can be made at
https://bit.ly/Comments_South32Hermosa.