Borderlands Restoration Network’s (BRN) home is Patagonia. Today our organization is the second largest employer in town. We are very concerned about the threats large-scale industrial mining poses to our region and strongly oppose the development and operations of the Hermosa Mine in the Patagonia Mountains.
As described in the operations plan of South 32, the Hermosa project will significantly degrade habitat for endangered and rare species in a globally recognized center of biodiversity, impacting one of the most important corridors for the movement of wildlife between the Arizona’s Santa Rita Mountains and the Sierra Madre range in Mexico. State Highway 82, already a busy transportation corridor, will carry one hundred and four heavy trucks per day traveling to and from Tucson, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.
Highway 82 bisects the Borderlands Wildlife Preserve, a critical 1,800-acre and growing assembly of conservation properties. As managers of the Preserve, we operate wildlife cameras that have documented a broad range of animals that live in the corridor and use it for migration, all of which will be adversely impacted by increased road mortality and Hermosa’s effects on air quality, noise levels, and dark skies.
The Hermosa project will also have significant consequences on the aquifer supporting the water supply of Patagonia and other residents in Santa Cruz County, already strained by prolonged drought and the effects of climate change. The mining process is very water intensive, consuming more than 6,652,800 gallons per day at full operation. The plan for releasing 6,480,000 gallons per day of water down Harshaw Creek will have severe consequences, carrying contamination from legacy mining through the creek bed and downstream into Sonoita Creek, exacerbating the potential for floods that will affect all who live in the path of Harshaw and Sonoita Creeks.
The Hermosa Mine is being developed on a relatively small piece of private property surrounded by public land managed by the US Forest Service. Private lands have weaker environmental protections. However, South32 intends to eventually store waste rock on surrounding public lands and Hermosa’s deep shafts will have horizontal tunnels and stopes that extend into public lands well below the surface. The State of Arizona’s statutes, and regulations, which should be designed to protect the state’s water, natural resources, and the health of state residents, are outdated and wholly inadequate for protecting our precious resources and communities. The 1872 federal law governing mining is wholly inadequate to protect our precious land, water, and communities from 21st Century-scale mining.
The Hermosa Mine also happens to be the first mine in the US accepted into the Fast-41 program, which was designed to significantly streamline federal environmental review. As a result of currently inadequate state and federal environmental protections and the streamlining of federal regulations, the Hermosa Mine, located in one of the most fragile and biodiverse areas in the US, will not get the rigorous assessment of environmental and public health impacts that our community expects and deserves.
We believe a healthy future in the borderlands depends on an economy that supports livelihoods without degrading irreplaceable natural resources. The Hermosa Mine’s impacts on our natural assets and our rural roads will have a damaging impact on our current economy which depends on the natural assets of the borderlands (the nature based restorative economy). The jobs projected to be created by South32 do not consider the sustainable jobs that will be lost due to the mine’s impacts on roads, wildlife, and agriculture.
BRN applauds the many organizations and residents who are working tirelessly to highlight the ecological importance of the region, identify the true impact of the mine on our water, communities, and wildlife, prevent and mitigate these impacts through available laws and regulations, and wherever necessary enhance legal protections. BRN particularly thanks the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA) for its leadership and urges readers to support PARA’s work.
Finally, there is also reason to question South32’s assertions about its role in the energy future. Even if their assertions are taken at face value, we do not believe that they justify the mine’s impacts on this unique, remarkable, and globally recognized area. Corporations should not be allowed to destroy irreplaceable centers of biodiversity in their drive for corporate profits. Some places should never again be mined.
Lynn Davison is president of the Board of Directors at BRN. Rodrigo Sierra Corona is the Executive Director of BRN.