The Contradiction Between Water And Mining

A plan to dig a vast copper mine in arid southern Arizona is pitting the needs of

American industry and arguably the national economy against a coalition of local residents and environmentalists.Opponents say the mine will destroy an area of outstanding ecological importance and, perhaps more important, threaten the areas most valuable resource: Water.Both sides are actively lobbying the U.S. regulators who will determine whether the project goes ahead.Rosemont Copper, a subsidiary based in Tucson, Arizona, of the Canadian company Augusta Resource, hopes to build the open-pit mine and a mineral processing facility about 30 miles, or 48 kilometers, southeast of Tucson in Pima County, Arizona.Kathy Arnold, Rosemonts vice president of environmental and regulatory affairs, said the company planned to process 75,000 tons of ore per day, producing more than 600,000 pounds, or 270,000 kilograms, of copper per day, as well as molybdenum and some silver, and creating about 400 local jobs.Defending itself against environmental critics, Rosemont says that copper is a key ingredient in the clean-energy economy, used in hybrid cars, solar panels, wind turbines, and transmission and distribution lines. And Arizona is already an important source of U.S. copper, supplying 63 percent of the nations domestic production in 2010 and meeting demand for 40 percent of its consumption, according to the Copper Development Association, a U.S industry lobby group.Mining is typically a water-intensive endeavor, but Rosemont says technologies it plans to use would require only half as much water as a conventional mine. The pit would be one of the nations largest copper producers, and, yet, it will have one of the smallest footprints of any of the currently operating open-pit mines in the United States, Ms. Arnold said.The mines operations would cause no net loss of water to the local ecosystem, she added.Local conservation organizations dispute that, contending that the operation would draw down the wells of local farmers and residents, change the regions hydrology, increase air pollution and traffic, and possibly contaminate groundwater.Rosemont plans to use a method for producing and storing waste from the pit called dry-stack tailings.Tailings are the mounds of crushed rock, mixed with trace amounts of chemicals, that remain after ore is processed. Conventional tailings are mixed with water and stored as a slurry, about 50 percent liquid, Ms. Arnold said. Rosemonts dry-stack tailings, with most of the water squeezed out and recycled, would be only about 15 percent moisture.The dry-stack technology is intended to conserve water the company says it would recycle 85 percent of all water it used and keep pollution from seeping into the ground. A filtering process would remove the chemicals used for treating the ore.Still, Roger Featherstone, director of the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition, said in an e-mail, the trace remains of heavy metals and sulfur naturally occurring in ore-bearing rocks are virtually impossible to remove.Even if Augusta did a good job of it, the sheer mass of the tailings leave enough heavy metals to cause pollution to migrate into surface and groundwater, he said.The mine is planned for the east side of the Santa Rita Mountains in what is known as the Sky Islands wildlife habitat, where mountains jutting up from a plateau create isolated pockets with diverse plant and animal life. The area also includes the Davidson Canyon Wash and Cienega Creek, unusual and sensitive wetlands. Altogether the area is home to 10 threatened and endangered species, while the wetlands are designated by the state as Outstanding Arizona Waters, a category that affords them the highest protection under the U.S. Clean Water Act.Also at risk of disturbance would be more than 60 sites sacred to the Tohono Oodham American Indian nation, including some with human remains.As the professional manufacturer of complete sets of mining machinery, such as Jaw breakersFlotation separatorBall mill, Henan Hongxing is always doing the best in products and service.rock cone crusherhttp://www.crusher-machine.com/4.html Cone crusher manufacturerhttp://www.crusher-machine.com/4.html

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