Environmental groups, Pima County fight state land sale to Hudbay Minerals

Pima County and eight environmental groups are trying to stop the state Land Department from selling 160 acres that Hudbay Minerals Inc. wants to buy in the Santa Rita Mountains foothills south of Tucson so it can deposit mine tailings there.

But the Land Department, rejecting the opponents’ arguments, has agreed to put the parcel up for auction at Hudbay’s request. For this sale, the state has appraised the land, next to Hudbay’s Copper World site, at about $993,000.

Hudbay says if it can put tailings on this state land, it could, in turn, create a buffer elsewhere between its mine wastes and residential neighbors in Corona de Tucson.

Opponents say that by selling this parcel, the state will “facilitate” additional mining at Copper World, because buying it will allow Hudbay to process more copper from the overall mine site and increase its sales revenue by at least $344 million, they estimate, at the environment’s expense.

Land Department officials, however, say they’re obligated under the state constitution to raise maximum revenue from their lands to help public schools and universities. Opponents complain that the department’s appraisal significantly undervalued the parcel by appraising it under its current zoning of rural residential use rather than for its future, lucrative mining use.

The eight groups have written to Gov. Katie Hobbs asking her to block the sale, but Hobbs’ staff declined to comment on the issue. Hobbs told the Star on Nov. 5 that she couldn’t comment because “I haven’t been briefed” on the issue, but she promised to get a comment to the paper later.

The Pima County Board of Supervisors, which has fought the state land sale for a few years, reaffirmed its opposition to the sale as well as the mine itself in an Oct. 21 resolution.

Acreage is north of future open pits

The mine is slated for about 4,500 acres of private land on the Santa Rita Mountains’ west slope. Toronto-based Hudbay also talks of expanding operations later to the mountains’ east slope, where its earlier Rosemont Mine proposal has been blocked by court rulings for over six years.

The company promises Copper World will create more than 400 long-term, direct jobs and another 3,000 indirect jobs, as well as infuse $170 million and $250 million in tax revenue into state and local coffers, respectively. Hudbay said it will invest $1.7 billion to build the mine’s first of two phases.

Opponents say its construction will destroy thousands of acres of valuable wildlife habitat and pump thousands of acre-feet of groundwater from an aquifer that’s already being pressured by pumping for nearby Green Valley and Sahuarita.

Copper World’s future will not rise or fall solely on the fate of these 160 acres. The mine has already received the three major state permits it needs regarding air quality, groundwater protection and mine reclamation.

A lawsuit filed by opponents is pending over another Land Department agreement to provide Hudbay an 11-acre right-of-way to carry tailings across a separate state land parcel, but a win by opponents there would more likely delay, rather than stop, mining.

In the current case, mine opponents say Hudbay’s purchase of the 160 acres would amount to the state Land Department facilitating the project despite what they see as the likelihood that the mine’s groundwater pumping on nearby private land would reduce the value of other state land near the mine site.

Hudbay says the land purchase would let it offer a buffer to neighbors long wary of the company’s plans.

The 160 acres are directly north of the large block of private land on which Hudbay plans to build five open pits. It lies just south of another planned mine tailings area that, in turn, sits just south of the burgeoning Corona de Tucson subdivision community running north from that area along Houghton Road.

That area just south of Corona de Tucson is one of three sites that Hudbay earmarked for mine tailings disposal in a map in its 2023 preliminary feasibility study for Copper World. That map didn’t include the 160 acres of state land it’s now seeking to buy.

‘About making money’

Opponents say Hudbay’s own 2023 report on the project shows the 160 acres will provide enough space for tailings to let the company mine and process 41 million additional tons of copper ore over Copper World’s expected 20-year life.

John Dougherty, director of the opposition group Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, said, “Conservative calculations show this would be worth $344 million. These guys are about making money like any business.”

“Their obligation to their shareholders is to maximize the amount of money they can make. If they have a chance to make an extra $344 million in revenue they will do it,” said Dougherty, contending that the company’s use of the buffer issue is a smokescreen to mask its monetary goals.

A company spokesman said Hudbay officials don’t know how much additional revenue would be generated due to the 160 acres, but that their primary motive for buying the land is mitigation, not profit.

“Acquiring this 160-acres will allow Copper World to significantly increase the buffer space between (another tailings facility it owns to the north) and nearby adjoining properties located at the southern edge of Corona De Tucson,” the company wrote to the Star.

The company said it intends to use this parcel as part of an overall tailings management facility “that will be designed and built to the highest engineering and environmental standards to ensure public health, safety, and environmental protection.

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“Furthermore, this 160-acre parcel is orphaned and landlocked, partially surrounded by the Copper World project. The immediate sale of this land will bring the best value to the state trust and meet its fiduciary responsibility,” Hudbay said.

Dougherty also pointed to a comment in Hudbay’s 2023 preliminary feasibility study that described the tailings site north of the 160-acre site as “optional.”

“In the current mine plan, this location would not be utilized for tailings storage until Year 15 of operations. Hudbay believes that a preferable alternative location for tailings storage can be secured by that time,” the feasibility study said.

Speaking to that comment, Dougherty said that based on maps of the area, Hudbay needs the 160-acre parcel to access its other private land for the waste dump, including the site directly to the north near Corona de Tucson.

But because Hudbay has already said the northerly tailings site is “optional,” Dougherty said that calls into question the credibility of its statement that buying the 160 acres now will let it move tailings disposal away from the northerly parcel that isn’t needed now.

“There is absolutely no need for the State Land Department to auction the 160-acre parcel at this time. If Hudbay needs the 160 acres in 15 years, let them come back and ask for it then,” Dougherty said.

Hudbay officials declined to respond to questions from the Star about the 2023 report, calling the northerly tailings facility “optional.”

But in its written statement, the company said Save the Scenic Santa Ritas’ statement about Hudbay’s alleged desire to increase revenue by buying that site is a “red herring, attempting to distract from the community benefit that moving the facility further away from nearby residents and the school will bring. We have made this commitment to mitigate our impact on our neighbors and will continue to seek other opportunities.”

A Hudbay spokesman said Dougherty accurately stated that 41 million additional tons of copper ore could be mined as a result of this 160-acre parcel, but that it’s really hard to estimate how much the site’s use would mean to company revenues, since “we don’t know what copper will be trading for in the future.”

“We don’t know if we can get as much tailings out of the land to the north. This commitment we’ve made for this mitigation opportunity, we will not be able to achieve that,” without the 160 acres, the spokesman said.

Pima County concerns

The state Land Department has declined a request from Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher to cancel the sale. Land Department official Lynn Cordova told the Star she expects it will be sold by auction sometime in 2026, no later than May 8, following at least 10 weeks of public advertisements of the impending sale.

“The Arizona State Land Department is required to act in the best interest of the Trust,” Cordova, the department’s legislative policy administrator, told the Star. “The commissioner has determined that it’s in the best interest of the Trust to sell the land.”

She did not elaborate, but the department holds state lands in trust and is obligated to generate revenue, primarily for K-12 education, universities and other public institutions, by selling or leasing the land.

The Arizona State Land Trust supports K-12 schools, universities, and other public agencies by generating revenues via the sale and use of state lands and the investment of proceeds from the sales. The trust currently includes about 9.2 million acres of land.

Any proposed use of the land will need to comply with all existing environmental regulations that may exist at the federal and state levels, Cordova said, adding, “Compliance with these regulations is not within the purview of the Land Department.”

Among other things, Pima County cites a lack of commitment by Hudbay to ensure that if the 160 acres is purchased, the buffer between that land and Corona de Tucson would be preserved. County officials noted, for instance, that when the Land Department first broached the idea of selling this parcel in 2023, along with a couple of smaller parcels to be used as a buffer, the department told county officials it couldn’t legally require Hudbay to keep the buffer parcels permanently free of tailings.

On Oct. 29, Hudbay sent Lesher a letter offering an assurance that the land north of the 160 acres it wants to buy will be kept undeveloped as a buffer between tailings and neighboring homes.

“Once the 160-acre auction is noticed, Copper World would begin the planning to alter the northern border of its Tailings Storage Facility-North southward for the purpose of increasing the buffer between the facility and what would otherwise be nearby adjoining properties located at the southern edge of the Corona de Tucson community,” wrote Javier del Rio, Hudbay’s senior vice president for Hudbay’s USA business unit.

“Our ability to achieve this community mitigation benefit is solely dependent on the timely acquisition of this parcel so that project design can be changed to incorporate this mitigation,” del Rio wrote.

But mine opponents say Hudbay’s commitment to preserve the buffer is meaningless without a formal deed restriction placed on that property —something that Land Department officials have at least implied isn’t legally possible.

Asked by the Star if Hudbay’s recent letter had eased the county’s concerns about the land sale, Deputy County Administrator Carmine DeBonis replied it hadn’t changed the county government’s opposition to the mine or the land sale, “which will facilitate development of the mine.”

He noted the county has now passed four resolutions since 2007 opposing the mine or reaffirming that opposition, including the most recent one last month.