Issue Position: Rosemont Mine

Issue Position

Augusta Resource Corp., a Canadian mining firm, wants to build the Rosemont Mine in the scenic Santa Rita Mountains outside Tucson. They claim it's just good business and that they want to bring jobs to the area. Here's what they're not telling you.

Labor/Employment History

Rosemont has allied itself with an anti-union law firm. Local steelworkers and other mine supporters are backing a company with legal counsel that proudly proclaims, "Firm attorneys counsel clients concerning union avoidance." The company's attorneys previously represented Phelps Dodge, the target of the famous 1983 United Steelworkers strike, one of the largest labor conflicts in the nation's history. Many union families lost their livelihoods, the union was decertified in Arizona, and retirees lost significant pension benefits. That legacy is part of the Rosemont project.

Rosemont Copper has not committed to hiring union workers or to allowing a union vote to organize the mine. The company has been silent on recertifying the steelworker union in Arizona.

There are already hundreds of unfilled mining jobs in Arizona. We have enough mineral production capacity to meet the demand for copper and employ everyone seeking a mining job without the Rosemont Mine. Augusta Resource is cynically exploiting the real economic concerns of working men and women to enrich itself and sell America ore straight to foreign investors.
Economics

Due to Rosemont's dire need for cash to cover financing debts, the owners have signed direct source supply contracts with their South Korean investors. This means the ore from Rosemont won't be sold on the global market -- the operators will sell it straight to South Korea at an agreed-upon price. Rosemont won't reduce global copper rates because the ore won't ever be on the international commodities exchange.

It gets stranger. In its 74-year history, Rosemont's parent company, Augusta Resource, has no "history of production" and "has never recorded any revenues from mining operations," according to its own financial filings. Augusta doesn't have a track record as a mining job creator. They make a lot of claims that sound great on paper, but there's nothing to back them up.

Environment

The proposed mine threatens the water resources upon which our future economic survival depends. According to filings by Rosemont Copper, which is wholly owned by Augusta, the mine will create approximately four square miles of waste that will fill drainages in the Santa Rita Mountains that contribute to the Tucson watershed. This mine waste -- which includes arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxins linked to cancer -- poses a very serious threat to the region's drinking water.

Rosemont Copper claims to value the outdoors. If that were true, why did the Arizona Game and Fish Department write that it believes the Rosemont project "will render the northern portion of the Santa Rita Mountains virtually worthless as wildlife habitat and as a functioning ecosystem, and thus also worthless for wildlife recreation"? Why is Rosemont taking advantage of cheaply acquired mining claims to turn parts of the Coronado National Forest into a dump for hazardous mine tailings?

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