Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Arizona State Office Building in Tucson onWednesday to protest the sale of a 160-acre parcel of state land that went to auction. The parcel was sold to the Canadian mining company Hudbay Minerals’ Copper World project for $993,000.
“It is literally an unconstitutional gift,” says John Dougherty, executive director of Save the Scenic Santa Ritas. The environmental advocacy nonprofit has been battling open-pit copper mining since 1996.
Dougherty says he’s served as executive director for about 11 months but has been tracking this particular project since 2010.
“This is a historic moment today. This is the first time the state of Arizona has taken a discretionary action to facilitate copper mining in the Santa Rita Mountains,” Dougherty said.
Wednesday’s protest was scheduled at 10 a.m. — an hour before the scheduled auction that was facilitated by the Arizona State Land Department.
Dougherty says the mountain range in Southern Arizona has been a target for large-scale copper mining for more than 50 years.
“Arizona wears a huge copper collar around its neck,” Doughtery said.
Protesters claim the square parcel of land will be used to store the mine tailings, or waste that is left over after separating minerals from ore.
Cathy McGrath, a resident of Corona de Tucson — a residential community that’s located near the Santa Rita Mountains and the Copper World mining project — says that Hudbay has had their eyes on the parcel of state land because they were landlocked without it.
“We’ve been trying to protect this from being sold for the last four years and we stopped it once, but this time it didn’t work,” McGrath said.
McGrath says she lives on the edge of Sycamore Canyon, which she describes as a beautiful natural area with a lot of wildlife. She says she’s concerned that mine tailings will impact the nearby plants and animals.
“I’ve been doing a lot of research over the last four years about particulate matter and how the dust gets into everything, it’s going to get on all the plants and animals are going to eat it,” McGrath said.
She added that she will be keeping an eye out for an amendment to Hudbay’s aquifer protection permit to include the recently purchased parcel of land so that the community can express their concerns to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, which oversees the permits.
Calling on Governor Katie Hobbs
Before Wednesday’s protest, the Save the Scenic Santa Ritas had delivered a petition with 1,143 signatures to Governor Katie Hobbs’ office in Tucson on Tuesday.
The organization asked Hobbs to stop the land auction.
In February, the Arizona Daily Star reported that Hobbs had turned down a request to stop the sale from 15 elected officials in Pima County who had placed a full-page ad in the Arizona Capitol Times, including Board of Supervisors Chair Jennifer Allen.
“The county has heard from constituents for decades, opposition to this mine in the Santa Ritas and then opposition of course to this land sale,” Allen told AZPM. “An open pit mine in the Santa Rita Mountains is not what is needed, we don’t want it here, our land, our air, our water, our history, our culture, our heritage, is wrapped up in the Santa Ritas.”
Allen, Vice Chair Matt Heinz and Supervisor Andres Cano spoke out against the project during Wednesday’s protest, as well as Chairman of the San Xavier District of the Tohono O’Odham Nation Austin Nuñez.
Nuñez said the land is of sacred significance to his tribe.
“There has been a Hohokam site uncovered, and they did mitigate what they were required to do. Eventually our ancestors will come home to our present day lands so we can reintern them, give them a proper reburial,” Nuñez said.
Dougherty said Wednesday that the organization will continue to explore legal options to undo the land sale.
