Rosemont Mine plan pushed back 11/23/2009

Rosemont Mine plan pushed back

The U.S. Forest Service has pushed back its plans again, and it now says it will release an environmental analysis of the proposed Rosemont Mine in April 2010, about a year later than it originally planned.
The Forest Service also plans to make a decision on the mine during the last three months of 2010 — up to six months later than an earlier planned decision date of July 2010.
A series of public meetings and a public-comment period will occur shortly after the environmental document on the mine is publicly released. The mine would be built in the Santa Rita Mountains, southeast of Tucson.
With these delays, the Rosemont Copper Co., a Tucson-based subsidiary of Canadian-based Augusta Resource Corp., hopes to start mining by 2012, a year later than its originally planned opening.
The new Rosemont timetable is contained in an updated memorandum of understanding between Augusta and the Forest Service that was released Friday.
Last month the Forest Service announced it would have to delay release of the environmental analysis because of complex, controversial issues surrounding the project, including water supplies, water pollution, air quality, traffic, effects on Indian ruins and other cultural resources, and effects on wildlife habitat.
The Forest Service will consider a number of alternatives in its environmental review, the agency said in a press release. Besides Rosemont's original 2007 mining plan, these choices will include partial backfilling of the open pit, an option that would incorporate comments from various reviewing agencies and a "no action" alternative that would mean no mine.
If approved, Rosemont would become the third- or fourth-largest copper mine in the United States, and company officials say it could account for 10 percent of this country's copper production.