The most disheartening Earth Day in memory came and went, leaving a trail of garbage and broken dreams in its wake this year. Tucsonans in particular have reason to send out desperate smoke signals as Rosemont Mine gets the green light from the new environmentally backward regime. To see a video about Hudbay, and the Canadian mining group’s shameful history of destruction of the very natural resources they had been charged with preserving, click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7aacPtEI8s&feature=youtu.be . John Dougherty, Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity, and groups dedicated to protecting North America’s only free roaming jaguar population which has been photographed in the bull’s eye of the mining operation’s crosshairs have been waging a silent war against Scott Puit’s bought-and-paid-for rubber stamp on all mining interests. Losing this war threatens the health and well-being of every human being in Tucson, Sahuarita, Green Valley, Vail, and Sonoita. The jaguars aren’t the only creatures whose habitat will be made into a sulfuric acid-steeped cesspool when the CEOs get their way.
Silently, and ever so stealthily Caterpillar has moved into a South Side industrial neighborhood. All it took to sway the largely uneducated, poverty-stricken neighborhood was the vague whisper of “jobs.” Of course, the promised holy grail of 600 jobs is a moving carrot on a stick. Ninety percent of the jobs go to Hudbay employees imported from Canada for the purpose of blasting away our scenic Santa Rita mountain range, well-paid engineers who will then return to their suburban Vancouver mansions. Read more about the “promise of jobs here” http://tucson.com/business/tucson/caterpillar-inc-bringing-regional-hq-to-downtown-tucson-jobs/article_cce5e19e-10ca-11e6-8c95-a318c5316be1.html . Most mining operations, of course, have sense enough to pad the pockets of local politicians and to employ a few local truck drivers whose temporary jobs require little more than a driver’s license.
It is disheartening that Hudbay, one of the most controversial and least environmentally responsible mining groups in existence, imagines that Tucsonans will ignore their violent and litigious history. To read more about the accusations of gang rape and murder in Hudbay’s Guetemala operations, click here: https://news.vice.com/article/guatemala-lawsuit-against-canadian-based-hudbay-will-finally-see-its-day-in-court . To read about other ongoing litigation against Hudbay’s Guetemala operations, click here: http://www.chocversushudbay.com/ Lawsuits against Hudbay and its operations in Vancouver and Peru are numerous and pending as well.
Despite being denied an air quality or water quality permit, Rosemont is planning to blast into the Santa Rita Mountains just south of Tucson. As the smelter disgorges carcinogens and the leaching operations contaminate the aquifer feeding surface vegetation, the fragile Sonoran desert ecosystem stands little chance. As for us unfortunate human victims, recent studies in Morenci showed that children were showing unprecedented levels of lead in their blood due to Phelps-Dodge mining operations there, an operation smaller than Rosemont. Tucson’s children will be similarly affected as the north-running aquifer feeding into the Santa Cruz River flows into Tucson’s watershed. To read more about Phelps-Dodge, click on the Arizona Department of Health Services study here: http://www.azdhs.gov/documents/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/childhood-lead/targeted-lead-screening-plan.pdf
Mountains do not grow back. The enormous piles of rubble lining the highway south of Tucson were once pristine mountains. The muddy open pits that remain will forever scar the landscape of an area that draws millions of outdoor enthusiasts each year, a double blow to Tucsonans who rely on the tourist industry for survival. As an added insult, Arizonans will not see one penny of profit from the copper extracted from its lands. Antiquated mining laws purposely left on the books to attract foreign investment leave Arizona citizens out of any profit-making from its resources, a shameful practice dating from the mid-1800s that ensured that Native Americans would remain impoverished while wealthy investors would make windfall profits. To read more about the ruinous and morally bankrupt mining laws that deny citizens the right to profit from their own land, click here: https://www.perc.org/articles/mining-law-1872-0
I will leave you with a photo taken from the “scenic” overlook outside of Bisbee, Arizona, a view which will become familiar to Tucsonans driving south with the family to have a peek at what Hudbay will leave behind in our scenic Santa Rita Mountain range. How any human being equipped with a soul could consider this horrific hell-pit “scenic” defies imagination, but then again we live in Trumplandia now, a land where newspeak and alternative facts have so scarred the public psyche that they willingly cede their fragile rights to oligarchs for a chance to drive a truck. Garbage in, garbage out.
Hudbay had whistleblowing filmmaker John Dougherty arrested this week as he screened his documentary about their horrific practices in Peru this week. Hudbay will stop at nothing to profit from impoverished areas worldwide:
To fight Rosemont Mine, contact the Center for Biological Diversity here: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/rosemont
sabasabas 