Oracle Mining Corp. (fka OMCCF)

[lmcat]

Oracle mine may get DEQ approval

June 27, 2012 12:00 am • Tony Davis Arizona Daily Star

Pima County's environmental chief, who denied an air-quality permit for the Rosemont Mine last year, plans to approve one for a much smaller copper mine slated for the back side of the Catalina Mountains.

The proposed Oracle Ridge Mine would emit few enough particulates that it's likely to meet federal air-quality standards, said Ursula Kramer, director of the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality.

County officials will hold a public hearing this evening in Catalina on the proposed permit. Barring the unforeseen, Kramer said, she expects to issue the permit, which is needed for the mine to operate, before the county's legal deadline of July 2013 to make a decision.

The Oracle Ridge mine would emit less particulate pollution than would the proposed Rosemont Mine and two other major existing copper mines south of Tucson - not just in raw numbers but in proportion to each mine's copper production, county figures show.

A key reason, Kramer said, is that Oracle Ridge would operate underground while the Asarco Mission Complex and Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold's Sierrita Mine are open-pit mines, as Rosemont would be.

Particulates, tiny particles that are suspended in the air, are one of the most significant air pollutants in Pima County, county officials say. They are linked to a wide range of respiratory ailments in people, including asthma, influenza and lung cancer, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says.

Oracle Ridge Mining LLC's mine, lying mostly on private land about seven miles north of Summerhaven, would extract copper from a site that was mined from 1991 to 1996, then closed due to that era's low copper prices.

Parent company Oracle Mining Corp., based in Vancouver, Canada, bought the site in 2010, and hopes to resume mining there in late 2013. It will operate 11 years, employ 240 people and produce 25 million to 30 million pounds of copper yearly, its officials say.

Rosemont Copper company's Rosemont Mine would employ about 400 people and produce about 220 million pounds of copper a year, which would make it the country's fourth-largest copper mine, more productive than Sierrita or Mission.

Oracle Ridge would employ more people per pound of copper produced than the other area mines. Underground mines are traditionally more labor intensive than open-pit mines because the copper is harder to get to, said Jason Mercier, an Oracle Ridge vice president.

To minimize the mine's air-quality impacts, the Oracle Ridge Mine will put its crushing and grinding equipment underground, and controlled blasting will occur underground as the mine is developed further, Mercier said. Milling and flotation work will be above ground, he said.

Last year, the county's denial of a Rosemont air-quality permit caused Rosemont Copper to file suit against the county, then to ask the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to take over the case. The state DEQ still has not decided on that, a spokesman said Tuesday.

Kramer said Rosemont Copper failed to show that the mine's emissions will meet federal air-quality standards.

With the Oracle Ridge Mine, by contrast, the expected emissions are low enough that the company didn't have to do computer model tests to see if they met federal standards, Kramer said. Because its emissions would be below those considered a major pollution source, "they are presumed to meet federal standards," Kramer said.

"They've been very cooperative," Kramer said of Oracle Ridge Mining officials.

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