In 2010 my wife and I purchased a home in San Tan Valley. We also own a home in Anchorage, Alaska. We would like to see environmentally responsible economic development in the East Valley to provide head-of-household salary jobs along with dollars that can be used to improve and expand public infrastructure, schools, etc.
We recently toured the Florence Copper Project and are perplexed by the opposition of the City of Florence to allowing the project to use existing infrastructure to perform small-scale, tightly monitored testing of the copper recovery technology (fascinating!) to determine if it can be accomplished with an extremely high degree of safety.
Instead, the City is requiring the test to disturb new parcels of land and construct facilities and a settling pond closer to and within eyesight of Hunt Highway.
In Anchorage I am the Vice Chair of the city’s Urban Design Commission where we review site development and landscaping plans and either approve with conditions or deny plans if they don’t meet design criteria. As an aesthetic matter, not to mention economics, we generally try to leave existing land undisturbed if possible with pleasing views and landscape buffers to make the city more attractive.
If the test project can survive the permitting process, it just doesn’t seem to make sense — at least to us — why the city would demand what appears to be the least optimal path in terms of landscape planning. Why not allow the use of existing facilities?
Steve Pratt
San Tan Valley
Cerulean posted at 1:11 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
I do not claim special knowledge of mining practice.
Why can’t the mining operation perform “testing of the copper recovery technology” on land in areas that already belong to the mine? Do you know?
truth posted at 2:27 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
What Is In-Situ Mining?
In-Situ Mining is a process that injects acidic and caustic chemicals such as sulfuric acid, nitric acid, sodium bicarbonate, and ammonium carbonate deep into the earth in order to recover minerals such as copper and uranium through boreholes drilled into the targeted deposit of ore. The chemical reaction is severe enough to actually dissolve the metals in the ore.
The extraction process first involves drilling a system of wells into the potential ore deposit. Explosives or “hydraulic fracturing” may also be used to create open fissures into the ground for the chemical solution to penetrate. The chemicals are then pumped to the deposit where it makes contact with the ore, and then the solution bearing the dissolved ore content is pumped to a surface pregnant leach solution holding pond and processed through additional chemical processes to extract the mineral. In the Curis Florence Copper Mine Project, wells would be drilled through a drinking water aquifer into the ore body and sulfuric acid would be pumped underground to extract the copper. The Florence mine is foreign country project.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 2:34 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
The Mine Operators are wimping out.
What they should do is to close the plant down. Then let the voters recall the current City Council and vote in one that will bring back = JOBS.
Then the Mine Operator will be able to operate at a profit.
Rich posted at 8:38 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
Steve,
Go back to Anchorage, this is Arizona. Basically frightened little ignorant sheeple who get scared when anything new raises its ugly head. We teach F. Scott Fitzgerald, not Jack Kerouac. New doesn't work here, it scares everybody. If you are successful I might move. You'll hire Arizona high school graduates? That doesn't really sound safe. But it's a great place to live between September and May.
Abstract01 posted at 10:27 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
Leon,
Don't be so gung-ho to support JOBS until you know what you are left with afterwards.
I must take issue with you. After doing some on-line reading about the processes used in the mining process, it is apparent that the Florence city council is being very careful about the residuals left behind after the mining company has pulled its stakes and gone to greener pastures.
They will leave brown and gray waste fields, just as you see in the Miami-Globe area.
A few decades ago, it was "break-even" to use the leaching process when you recovered 3/100 of one ounce of gold per ton of material mined (or 4 oz. of silver per ton). But go online to read of the chemicals that are used. http://mines.az.gov/DigitalLibrary/usbm_ic/USBMIC8852InSituMining.pdf
Interesting, but makes me wary.
Abstract01 posted at 10:31 pm on Mon, Feb 4, 2013.
Rich,
teach me what you mean with your references to F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jack Kerouac.
I don't have time to become a literary resource.
Throwing a name around, without context , is useless unless you include an explanation.
Rich posted at 8:51 am on Tue, Feb 5, 2013.
Gee Abstract, raised in AZ were we? FSF was an early 20th century writer writing in a 19th century form, Kerouac was a mid 20th century writer who reformed literature into a more modern vein. The comment covers both the business climate of AZ and the educational one. When you teach your children the 19th century don't expect them to keep up in the 21st.
Cerulean posted at 2:32 pm on Tue, Feb 5, 2013.
Rich,
I recently read Kerouac’s ‘The Dharma Bums’; it was good, it was very good.
I’ve also recently read ‘The Road’ not by Kerouac but ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy. I think McCarthy’s Road is a better example of what the future holds for all of us if we do not start paying attention to the consequences of our actions.
Rich posted at 6:55 pm on Tue, Feb 5, 2013.
Cerulean,
McCarthy is very very good. The Road isn't his best however. Blood Meridian probably is, but the border trilogy might trump it. Kerouac was good, very good, I'll agree. Read Mexico City Blues, and then listen to Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, and you get an idea of his impact on words and their use in culture. We never pay attention to the consequences of our actions, 'we' re-elected Obama while the economy contracted, that isn't close to brain death in the intelligence category?
Cerulean posted at 8:31 am on Wed, Feb 6, 2013.
It makes absolutely no sense putting rare water supplies at risk when copper is not in demand. Indeed the price of copper is down and there are surplus supplies.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/950061-copper-price-forecast-where-is-this-supply-deficit
Rich,
I like McCarthy though, from the two books that I have read (All The Pretty Horses and The Road), I find him to be male centric. Which is fine, in its way, however I also enjoyed Kingsolver’s The Bean Tree, which, if we are talking about Arizona education, 20th century writers and western narrative, I think Kingsolver may be more appealing to women.
Mexico City Blues by Jack Kerouac – interesting and on my reading list.
Ateam1 posted at 7:09 pm on Wed, Feb 6, 2013.
there is probably some kind of Bug, Beetle,etc. that is stopping this. But nowadays with the LIBERALS! GET IT? LIBERALS? We should be able to do anything! Only if it's, OH, Lets see What's Next on the agenda thats allowed/not allowed!!! Good Luck, Mr. Steve Pratt.
Rich posted at 11:06 pm on Wed, Feb 6, 2013.
Barbara Kingsolver is a very interesting writer,but her best a weak reflection of the great romantic writers like H. R. Haggard, Jeffery Farnol and Georgette Heyer. Her weakness is that she hasn't really broken the 19th century pattern.