Rosemont Mine Economic Impact

Report on the Economic Impacts of the Proposed Rosemont Copper Project Released

In November 2009, Augusta Resource Corporation/Rosemont Copper Company (Rosemont) released a widely publicized study – An Assessment of the Economic Impacts of the Rosemont Copper Project on the Economies of the Cochise/Pima/Santa Cruz Counties Study Area, Arizona, and the United States.  In February 2010 Rosemont hosted a forum on the economic impacts of the proposed mine.  Both the report and the forum discussed only the possible short-term benefits of the proposed project.  Wholly absent is any analysis of adverse impacts, including the possible long-term public costs and risks to the regional economy that may derive from the construction and operation of the proposed mine on National Forest and other public lands.  In terms of a public policy perspective, the study commissio ned by the proponent of the project is biased and incomplete.

Absent a balanced and comprehensive analysis of the economic effects of the proposed Rosemont Mine, the Mountain Empire Action Alliance commissioned Dr. Thomas M. Power to analyze both the possible public economic benefits of the proposed project and its possible public costs and economic risks to the regional and local economies.  Dr. Power is Research Professor and Professor Emeritus, Department of Economics, University of Montana, and Consulting Economist, Power Consulting. Dr. Power was also asked to review and critique the Assessment of Economic Impacts prepared for Rosemont, to provide an economic context for evaluating the proposed project in terms of both the Tucson regional economy and the economics of the copper mining industry, and to discuss the broader non-market economic costs resultin g from likely adverse impacts of the proposed project.

Dr. Power’s analysis of the proposed project’s economic impacts on Tucson and surrounding Pima and Santa Cruz Counties raises serious concerns that are not addressed in the study commissioned by Rosemont.  Uppermost among them is that mining is no longer a corner stone of the region’s economic base.  Of the approximately 520,500 jobs in Pima County, the mining industry accounts for less than one percent of the total and is declining.  Dr. Power finds that the economic health and continuing development of this region is far more reliant upon its other and more abundant natural resources:  sunshine, exceptionally attractive natural surroundings, and superior outdoor recreational opportunities.

These irreplaceable natural resources are vital attractors of the region’s millions of annual visitors, thousands of resident skilled workers, hundreds of new businesses and industries, and the billions of dollars they generate for the regional economy.  These natural attractors are the key drivers of the region’s future and sustainable economic growth.  As a comparative measure of job-creating power, there are 22,770 existing direct jobs associated with the Pima County travel industry alone—almost 60 times as many jobs as those projected by the proposed Rosemont Mine.  Rather than being a long-term benefit to the regional economy, the results of mining public lands in Pima and Santa Cruz Counties are the long-term exclusion of public access and enjoyment, and the eventual destruc tion of the very public lands that are the drivers of the region’s future and sustainable economic growth.  Dr. Power finds that even if the proposed project has just a very slight impact on the travel industry in the region, the travel job losses could be much greater than the mining job gains.

For the Coronado National Forest, the decision-making calculus regarding the pending application of the proposed project cannot be guided solely by the possible limited and short-term mining job gains and the alleged economic benefits as set forth in the Rosemont study.  There must also be a thorough analysis of the possible long-term public costs and risks to the realization of a sustainable regional economy that the proposed Rosemont Mine would pose.

2010 Economic Study by Dr. Thomas Power

The materials were specifically prepared as scoping comments in order to assist the Coronado National Forest and their associated consultants in preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement that incorporated a full discussion of the economic and non- market costs and benefits of the proposed Rosemont Copper Project.

The report prepared for MEAA by Dr. Thomas Powers contains five separate scoping comment papers.

I. Thinking Analytically about the Local Economy and Local Economic Well Being: The Limits of the “Cattle, Cotton, and Copper” View of the Arizona Economy

II. The Economic Context in Which to Evaluate the Proposed Rosemont Mine

III. The Promises and Reality of Copper Mining

IV. Rosemont Copper’s Projections of Economic Impacts

V. Economic Values Put at Risk by the Proposed Rosemont Mine

The Mountain Empire Action Alliance also prepared a set of appendices as background material for Dr. Powers; these appendices are contains in six separate individual files:

Appendix A: Public Land Investments

Appendix B: Greater Tucson Region – Study Area

Data Table B-1: Public Land Areas

Table B-2: Public Land Values

Appendix C-1: Summary of Likely Significant Adverse Impacts on Non-Market Values

Appendix C-2: Illustrative Examples of Non-Market Values

This submittal of scoping comments also includes a copy of the Powerpoint presentation “Analyzing the Local Economic Impacts of a Large Copper Mine: Including Both Benefits and Costs” given by Dr. Powers at a Tucson meeting of the Coronado National Forest - Rosemont Interdisciplinary Team, and Cooperating Agencies on June 30, 2010, and to members of the community at public meetings in Sonoita and Tucson on June 30 and July 1, 2010.

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