Last December, the State Land Department’s Board of Appeals approved a right-of-way requested by Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals Inc. for two water pipelines, a power line, and a fiber optic line across a portion of the Santa Rita Experimental Range, which is the oldest continuously utilized long-term agricultural research station in the U.S.
“This is super huge for us,” Hudbay’s land manager Robin Barnes stated in a Dec. 8, 2022 email to Michael D. Romer, the land department’s rights-of-way project leader, moments after the appeals board approved the right-of-way during a public meeting.
The ‘super huge’ deal was about to get even better for Hudbay, which is planning to construct the Copper World/Rosemont Mine Complex that would include four open pit copper mines on the west and east flanks of the Santa Rita Mountains 35 miles southeast of Tucson.
The company was facing a dilemma, and the State Land Department was about to provide the solution, according to department records obtained last April by Save the Scenic Santa Ritas, a Tucson-based nonprofit conservation group opposed to mining in the Santa Rita Mountains.
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