Speak Up for Our Water Resources at Copper Flat Mine Public Hearing
Mining and Minerals Division to hold public hearing on Copper Flat Mine September 17
The NM Mining and Minerals Division will hold a public hearing on the reopening of the Copper Flat Mine outside of Hillsboro on Thursday, September 17 at 5:30 pm at the Hillsboro Community Center.
NM Copper Corporation has submitted a new application to the state to reopen the mine. At issue is whether or not the company has sufficient water rights to operate and close the mine despite using “filtered tailings” rather than conventional wet tailings. We continue to have significant concerns about the impacts of water use at the mine on domestic wells and to the Rio Grande, the stability of the filtered tailings storage facility and risk of a catastrophic failure, and degradation of air quality from wind blown tailings.
Background
The proposed Copper Flat copper mine is located near Hillsboro in Sierra County, in the Las Animas Creek watershed. New Mexico Copper Corporation, a subsidiary of a Canadian mining company, is seeking state approval of a revised plan to reopen and operate the mine.
The company has changed an important part of its proposal: instead of storing mine waste in a conventional wet tailings pond, it now proposes filtering water out of the waste and storing the remaining material in a roughly 500-acre dry-stack Tailings Storage Facility. The company says this change would substantially reduce the mine’s water use.
But community members and technical reviewers say the revised proposal does not resolve some of the biggest concerns surrounding Copper Flat – and in some cases raises new questions that regulators need to answer before deciding whether the mine should move forward.
Find out more in our backgrounder on the Copper Flat Mine application.
Ways You Can Participate
1) Attend the public hearing on September 17 and provide verbal public comment. Need help with preparing your public comment? Check out our toolkit here.
2) Submit written public comment to the Mining and Minerals Division or add your name to the sign-on letter here.
3) Submit a letter to the editor to your local paper. Check out our toolkit here for guidance.
Thank you for speaking up for protection of our water and natural resources!
