Appeals court also blocks proposed Arizona copper mine

The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Thursday declined to overturn a 2019 decision that blocked the development of Hudbay Minerals’ planned Rosemont openpit copper mine, in Arizona.

In a split decision, the court agreed with the District Court of Arizona’s ruling that the US Forest Service relied on incorrect assumptions regarding its legal authority and the validity of Rosemont’s unpatented mining claims in the issuance of the final environmental impact statement.

Writing for the panel’s majority, Circuit Judge William Fletcher said that no one disputed that Rosemont had valid mining rights on the land where it planned to dig the 3 000-feet deep by 6 500-feet wide openit. However, the 1.9-billion tons of waste rock that the company planned to dump on 2 447 acres of National Forest land was an issue.