What's Missing?

I have to confess: I still haven't made up my mind yet whether the Resolution Copper Mine will be a good thing for Superior or not. On paper, I think, what's not to like? It would provide for 3000 jobs once it's up and running. It would be the biggest mine in Arizona. The president of the mine says it will provide the US government five billion dollars in revenue and the state of Arizona 2 and a half billion dollars and that doesn't include revenue from the worker's paychecks, etc. It should be a win/win situation.

But on the other hand? On the other hand, the 'sleepy' little town of Superior won't stay the same. The mine will be running twenty-four seven. It will be all underground and lots of automation. It promises not to be anything like what the community of miners has come to expect around here. It will burrow seven thousand feet into the mountain and do its mining underground. Seven thousand feet! That's like a mile and a half. All down under our feet. And what's not to guarantee that it won't all crumble inward? The mine president has reassured the townspeople that contingency would not happen. That they would know well before such a thing would happen and take precautions for it. But.... are they sure? Would they really?

So that's why I'm on the fence about the whole mine thing. I would love to see Superior get some new businesses going and be able to keep its young people employed so they wouldn't have to leave the community once they graduated from high school. I would love to see Main Street actually bustling like it did in the old days, now nearly fifty years ago. But I'd rather see all of that with some assurances that the majestic Apache Leap wasn't going to pitch inward into the mountains it has sprung from or wipe out the town if its underpinnings all go missing.

Hey, I'm not a geologist. I'm just a person who loves the mountain and loves the view and some of this high faluting talk about such a big mine so far underground kind of drives me nuts.

Last Thursday night at the town council meeting, the mine president gave a talk. The federal bill granting the land swap to the mine and guaranteeing the mine's success is stalled in the Senate. The bill, in one guise or another, has been dicking around Congress for about three years now. The House finally passed it last year, and now it only has until next December to get through the Senate. Resolution Copper is starting to weary that the bill will be passed. They say they have allocated a hundred and five million on getting this mine started up and are reluctant to part with more money until they are assured they will be getting the land they want. They have spent something like fifty two million in the reclamation of the old Magma Mine just west of the town. They have rebuilt the old red brick hospital into a suite of offices. They've done a lot for the town in the past three years. But they are businesspeople and they want action. So this year, they say, they will be winding down their activities after March and adopt a Wait and See attitude. Their technical crews will depart for venues in other parts of the world where bureaucracy isn't so prevalent. What I thought was fairly puny of them was that they would not be offering their scholarship to the high school this year. Surely, you guys who can spend a hundred and five million in this little town, could still afford to dig up enough money to fund the scholarship, couldn't you? That's mean!

And what I found compelling when I opened up this week's paper was that there wasn't one hint of what the mine president said at last week's town council meeting about closing up shop and leaving town come March. Not one little note about it! If you hadn't been one of the thirty or forty people at the meeting last week, then you hadn't heard it. I dunno! I'm a Newbie at Small Towns but this one is a mystery to me. Something big and life changing as this mine is and it's all done with very few knowing anything about it. Am I missing something?