Dust Control – Soil Stabilization – Erosion Control

Posts Tagged ‘tailings dam’

Asarco officials told Rancho Resort residents Friday that an analysis of tailings from their community and a nearby tailings dam showed the dust is not much different from soil samples taken nearby and contain no dangerous levels of metals.

That didn’t seem to satisfy many among the 150 people who attended a meeting that included Asarco and several environmental agencies and experts.

University of Arizona Soil Water and Environmental Science professor Raina M. Maier tried to reassure residents that the dust that blew into their yards and homes is not dangerous based on tahe results of a laboratory analysis that Asarco handed out at the meeting. However, Maier did say the small size of the minute dust particles represent a health problem when inhaled..

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Asarco is promising to modify its tailings-dam construction practices to reduce the odds that dust will blow off its Mission Mine property into neighboring homes in Sahuarita.

The Tucson-based multinational company also is disputing most of Pima County’s allegations of violations stemming from two major dust storms late last year in which mine tailings landed in Sahuarita homes and gardens. The dust storms stirred neighbors’ concerns that the tailings damaged their homes and threatened their health.

Those violations, alleged by the county in December, could prompt hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, the maximum allowable under state law, County Administrator Chuck Huckelberry has said. Now the county Department of Environmental Quality will review Asarco’s statement – submitted Wednesday to meet a county deadline – to determine if fines are warranted and, if so, how large they should be.

While Asarco has acknowledged that the tailings dust blocked visibility by more than county standards allow, it said that contrary to the county’s allegations, it did take reasonable precautions to prevent the dust from leaving its property. The county’s allegations failed to account for the high winds blowing on Nov. 12 and Dec. 22 when the violations occurred, the company said.

Late Wednesday, Ursula Kramer, the county DEQ director, said her staff still believes the violations cited in the notices to Asarco were valid.

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