Judge finds feds’ environmental analysis of Arizona mine insufficient

A federal judge in Phoenix ruled that the U.S. Forest Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it approved expansion of the Pinto Valley copper mine in the Tonto National Forest without analyzing the full extent of land likely to be harmed. The mine uses more than 5 trillion gallons of water a year and reduces flow in Pinto Creek, habitat for the endangered yellow-billed cuckoo and other species.

The agency's consultant excluded more than 90% of the creek from analysis, limiting its review to areas where the water table was expected to drop at least five feet, even though the consultant's own findings acknowledged effects reaching farther downstream to a stream gauge outside that boundary. Judge Dominic Lanza called the approach arbitrary and capricious and gave the Sierra Club two weeks to propose remedies.

The judge sided with the government on two other claims, rejecting arguments that the environmental review needed specific mitigation measures and that pumping from private wells feeding the mine counted as a directly approved federal action. The Forest Service and mining company had maintained that streamflow declines were mostly natural, caused by drought rather than pumping.

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