Copper at the Crossroads

Though the rumor of gold and silver brought many intrepid pioneers to Southern Arizona, it was copper that convinced them to stay.

This region’s fate has been inextricably tied to that of the ore hidden in its dirt since at least 1854, when a few émigrés from San Francisco started up the Arizona Mining and Trading Company in Ajo just after the Gadsen Purchase gave that dirt to the U.S. But it took the coming of the railroad and the defeat of the Apaches in the late 1800s to really get the digging going.

By the 1920s, the young state of Arizona was among the world’s top copper producers, already responsible for 46 percent of U.S. copper production. And it would stay that way as long as world wars and world-building and -rebuilding kept up demand for the useful metal. A copper culture grew alongside the owners’ bank accounts, and names like Phelps, Dodge, Asarco, and Anaconda became nearly synonymous with the basin and range territory. The copper mining giants built towns from the ground up, and employed several generations of Arizonans in relatively high-paying jobs.

But there were drawbacks. Endemic racism kept salaries unequal; if you were a Mexican or a Chinese miner you made less than an Anglo miner, no questions asked. If you were loyal to a union, you were liable to get your skull cracked. Often times, especially in the early days, you weren’t paid in greenbacks but rather company script to be spent only at the company store.

And then there are the scars. Any economy based on the fickle price of one metal is going to get caught in an endless boom and bust cycle, and copper country has been through several turns. Towns came and went with the company—good times when copper prices were high, bad times when they were low.

Copper mining in Southern Arizona has been primarily of the porphyry variety, meaning the deposits are found in “highly disseminated, non-vein deposits with less than 3 percent copper,” writes historian Charles K. Hyde in his 1998 book “Copper for America.” “The successful exploitation of low-grade porphyry deposits starting in the early 20^th Century revolutionized copper mining throughout the West.”

While low-grade copper in many ways made Arizona what it is today, it takes a mighty big hole to make money out of a 3 percent grade. As a result, huge tracts of Southern Arizona have a decidedly post-apocalyptic aesthetic—actually, several Hollywood movies depicting life after the collapse of society have been filmed at abandoned open-pit mines around the region.

The last 20 years of so of the 20^th century and the first few years of the 21^st weren’t boom times for the copper industry, and many of Southern Arizona’s mines scaled back or shut down altogether. Lower demand and increased production from mines in third-world countries, mines often controlled by a government, put a skid on good times. Around the same time, citizens began to question the balance—was large scale, open-pit mining a good bet for the future of a region that was relying more and more on tourism, and hence its natural environment, to bolster its economy? What would become of the scarred land after the miners packed up for good?

It took a while, but eventually politicians on both sides of the aisle would catch up with the citizenry. Oversight increased, and mines began to be held somewhat accountable for their impact on land, water, and air. Things have changed, as was evidenced early this year when county supervisors, both Democrats and Republicans, from Pima and Santa Cruz Counties made it known that they would like to limit new mining in their counties and reform the often vilified federal mining act of 1872. Such positions would have been unheard of 50 years ago.

Now, in 2007, the industry is again on the boom, and has been for several years owing primarily to growth in China and other emerging nations. Mines long mothballed are starting up again throughout the state, and start-up firms, many of them from Canada, are eyeing the ore-filled hills of the state once again.

“Copper prices that averaged $3.31 a pound in 2006 resulted in a record production value of $5 billion for copper,” according to the report “Arizona Metallic Resources, Trends and Opportunities, 2007” completed by the Arizona Department of Mines and Mineral Resources. “Anticipation of continued strong demand is driving acquisition, exploration, and development activity including the entry of a number of new companies.”

Indeed, by most industry accounts, the rumors of king copper’s decline have been greatly exaggerated. In 2005, Arizona accounted for 62 percent of the U.S. Copper production, and the industry as a whole has a $3.5 billion direct and indirect impact on the state’s economy. At just one mine, the gargantuan Morenci Mine operated by Phelps Dodge, now Freeport MacMoran Copper and Gold, produced 815 million pounds of copper in 2006.

Preliminary numbers for the full-year 2006 indicate that U.S. copper mining production rose by 6 percent over the previous year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey’s “Mineral Industry Survey” for December 2006. A weak U.S. housing market and high prices, which “encouraged destocking along the entire supply chain,” according to the USGS, sent U.S. consumption of refined copper down by 6 percent last year; however, total world usage increased by 2.6 percent.

These numbers suggest that, despite the changes in public attitudes toward mining and an overall decline of the industry’s scope, Southern Arizona is likely to remain copper country for years to come. But there will always be a price to pay for mining the metals we need. According to the group Westerners for Responsible Mining, of the 10 U.S. mines with the highest potential taxpayer liability (meaning the price it will cost to clean up the mess if a mining company defaults on its promises), five are in Arizona—Morenci Mine, $934.1 million; Ray Mine, $457.1 million; Mission Mine, $414.9 million; Sierrita Mine, $404 million; San Manual Mine (the only one on the list not currently in operation) $343.1 million.

The question for Arizonans would seem to be, which numbers are more important?

Originally published: Green Valley News