Augusta Resource’s top officers have a history of bankruptcies, cease trade orders and stock exchange delistings
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InvestigativeMedia is pleased to release more than 7,000 pages of Coronado National Forest records on the proposed Rosemont open-pit copper mine. The records were obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
The records include internal emails and supporting documents from January 2012 through early February providing a first-hand look at the permitting process for the proposed mile-wide, half-mile deep mine in the Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest about 35 miles southeast of Tucson.
InvestigativeMedia encourages the public and other media to analyze the information and provide feedback on this site. The goal is to encourage public-interest, cloud reporting using this site as a clearinghouse of information, feedback, comments and suggestions on additional reporting.
InvestigativeMedia will issue a series of reports based on these records and information from other sources, including the public.
The Forest Service records are in two large PDF files available here and here.
The release of records is part of InvestigativeMedia’s ongoing review of Augusta Resource Corporation’s proposed Rosemont copper mine, including the 2012 documentary Cyanide Beach.
The multimedia project includes:
The multimedia project focuses on Augusta Resource Corporation, a Vancouver, British Columbia-based speculative mining company that wants to build a massive open pit copper mine in the environmentally-sensitive Santa Rita Mountains on the Coronado National Forest 35 miles south of Tucson, AZ.
InvestigativeMEDIA reviewed thousands of pages of financial documents and conducted interviews in the United States, Canada and Italy to document the business history of Augusta’s key executives.
The probe uncovered a tangled history of cease trade orders, an insider trading settlement agreement, stock exchange delistings, personal and corporate bankruptcies, false disclosure statements to regulators and an abandoned Sardinian gold mine that is creating serious, ongoing environmental problems.
Augusta owns the Rosemont Copper Company. Rosemont is seeking government permits to build what could become one of the largest copper mines in the United States, producing 240 million pounds of copper annually for approximately 21 years.
The mile-wide, half-mile deep mine would dump waste rock and mine tailings on more than 3,000 acres of the Coronado National Forest and destroy much of a watershed that provides runoff to a rare, shallow Sonoran Desert aquifer beneath the federally-protected Las Cienegas National Conservation Area.
Coronado National Forest Supervisor Jim Upchurch announced Friday that the Forest Service will not issue a Final Environmental Impact statement or Record of Decision for the proposed Rosemont copper mine by the end of the year.
Augusta Resource Corporation, the Vancouver, B.C.-based junior mining company promoting the Rosemont project, has been telling investors and regulators that it expected the Forest Service to release the FEIS and ROD by the end of 2012, with construction to begin early next year. [Read more…]