The Santa Rita Mountains of Arizona. ($1LENCE D00600D via English Wikipedia)
(CN) A Canadian mining company should be permitted to pile waste rock on U.S. Forest Service land in Arizona near a planned open-pit copper mine, attorneys for the federal agency and the company told a Ninth Circuit appeals panel Monday.
The U.S. Service Forest Service approved placement of a tailings pile, which would cover 2,700 acres, on “open land” land not covered by a mining claim located two miles from the planned site of the Rosemont copper mine. But in August 2019 a federal judge ruled the agency misapplied regulations that govern where Rosemont Copper Co. can put the waste overturned the agency’s approval of the mine.