Hearing on Copper Flat Mine, IV: Sierra County can’t afford to gamble with our water

Sierra County can’t afford to gamble with our water

By Lee Newman, owner of Animas Creek Nursery

More than 20 years ago, my wife and I were looking for a place to grow trees.

We looked all over the country, from Florida to Louisiana and places in between. We chose Las Animas Creek in Sierra County.

We chose it because of the water, the beauty and the landscape. We bought a small farm and built a tree-growing operation there. At our busiest, we shipped thousands of trees a week during the growing season, many of them destined for communities across New Mexico.

We thought we’d keep doing it for a long time.

Instead, I’m taking the greenhouses down to move them.

Lower Animas Creek, which used to be a permanent stream, hasn’t run in years. Over the past three or four years, I’ve watched conditions get worse. For roughly a year and a half, we haven’t had enough water coming through the pipeline we use from farther up the creek to keep the operation going. I’ve started moving our production back to Santa Fe.

That experience shapes how I think about the proposed Copper Flat mine.

New Mexico Copper Corporation wants to reopen the mine near Hillsboro, just a few miles from where I live. The company has changed its proposal and says the mine would use less water than it proposed previously. But people who live along Las Animas Creek and experts who have reviewed the proposal continue to raise serious questions about whether the company has enough water for both mining and reclamation–and what its groundwater pumping would mean for the people who already depend on this water.

Those aren’t hypothetical questions for us.

Years ago, during an earlier hearing on Copper Flat, I asked what would happen to the small farms along Las Animas Creek if mine pumping affected our water. I remember being reassured that our existing water rights would protect us and that people could drill new wells.

But anyone who lives on a small farm knows it’s not that simple.

A right to water on paper doesn’t put water back in a well. Drilling a deeper well costs money, and there is no guarantee you’ll find the water you need. Small farmers and rural families shouldn’t be expected to shoulder that risk so a mining company can operate.

I don’t say that because I believe we can simply stop mining.

My father was a mining engineer. I’ve worked in mines myself. My own background is in forestry and environmental engineering. I understand that our country uses copper and other minerals and will continue to need them.

But needing copper doesn’t mean every proposed mine is appropriate in every place.

We have to decide where mining can happen without sacrificing resources that communities cannot replace. Here in Sierra County, water is one of those resources.

That’s also why I don’t accept the idea that we have to choose between protecting our water and having an economic future.

I’ve spent decades making a living here. I believe Sierra County’s water, mountains, wildlife and open spaces are themselves economic assets. They support farms and ranches, local businesses and recreation. Those are things that can sustain this community long after a mine closes.

Copper Flat has been an issue for essentially the entire 25 years I’ve lived here. I know people get tired of hearing about the same proposed mine year after year. But the fact that we’ve been asked this question before doesn’t mean we should stop asking whether the answers are good enough.

Soon, the public will once again have an opportunity to weigh in on Copper Flat before the New Mexico Mining and Minerals Division.

I hope people in Sierra County will use it.

You don’t have to be a hydrologist, engineer or mining expert to have something important to say. If you depend on this water, if you make your living here, if you care about what this landscape looks like decades from now, then you have a stake in this decision.

I’ve spent a lot of years fighting to protect this place. Eventually, people of my generation have to hand that work to the next one.

What we shouldn’t hand them is a problem we could have prevented.

Before approving Copper Flat, state regulators should be able to say with confidence that the mine has the water it needs, that existing water users will be protected, and that Sierra County won’t be left carrying the consequences after the mining is done.

Until they can, the answer should be no.

Lee Newman is a longtime Sierra County resident, tree grower and co-founder of Newman’s Nursery. He has a background in forestry and environmental engineering and serves as vice president of the Percha Animas Watershed Association.