Scoping Summary Report #1

Santa Rita Mountains in the Helvetia-Rosemont Mining Districts. The area covered by Rosemont Copper’s patented claims, unpatented claims, and fee lands totals approximately 14,880 acres, which include the Rosemont, Peach-Elgin, Broad Top Butte, and Copper World deposits. Rosemont Copper’s proposal is to mine the Rosemont deposit, which would disturb approximately 4,415 acres (including utility corridors) that encompass 3,670 acres administered by Coronado, 995 acres of private land, 75 acres of Arizona State Land Department State Trust land, and 15 acres administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

FRAMEWORK FOR SCOPING

All federal agencies are required to comply with the scoping regulations promulgated by CEQ under NEPA (40 CFR 1501.7). The regulations relating to scoping are general and provide federal agencies with the latitude to conduct scoping appropriate for each agencies’ mission and specific to each Proposed Action. The CEQ regulations direct federal agencies preparing an EIS to engage in a public scoping process (40 CFR 1501.7). Subsequent to enacting 40 CFR 1500, CEQ published Guidance Regarding NEPA Regulations in 1983 (Federal Register 48[146]:34283), which clarified the purpose of scoping:

The purpose of this process is to determine the scope of the EIS so that preparation of the document can be effectively managed. Scoping is intended to ensure that problems are identified early and properly studied, that issues of little significance do not consume time and effort, that the draft EIS is thorough and balanced, and that delays occasioned by an inadequate draft EIS are avoided. The scoping process should identify the public and agency concerns; clearly define the environmental issues and alternatives to be examined in the EIS including the elimination of nonsignificant issues; identify related issues which originate from separate legislation, regulation, or Executive Order (e.g. historic preservation or endangered species concerns); and identify state and local agency requirements which must be addressed.

Furthermore, the CEQ regulations for implementing NEPA state that “there shall be an early and open process for determining the scope of issues to be addressed” which “shall be termed scoping,” but they have few specific requirements. These requirements (40 CFR 1501.7[a]) include the following:

1. Invite the participation of affected federal, state, and local agencies, any affected Indian tribe, the proponent of the action, and other interested persons (including those who might not be in accord with the action on environmental grounds), unless there is a limited exception under §1507.3(c). An agency may give notice in accordance with §1506.6.
2. Determine the scope (§1508.25) and the significant issues to be analyzed in depth in the EIS.
3. Identify and eliminate from detailed study the issues that are not significant or that have been covered by prior environmental review (§1506.3), narrowing the discussion of these issues in the statement to a brief presentation of why they will not have a significant effect on the human environment or providing a reference to their coverage elsewhere.
4. Allocate assignments for preparation of the EIS between the lead and cooperating agencies, with the lead agency retaining responsibility for the EIS.
5. Indicate any public environmental assessments and other EISs that are being or will be prepared and that are related to but are not part of the scope of the EIS under consideration.
6. Identify other environmental review and consultation requirements so that the lead and cooperating agencies may prepare other required analyses and studies concurrently with, and integrated with, the EIS, as provided in §1502.25.
7. Indicate the relationship between the timing of the preparation of environmental analyses and the agency’s tentative planning and decisionmaking schedule.

Aside from these general requirements, the Forest Service has provided further regulations and policies, as allowed by NEPA, to supplement the CEQ regulations. Specifically, 36 CFR 220 clarifies, “Because the nature and complexity of a proposed action determined the scope and intensity of analysis, no single scoping technique is required or prescribed” (CFR 220.4[e][2]). Forest Service Manual 1900, Chapter 1950—Environmental Policy and Procedures, contains the agency’s policies on scoping. These policies require the Forest Service to do the following:

• give early notice of upcoming proposals to interested and affected persons (Forest Service Manual 1950.3[2][a]);
• give timely notice to interested and affected persons, federal agencies, state and local governments, and organizations of the availability of environmental and accompanying decision documents (Forest Service Manual 1950.3[2][b]); and
• have a responsible official to “ensure that an appropriate level of scoping occurs” (Forest Service Manual 1950.41[2]).

To ensure that an appropriate level of scoping occurred, Coronado consulted with its Southwestern Regional Office. The Regional Forester found that sufficient scoping activities were conducted and that it was appropriate for the initial scoping to conclude in July 2008 (Appendix A).

OUTREACH FOR PUBLIC PARTICIPATION

This section describes the objectives of the scoping process and the scoping process itself, identifies the techniques that were used to notify the public about the opportunity to be involved in scoping, and gives a brief summary of the public scoping meetings.

Objectives

Scoping is the first step and an integral part of the EIS process. The objectives of the scoping process for the Rosemont Copper Project are as follows:

• increase public awareness and understanding of the Proposed Action;
• engage the tribal, federal, state, and local governments and the public in the early identification of concerns, potential impacts, and possible alternative actions;
• identify potentially significant issues related to the Proposed Action;
• determine issues that guide alternative development and/or mitigation;
• identify and eliminate issues that are out of the scope of this process;
• identify the scope of process-related issues that are to be addressed and integrate analyses required by other environmental laws (e.g., Clean Water Act, Endangered Species Act, National Historic Preservation Act); and
• identify issues to be addressed by means of technical studies (e.g., potential impacts to air quality, visual resources, watersheds, etc.).

Description of Scoping Process

On March 13, 2008, Coronado published a Notice of Intent (NOI) to prepare an EIS for the Rosemont Copper Project in the Federal Register (73:13527–13529) (Appendix B). The NOI identified the purpose of and need for the action and the scoping process and summarized the Proposed Action. The NOI announced a 30-day scoping period for the Proposed Action, with three open house meetings in three locations to occur in March 2008. Upon request from members of the public, Coronado agreed to hold a fourth meeting in Vail, Arizona, on April 5, 2008. In a letter dated March 27, 2008, Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords from the 8th District of Arizona requested that Coronado extend the scoping period from 30 to 120 days and host three additional open house meetings in April and three additional public hearings in May and June 2008.

Coronado published a revised NOI on April 29, 2008, in the Federal Register (73:11088–11091) (Appendix C). The revised NOI advised the public of a change in the length of time during which Coronado would accept comments about the scope of the Rosemont Copper Project EIS. It also provided the locations for three public hearings at which oral testimony was recorded, along with written comments. The revised NOI announced the new scoping period end date of July 14, 2008. Comments received within this period, as well as comments received until August 1, 2008, were used to compile this scoping report and complete an analysis of the public comments. Figure 2 depicts the timeline for the scoping process.

Announcements

The EIS and scoping meetings were announced through the Federal Register, media releases, public mailings and postings, the Coronado website for the proposed project,² and Coronado’s Schedule of Proposed Actions. ³

² The Coronado website is available at: http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/coronado/rosemont/.

³ Coronado’s Schedule of Proposed Actions is available at: <http://www.fs.fed.us/sopa/forest-level.php?110305>.

Federal Register Notices

The Rosemont Copper Project EIS and public scoping process officially began on March 13, 2008, with the publication of the NOI in the Federal Register (see Appe

The initial comment period was extended to 120 days on April 29, 2008, with the publication of the supplemental NOI in the Federal Register (see Appendix C).

Coronado prepared media releases and public service announcements to introduce the project and to announce scoping meetings and locations. Media releases were sent to a standard Coronado list of contacts that included local print, radio, and television media. The list also includes federal, state, and elected officials. Paid Advertisements

Coronado placed paid advertisements in local newspapers announcing the location and dates of the public hearings. Newspapers were chosen according to the region in which the hearings were to be held. Table 1 provides the advertising schedule.

Public Mailings

The Coronado mailing list was used for the initial mailing to 370 recipients (98 federal, state, and local government entities; 59 non-government organizations; and 223 individuals) from March 11 through 13, 2008. The first direct mailing announced the details of the NOI. The mailing list was periodically revised, updated, and expanded throughout the scoping period and will be further updated throughout the entire NEPA process. Additional mailings were periodically sent to update the public on the addition of open house meetings and public hearings and the extension of the scoping period. By the time the last direct mailing had been sent announcing the last public meeting, the mailing list had grown to 1,275 recipients.

Postings

Information regarding the meetings was provided to the public via informational posting of notices at public locations. Posting locations included many areas that had been recommended by the public: public and private buildings (e.g., post offices, convenience stores in rural locations, Veterans of Foreign Wars meeting locations, etc.); mailbox clusters on rural roads; and near the Tubac, Vail, New Tucson, and Corona de Tucson communities. Postings were placed in more than 35 locations in southern Arizona. The postings were similar to the public mailings in that they provided information about upcoming public meetings, comment-period duration, deadlines for commenting, and other information that might be considered important to the public and stakeholders.

Project-Specific Website

Coronado hosts a website⁴ specifically for the Rosemont Copper Project EIS that is used to provide information to the public regarding the NEPA process, EIS schedule, public scoping, and other information pertinent to the project. The Coronado’s website provides access to Rosemont Copper’s complete MPO and supplemental documents. Website content includes fact sheets, bulletins, announcements, notices, maps, and documents appropriate for public release. The website directed the public on how to provide comments during the scoping period. The website complies with federal accessibility guidelines.

Public Scoping Meetings

Coronado hosted six public open house meetings in March and April 2008, as shown in Table 2 and Figure 3. A total of 983 people signed in. It is important to note that signing in was voluntary, and not everybody chose to do so. An unknown number of people also attended several open houses and signed in each time. Sign-in sheets were not intended to document each person who attended, but rather to provide Coronado with a list of interested individuals who may be contacted by direct mailing when the Draft EIS is published, in order to solicit additional comments at that time.

The open house format was designed to allow attendees to view informational displays, ask specialists about the Rosemont Copper Project and the EIS process, and submit written comments on-site. After careful deliberation, Coronado invited Rosemont Copper representatives to attend the meetings solely for the purpose of answering technical questions about the MPO. This decision was made because the MPO is a complex technical document, and at that time, Rosemont Copper had specialists who were in a better position to answer highly technical questions.

Coronado gave brief presentations at the Vail, Sahuarita, and Elgin open houses based on requests by members of the public and Congresswoman Giffords. These presentations provided an overview of the Proposed Action and the NEPA process.

Members of the public were provided with sign-in sheets, comment forms, fact sheets, and displays. Participants were encouraged to join the mailing list by signing in. The fact sheets and displays provided information about the following: