Copper has been mined in Arizona since before it was a state, with some of the oldest operations dating back to the 1860s.
It’s the reason San Manuel exists — about an hour outside Tucson. The town was set up entirely by Magma Copper Company in 1953.
David Prough is trying to preserve that history at the San Manuel Historical Museum.
Glass display cases with copper and other precious metals are sandwiched by old metal lunch boxes used by miners, and black-and-white photos showing the original blueprints of the town.
“If you move here, it’s a mining community. It’s no secret. If you don’t like mining? That’s all I’m going to say,” he said. “We used to have a bowling alley here, we used to have a theater, a drive-in-theater, at one time, there were three banks in town. This is a community put together by copper.”
That version of San Manuel vanished more than two decades ago, after Magma Copper Company sold the mine to a company called BHP that closed it in 1999 — when the price of copper dipped down.
“The copper mine built this town — Magma Copper literally built the houses and the school, and this building,” said Laurie Smalla, a San Manuel resident who volunteers with a local nonprofit called the San Manuel Revitalization Coalition. “But then copper is also what destroyed this town isn’t it? When it closed its doors without any warning.”
Smalla says young families and retirees like her have moved here for the striking mountain views and affordable homes. Several foreign-owned mining companies still have offices in the area. But most working people have to commute to other places.
Copper is used in everything from cellphones and medicine, to electric cars and solar panels. And more than 60% of all U.S. production of the mineral comes from Arizona, according to a 2024 report from the Arizona Geological Survey.
Copper mining began in earnest here in the 1880s and was a leading industry for the next seven decades.
Manufacturing and health care have since surpassed copper mining as Arizona’s top industries. But more than 14,000 people are directly employed in hardrock mining statewide today, according to the Arizona Mining Association. Some 467 mining projects are active or developing mines in the state today — about 5% of which are mining copper and other metals.
‘It should be the five C’s and W’
That history, and present, is apparent in the Galiuro mountain range, about 20 miles east of San Manuel.
This is one stop in a miles-long stretch of Arizona called the Copper Corridor, where the mineral has historically been mined. A shock of golden leaves from cottonwood trees reveals where surface water flows through tight canyons. Old wooden bridges mark some of the oldest mining operations, and a big, plastic-lined pond holds tailings and wastewater from more recent mining activity that’s being remediated.
Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, is raising a drone camera into the air along a rocky stretch of dirt road deep inside the range.
He’s flying over drill sites that look like dirt parking lots with yellow circles. Last summer, the Bureau of Land Management approved a proposal from a small company called Faraday Copper to drill on federal land at 67 nearby sites in search of more ore.
“These are what the pads look like, so that’s, they’ve prepared that for drilling,” McSpadden said.
This is exploratory drilling — any actual mining could still be years away. But Faraday’s initial proposal is to create a multimillion-dollar mine that would last for 32 years and consist of six open pits, a site for waste materials, and other infrastructure, according to the company.
The Center for Biological Diversity is concerned about the impact on deep underground aquifers that ecosystems and nearby communities rely on.
“You know, everyone talks about the five C’s in Arizona, copper and cattle, and cotton and the rest. But, yeah, it should be the five C’s and W, because water is essential to all of those,” McSpadden said.
Stacey Pavlova, vice president of investor relations and communications with Faraday Copper, said mine exploration will disturb less than 50 acres of federal, private and state land — most of which she says is in areas where other mining has already occurred. She said the company has over 20 full-time employees and contracted employees who are Arizona-based.
If the exploratory drilling leads to a mine, Pavlova said the company anticipates hiring more than 200 people during the construction phase, and more than 500 during full build-out.
McSpadden worries that if the full mine goes through one day, groundwater will be depleted — a loss he says Arizonans can’t afford.
“People need water to survive. And we’re seeing, more and more, that when a mining company comes in, they often get unbridled access to Arizona water,” he said.
More waste for less copper
Steven Emerman, a geology professor and the owner of environmental impacts mining consultancy firm Malach Consulting, says the calculus that goes into copper has also changed.
“What we’ve seen is a very steady and continuous fall in the grades of copper ores since, like, the middle of the 19th century,” Emerman said.
In other words, the quality of copper being mined from the earth has plummeted. In the 1850s, the average ore grade was about 25% copper. Today, it’s less than 1%.
“So at the present time, for a ton of copper, you get about 500 tons of waste,” he said.
Emerman says that means modern mining operations are generating more waste and consuming more water for the same amount of copper.
“Is it worth it? Well, that’s what you have to consider. You have to balance the benefits and the risks. But then the question is always — but, who is doing this balancing? Who is receiving the benefits and who is suffering the risks?” he said.
A 2020 economic report from the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management identifies copper as the state’s third most exported commodity. Emerman says communities next to mining operations deal with the aftermath of the multibillion-dollar industry.
“It’s the people of Arizona, the downstream communities, including communities in Mexico, who are going to bear the risk,” he said. “It’s probably always been part of history, where there’s sort of an unequal bearing of benefits and risks. What we have now is simply that the scale of the risk is so enormous — magnitude of the mine waste, the magnitude of the water that’s being consumed.”
That’s a calculation Laurie Smola, with the San Manuel Revitalization Coalition, says towns like hers are making now. She thinks locals are open to many economic opportunities — including a new copper mine. But people are also more skeptical of embracing a new operation without questions.
“You know, you’ve got a part of this community that mining is their family history, but to think about where a mine would be? You know, nobody wants it in their backyard, but yet none of us can live without copper,” she said.
She says whatever comes next, she thinks the community will play a larger role in how it looks.
