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Hello, Rosemont Mine, goodbye wildlife in the northern Santa Rita Mountains.

That's the conclusion of an unusually harsh letter from the state's wildlife agency to the U.S. Forest Service on the proposed 4,400-acre mine.

No matter what the federal government and Augusta Resources do to compensate for the copper mine's effects, the project would bring significant damage to wildlife, habitat and wildlife recreation, said the letter from the Arizona Game and Fish Department.

"We believe that the project will render the northern portion of the Santa Rita Mountains virtually worthless as wildlife habitat and as a functioning ecosystem, and thus also worthless for wildlife recreation," said the letter, written earlier this month by Joan Scott, habitat program manager for the department's Tucson office. "Furthermore, the project has great potential to impact wildlife and habitat off the forest."

The letter took strong issue with the company's mining plan of operations, which predicted "disruption to wildlife habitat and use will be minimal" and that the mine would not significantly reduce hunting in the area.

"The amount of land disturbance, traffic, noise, light and general mining activities will completely disrupt wildlife in the area," the letter said.

The letter was one of 3,000 to 4,000 public comments the Forest Service has received on the proposed mine as it prepared to start work on its environmental review of Rosemont. Officially, the public-comment period that is part of the service's "scoping" process for the mine closed a week ago. The review will be finished when the agency publishes an environmental-impact statement on the mine at an unknown time.

The service and Augusta officials declined to respond in detail to Scott's letter because it is the start of the environmental review process.

U.S. to respond in document

The federal agency recently invited Game and Fish to take part as one of several cooperating government agencies in producing the environmental study. The Forest Service will respond to this letter as part of its environmental document.

Augusta is pleased that Game and Fish took the time to review the mine project and express its concerns, the company said in a written statement.

"Now it is up to the Forest Service to analyze the comments as part of the Environmental Impact Statement process," Augusta said. "It is nice to see that scoping is working."

In an interview, Scott predicted that once the mine is built, many existing deer, mountain lions and other wildlife will be driven away and will eventually die because there won't be enough food and water for them.

"A deer won't be killed on the site when they build a mine, but it will obviously move into adjacent habitat," Scott said. "If there's too many deer, some will die. . . . If you move more deer into a place with the same amount of food, only the same amount of deer will survive."

Wildlife forced out

One reason the entire area will be rendered worthless for wildlife, Scott contended, is that after pulling out the private-mining land and Forest Service land that would be affected by mining, truck noise, explosions and other disruptions, "there's not much left there" in the way of Forest Service land.

She is concerned that the Forest Service will not want to keep that as part of the forest anymore and will end up trading it all off, since it won't be able to manage the remaining land as an ecosystem, Scott said.

"Human population and urban and rural development are growing at such a rate that there will soon be a time when the only land left for the public to use for recreation, and the only land left for wildlife, will be the public land," Scott's letter said. "Because the Arizona Game and Fish Department is charged with the management and protection of Arizona's wildlife, we cannot support any action that will mean the loss of a significant piece of wildlife habitat on public land."

The tone of Scott's letter is unusual for a state agency that often doesn't take positions on major land-use disputes. But it matches the opposition that has come to Rosemont from the Tucson area's two U.S. House members, all state legislators representing the area, the Tucson City Council and the Pima County Board of Supervisors.

In addition, Gov. Janet Napolitano has written a letter in support of proposed federal legislation that would withdraw from mining activity the forest lands planned for the mine — thus killing the project.

"While mining will always be a vital part of Arizona's economy, there are certain places (such as Rosemont) where mining is simply not appropriate," Napolitano wrote to U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva, the Tucson Democrat who wrote that proposed federal legislation. "While there is a clear need to maintain a vital mining industry in Arizona, we must balance that with environmental concerns — we cannot return to mining practices of the past and leave our communities in an economic and environmental crisis," the governor wrote.

500 jobs

Supporters of the project have pointed to the 500 jobs it would directly create, along with hundreds more spinoff jobs, such as mine supplies, that would be indirectly generated. They've also noted that Rosemont would produce more than 5 percent of the United States' total copper supply and would be one of only 25 copper mines in this country.

"Opponents of the project compare the impacts of the project based on mining operations designed and built 30 to 50 years ago, ignoring the advances in reclamation technology, environmental regulations and pollution-prevention alternatives available today," said a petition in support of the mine, whose nearly 900 signatures were gathered by AMIGOS, an Arizona group representing mining industry suppliers.

"Supporters of the project realize to maintain our way of life in a competitive world, we will need to develop domestic mineral resources, use sustainable technologies, and provide employment opportunities for our growing populations to come."

Reclamation found ineffective

But Scott's letter said Game and Fish officials have never seen successful, full-scale reclamation of mining land in Arizona's dry habitats. In deserts and other dry areas, the plant life destroyed by the mine had developed over hundreds of years, and it is virtually impossible to re-establish that same vegetation quickly, Scott wrote.

"There is always a legitimate reason for the lack of reclamation, e.g., the mine is staying open to extract ore in the future, or the original company declared bankruptcy and is no longer responsible," Scott wrote. "When this happens, the wildlife and the public who enjoy that wildlife are always the losers."

If the mine is approved, the Forest Service should acquire a block of contiguous natural land next to the Coronado National Forest equal in size and wildlife value to all the forest land north of Box Canyon in the Santa Ritas that the mine would affect, Scott wrote.

"Since we cannot imagine where that piece of land could be found and purchased, we do not believe it is in the public interest to permit this mine," she concluded.