Asarco pays more [65 million] to upgrade its Tuscon Mill than it will to clean up over 100 years of smelting and nearly ten years of illegal hazardous-waste incineration at El Paso TX [52 million]

Asarco pays more [65 million] to upgrade its Tuscon Mill than it will to clean up over 100 years of smelting and nearly ten years of illegal hazardous-waste incineration at El Paso TX [52 million].  And, how do we know that ASARCO isn't running another unpermitted Hazardous Waste Operation like it did from 1991-1998? They said the same thing - that they were increasing production and decreasing pollution when they put the new ConTop furnaces in El Paso Asarco 1992...

"Asarco Copper Mill to Double Output While Cutting Dust Emissions

11/10/2011

The Arizona Daily Star

By Tony Davis, The Arizona Daily Star, Tucson

Nov. 10--Asarco will nearly double production at a mill south of Tucson, but it says it will reduce dust emissions slightly by adding pollution controls in a $65 million upgrade.

The mining company wants the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality to revise its air quality permit so it can increase the amount of copper ore running through its Mission Mine's south mill by about 71 percent....  County regulators say they agree with Asarco's calculations that emissions will decline despite the higher production levels.

The mill, just south of Pima Mine Road and west of Interstate 19, is one of two at the Mission complex, which employs about 625 people.

After the mine expands the south mill's production capacity, total employment will rise by perhaps 10 to 15 people in about the first quarter of 2013, said Tom Aldrich, Asarco's vice president of environmental affairs."

http://southwest.construction.com/yb/sw/article.aspx?story_id=165754240