31 Mines and Tailings Dispute

Early prospectors had found rich copper deposits in Arizona, both east and west of the Gila Valley, but remoteness and danger from Indians delayed serious mining operations there until about 1870. Clifton, near the New Mexico border, is Arizona’s oldest copper town. The mines at Clifton and nearby Morenci were acquired by Arizona Copper, and later by the Phelps Dodge Corporation. They continue among the world’s major copper properties.

The mines and Gila Valley residents had a symbiotic relationship. The mines provided some employment by direct hiring and by such projects as the railroad construction work Andrew had done. The mining communities also provided a market for the livestock and farm products grown in the valley. But the relationship experienced strains over water.

Not only the quantity of water, but its quality affected farmers in the Gila Valley. The several mines dumped tailings into the San Francisco River, which drained into the Gila, and thus into irrigation canals, leaving on the soil a milky-white sediment that farmers believed injured their land. Objections by individual farmers received little attention, but when Andrew spoke for the farmers as a group he received a respectful hearing.

Soon after Andrew arrived in Arizona he entered into correspondence with James Calguhoun, manager of Arizona Copper in Clifton, about the tailings issue. Calguhoun’s letters to Andrew are unfailingly cordial, but it is difficult to tell whether that reflects his true feelings or is just a business posture.⁴¹²

In May 1899, Calguhoun agreed to have chemical analysis made of the river’s water at several points along its course.⁴¹³ The testing in 1899, overseen by a committee of three—Andrew for the farmers, Calguhoun for the copper company, and E. R. Stafford, the Graham County surveyor—satisfied Andrew that the tailings at six hundred tons per day did not cause significant harm.⁴¹⁴ In March 1900, Calguhoun expressed regret at the farmers’ continued concerns and offered further investigation, but said, “The analysis previously taken shew that no ill effects could follow from the dumping of our tailings into the river, and the garden immediately below Clifton is an eloquent proof to the same effect.”⁴¹⁵

Andrew took the position that the tailings issue should be determined scientifically, not anecdotally.⁴¹⁶ However, complaints continued.⁴¹⁷

By 1903 the mines dumped 1,450 tons of tailings per day. The mining companies asserted that there was no proof that the increased dumping did any harm, but they “promised and have begun to take care of the tailings from the mills.”⁴¹⁸ They created nine settling ponds to reduce the quantities getting into the river.

Their efforts, however, did not satisfy the farmers. One wrote in 1903:

I wish to call your attention to the fact that the leaching works at Clifton that run into the Gila River carying with it all the sediment from the leaching works into the River from whitch all of the valley is watered and the sediment is ruining the land I have experimented with it by erigating and cultivating there by sturing the sediment into the ground and when the soil gets dry the soil becomes very hard and cracks open and the white sediment can be seen down two or three inches and it makes the soil very hard like plaster or lime morter and when it gets dry it burns the vegetation to death wher I used to rais fine strawberries and other garden crops very sucessful now I cannot rais any thing grass and weads will hardly grow I think that in a few years the land in the valley will be entirely spoiled.⁴¹⁹

The situation soon became a matter of litigation. Andrew wrote the First Presidency that he had advised Mormon farmers not to join in the suit against the copper company, because the cost of litigation would be ruinous. “Some of our suspicious and grumbling brethren, . . . have impuned the honesty of myself and brethren for staying proceedings and keeping our people out of endless and we believe, fruitless litigation.”⁴²⁰ Some believed the cordial relationship between Andrew and Calguhoun of the copper company caused Andrew to be biased in favor of the copper company.⁴²¹

In the summer of 1904 there had been no rain for nine months, and tailings pollution of the scant water in the river was extreme.⁴²² Pleas to the federal government failed.

The court decree in Gillespie v. Arizona Copper Co. ultimately resolved the matter. The November 1907 ruling held that the mining companies could not flush tailings into the rivers and that farmers’ representatives could at any time inspect mine operations to insure against violations of the court’s order.⁴²³ It appears that Andrew was badly mistaken both about the tailings and about the prospects of success in the lawsuit.