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At least one resident of Rancho Resort wants Asarco mine to pay to clean up outside his home after a storm last week dusted the community west of Interstate 19.

"The problem Asarco has caused has not gone away," Jack Belove said.

He asked Rancho Resort officials to contact Asarco and request that the mine clean his patios and those of many neighbors in the retirement community north of Sahuarita Road.

"The gray powder deposited from their mine tailings does not clean up after repeated sweeping and spraying with my water hose," he said. "I have priced power spraying equipment and it runs between $200 and $300. I have also had my patio professionally cleaned but to no avail."

Follow up:

High winds Dec. 22 blew clouds of dust off the Asarco mine tailings nearby, and residents have found the dust that initially coated their homes, patios, windows and fruit trees remained a vexing problem a week later. Some are still running air purifiers.

Rancho Sahuarita Community Director Tom Murphy is looking into that issue, developer Bob Sharpe said.

Asarco Mission Complex General Manager Richard Rhoades and Environmental Manager Kirshna Parameswaran said they will respond once the request is received and that they are putting together a team to evaluate changes in berm building with the objective of preventing recurrence of dust storms.

Meanwhile, county regulators said in a Notice of Violation issued last Wednesday that Asarco violated standards in a similar Nov. 12 incident, when dust from the tailings was so thick it blocked 61 percent of light passing through for a six-minute period. The county standard is 20 percent opacity, or light blockage.

Asarco could get another violation notice for the Dec. 22 incident. The mine told the county in a self-reporting document filed the next day that dust blocked 75 percent of the light at one point.

The Pima County Department of Environmental Quality said in the notice issued for the Nov. 12 incident that Asarco has not frequently enough "smeared" the tailings dam with wet tailings, which help control dust, since the mine began expanding the dam on Sept. 14.

The county's notice ordered the mine to immediately smear the tailings dam and to do so at least every 60 days.

Rhoades last week said the company had started smearing the dam; was employing two tanker trucks to spread a dust suppressant polymer; and had suspended construction work on the 10-foot lift, or increase in the height of the 100-foot-tall dam. Rhoades said the company and has nearly completed construction.

The county also ordered the company to develop and implement a plan to put down wet tailings every 60 days during construction work and to "develop criteria when meteorological conditions warrant more frequent application to control fugitive emissions."

This week's incident was the third since early November, counting the Nov. 12 and Dec. 22 incidents, both of which Asarco self-reported, and a Dec. 7-8 overnight incident that triggered complaints from neighbors. That one was not subject to self-reporting or county sanctions because it mostly occurred at night and so the opacity, or blockage of light, could not be measured, PDEQ spokeswoman Beth Gorman said.

Gorman said that because there are two documented incidents and the overnight incident within two months, it is possible the county would fine the mine up to $10,000 a day. However, the mine has 30 days to respond to the Notice of Violation for the Nov. 14 incident before any sanctions would be imposed, and the investigation would have to be completed on the Dec. 22 incident, which could take several weeks, she said.

Asarco met with Rancho Resort residents after the Dec. 7-8 dust storm and pledged to do all it could to control dust.

By Philip Franchine, The Sahuarita Sun