#resolution copper

Excerpt from this story from the Associated Press (AP):

The transfer of federal forest land in Arizona to a pair of international companies that plan to mine one of the largest copper deposits in North America is complete, but a group of Apache women is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene as a last-ditch effort to stop the project.

The title to the land was conveyed by the federal government to Resolution Copper on Friday after an appeals court denied requests by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and environmentalists seeking to block the move.

The appeals court determined that the plaintiffs’ legal claims likely would not succeed and lifted an emergency injunction that was put in place last summer.

The land includes Oak Flat — an area used for centuries for religious ceremonies, prayer and gathering of medicinal plants by the San Carlos Apache people and other Native American tribes. The tribe, the activist group Apache Stronghold and other plaintiffs have been fighting for years to save what tribal members call Chi’chil Bildagoteel.

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I am not a Apache so I don't have any extra information to offer, but the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that would have saved sacred Apache land called Oak Flats. It's used in several important and meaningful ceremonies, including boys and girls entering manhood and womanhood. They're allowing a mining company to blow up the deeply sacred site to create a copper mine that was authorized via a land exchange bill that was passed by Congress.

RESOLUTION COPPER is the company that will be destroying the site for the mine. Email them or call them and express your concerns over the desecration of this sacred site. Reach out to APACHE STRONGHOLD to show support, donate to the tribe, help however you can! This website has lots of information about the land and ways you can help!

He harms the world in death...

The Apache Stronghold continues the fight for Oak Flat. Get involved at apache-stronghold.com. 

Excerpt from this story from Arizona Central:

A federal judge has temporarily blocked the Trump administration from moving ahead with a plan that would allow Resolution Copper to take ownership of Oak Flat and begin extracting copper on land considered sacred to Apache and other Native peoples.

Judge Steven P. Logan issued the order May 9, two days after hearing the case in U.S. District Court in Phoenix. He ruled that the government cannot publish a final environmental review of a land swap between Resolution and the U.S. Forest Service, which manages a campground at the site 60 miles east of Phoenix.

The order would remain in place until the day after the U.S. Supreme Court declines to take the case or, if it accepts it, rules against grassroots group Apache Stronghold, which filed a lawsuit to stop the exchange in 2021 and sought the temporary delay in the Phoenix court.

In his decision, Logan wrote that it was "abundantly clear that the balance of equities 'tips sharply' in Plaintiff’s favor, and that even in the short term, they have established a likelihood of irreparable harm should the transfer proceed." If the government reissued the environmental impact statement, the land swap could occur within 60 days.

Excerpt from this story from Arizona Public Media:

Superior Mayor Mila Besich comes from a family of miners, so she knows it takes a long time to open a mine. But even she is getting frustrated by the years of reviews and court challenges to the proposed Resolution Copper mine.

“The Resolution Copper project is a very important piece of our community’s economic development,” Besich said recently. “Mining has always been a part of our economy and our community.”

The nearby Magma copper mine closed in 1996 and Resolution moved in in 2004, promising to bring thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions in salary back to the area by exploiting what has been called one of the world’s largest undeveloped copper deposits.

Critics say it will bring more than that.

They say the mine will leave behind a 1,000-foot deep crater almost 2 miles across, dump millions of tons of toxic mine waste, threaten area water supplies, destroy land that is sacred to the Apache and ruin habitat relied on by hundreds of species, some endangered.

“What do we as the American public get, except for another toxic dump and loss of water when we are really struggling to get water?” asked Robin Silver, co-founder of the Center for Biological Diversity, which has been one of the leading opponents of the mine.

Lawmakers, federal regulators, and courts have been grappling with those questions for years – and both sides agree that the debate is likely to continue for years to come.

Resolution has been looking to mine the site since 2004. But it was not until 10 years later that Congress approved a measure – attached by Sen. John McCain as a last-minute amendment to the must-pass defense funding bill – that let the government swap 2,422 acres of federally owned land in southeastern Arizona with Resolution, in exchange for 5,344 acres in the area.

That started seven years of environmental and archeological review by federal regulators who unveiled a final environmental impact statement that would have allowed the land transfer to go through.

Excerpt from this press release from the Center for Biological Diversity:

Conservation groups filed a formal notice of intent to sue the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today in response to the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s decades-long failure to limit pollution in Queen Creek.

Resolution Copper’s proposed mine would discharge copper and other pollutants into the creek. The mining operation would also destroy the Oak Flat area, an Indigenous sacred site east of Phoenix.

“Instead of doing its job to protect Queen Creek, the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is allowing Resolution Copper Company to add more pollutants to an already polluted stream,” said Roger Featherstone, director of the Arizona Mining Reform Coalition. “It is time for EPA to step in to protect a creek that is valued by so many Arizonans.”

Pollution limits are an important Clean Water Act tool to improve water quality. In 2002 the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality said Queen Creek failed to meet federal water-quality standards because of dissolved copper; later it added lead and selenium to the list. But despite the creek’s formal listing as impaired, there are no pollution limits because the state has failed to finalize these standards.

Excerpt from this story from EcoWatch:

In yet another attack on the environment before leaving office, the Trump administration is seeking to transfer ownership of San Carlos Apache holy ground in Oak Flat, Arizona, to a copper mining company.

The administration pushed to finish the environmental review process, a necessary step to transfer ownership to copper mining company Resolution Copper, and its two parent companies Rio Tinto and BHP, to December 2020, almost a full year ahead of the planned completion.

"The Trump administration is cutting corners and doing a rushed job just to take care of Rio Tinto," Democratic Arizona representative Raúl Grijalva told The Guardian. Grijalva has been outspoken in his opposition to the mine plans.

"And the fact they are doing it during Covid makes it even more disgusting. Trump and Rio Tinto know the tribes' reaction would be very strong and public under normal circumstances but the tribes are trying to save their people right now," Grijalva said.

Oak Flat is a high desert wonderland full of rock spires, choppy hills, ancient oaks, medicinal plants and long stretches of desert flatland. It contains many Indigenous archaeological sites dating back 1,500 years, and is near Tonto National Forest, the largest of six national forests in Arizona. For centuries, the Apache have considered the site holy, using the area for ceremonies. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.