- Courts ruled that federal land sacred to indigenous tribes could be transferred to international mining companies.
- Oak Flat in Arizona has been a sacred site for centuries, but sits atop one of world's largest copper mines.
- The Supreme Court denied Apache women's request to intervene as the mine operation moves forward.
Federal forest land in Arizona was officially transferred to a mining company owned by two international companies late last week after decades of legal battles over its future.
The reason for the lengthy debate stemmed from a cruel synchronicity where one of the world’s largest copper deposits was found underneath a sacred site for local indigenous tribes.
Last Friday, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ended an injunction that had paused the land exchange. It found that the arguments brought by a coalition of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, conservationists and another group of Apache women would be unsuccessful in courts.
“Because plaintiffs’ claims are unlikely to succeed on the merits, we affirm the district court’s denial of plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction against the land exchange,” read the opinion from Judge Milan D. Smith Jr.
This past Thursday, Courthouse News Service reported that the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request by some of the plaintiffs to intervene.
“In a loss for Apache women, Justice Elena Kagan refused on Thursday to pause a massive Arizona copper mining project set to turn a sacred religious site into a 2-mile-wide crater,” reporter Kelsey Reichmann wrote.
The ruling and subsequent denial of assistance means that Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of the British brand Rio Tinto and the Australian mining outfit BHP, could begin work on the mine.
It has been more than 10 years since legislation was passed allowing the mine to break ground.
“This is a remarkable day for both Resolution Copper and Arizonans,” Vicky Peacey, Resolution Copper president and general manager, said in a statement.
After expressing gratitude to President Donald Trump and several executive agencies that made “this milestone possible,” she added that, “their leadership has paved the way for one of the most significant private investments in rural Arizona’s history and unlocked the second-largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world.”
Mixed reactions to the decision
The news was cause for celebration for some and sad for others.
“We are thrilled about today’s outcome,” Mila Besich, the mayor of Superior, the town where the mine is located, said in a shared press release with the private mining company.
“Resolution Copper has been an excellent community partner over the past decade. Through the land exchange, Arizonans will receive thousands of acres that will become part of two National Conservation Areas, providing long-term conservation, habitat and cultural heritage protection, and recreational opportunities.”
Resolution Copper said that the mine has the potential to inject $1 billion annually into the Arizona economy, while creating thousands of jobs. During the drawn out legal battle, it made a number of concessions to protect parts of the region that would otherwise be consumed by the mine pit.
“The land exchange involves the transfer of more than 5,400 acres of environmentally and culturally sensitive land containing special status species and Native American cultural sites for inclusion in National Forests and National Conservation Areas to the USFS and Bureau of Land Management,” according to the Resolution Copper press release. “In return Resolution has received over 2,400 acres of land adjacent to the historic Magma Copper mine.”
But some elected officials in the region are frustrated. U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva, D-Ariz., has already taken congressional action to overturn the litigation and legislative methods that allowed the mine to go forward in the first place.
“I am deeply disappointed by this decision which will allow drilling to immediately begin at Oak Flat — a sacred and irreplaceable place for the Apache people,“ she said in a statement. ”Oak Flat is not just a piece of land: it is a place of prayer, ceremony, and identity for the Apache people. This site should never have been traded away to foreign mining giants.”
The legislation the freshman representative introduced is her first. The Save Oak Flat From Foreign Mining Act seeks to repeal the land swap and “to protect the sacred ancestral lands of Chi’chil Biłdagoteel while exploring every possible avenue to rectify this injustice.”
Across the border in New Mexico, Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., was incensed by the court’s ruling and framed it in light of Trump’s campaign promises.
“Donald Trump just gave the title of Oak Flat — a sacred site to Indigenous communities in AZ and NM — to a “FOREIGN-OWNED” copper mining company,“ she wrote on X. “These are public lands that have been protected for generations, as communities have warned mining and drilling would destroy this sacred landscape and drain its waters. Trump’s “America First” is a scam — it never was about putting Americans first, but Trump and his buddies’ pocketbooks. Today is a sad, sad day for the people who have fought to protect this sacred place for generations. We will continue to fight back!”
What’s the backstory?
The area of sacred significance is called Oak Flat. It’s in the Tonto National Forest, about 40 miles east of Phoenix. It has been used by the San Carlos Apache and other tribes for religious ceremonies and medicinal plant gathering for centuries.
The deposit of copper sits beneath it — about 7,000 feet below the surface — and was once associated with the Magma Copper Mine in the town of Superior. That mine was active for the majority of the 20th century, but closed in 1996. Resolution Copper took over ownership in 2004 and has pursued mining the full deposit since.
Congress passed a bill allowing the land to be transferred to the international corporation in what was then considered a “must pass” Department of Defense spending bill in 2014. President Barack Obama signed it into law.
In the years since, the effort to transfer the Forest Service land to Resolution Copper has been gummed up at many stages of its permitting and implementation process.
While the 9th Circuit judge recognized the inherent challenges of the circumstances, he ruled in light of the decisions of Congress.
“Plaintiffs have failed to show a likelihood of success on, or even serious questions regarding, any of their claims,” he wrote. “We nonetheless recognize that this land transfer will fundamentally alter the nature of the land, including destruction of those sites sacred to the tribe, the Lopez plaintiffs, and similarly situated Native individuals. Despite those grave harms to Native religious practice, Congress has chosen to transfer this land, and plaintiffs have not raised any viable challenges to that decision.”