1. Arizona land exchange
OAK FLAT, Arizona - In
November 2019, Wendsler Nosie Sr. sent a letter informing the U.S.
Forest Service of his
plans to "go home" to Oak Flat, a high oasis in the desert of the Tonto
National Forest in Arizona that the Apache people hold sacred.
Instead, the former president of the San Carlos Apache tribe would establish a permanent residence… there in a spiritual quest to protect the holy place from "murder" by foreign mining companies.
A few days later, Nosie
ran about 40 miles from the San Carlos Apache Indian reservation in Oak Flat,
taking with him a stick decorated with eagle feathers.
The U.S. Forest Service is expected to release a final environmental review of the proposed mine - months ahead of its previous schedule and five days before President-elect Joe Biden's inauguration.
This decision would
trigger a 60-day delay for the government to complete the land exchange.
Once the deal is
finalized, Nosie expects he will be forced to leave his Oak Flat camp.
On Tuesday, Apache
Stronghold, a nonprofit tribal advocacy organization, filed a lawsuit to
prevent the Forest Service from issuing the statement;
Arguing that the land swap
violates Apache tribal religious freedom and due process rights.
Nosie, the group's
founder, said he had done everything possible to fight the powerful forces
defending the giant mine.
"I pray the country
to wake up, because once the water is contaminated and gone ..." he
paused, breathing a deep sigh;
"We are contemplating a disaster for our
children and grandchildren who are still being born. They will suffer the
consequences.
2. The first Biden attitude
Biden has not publicly
addressed Arizona's controversial project.
The incoming administration is already under
pressure to block the land swap, if it were to be finalized before its January
20 inauguration.. by quickly canceling the Trump administration's final
environmental review.
In plans released during the election campaign, Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris promised to reverse the Trump administration's retreat.
From many protected sites
and to give tribes a greater role in the management of public lands.
For generations, the Apache
people have held religious and cultural ceremonies in Oak Flat, known as
Chi'chil Bildagoteel in their native language.
The area northeast of Phoenix
is home to burial sites and ancient petroglyphs.
To this day, the Apache
return to Oak Flat to pray, hold sunrise dance ceremonies for young women and
gather medicinal plants and acorns from old emerald oaks.
Its inscription on the
National Register of Historic Places indicates that "historical
documentation, Apache oral history and archaeological sites.
Clearly show that Chi'chil Bildagoteel is an
important feature of the Western Apache landscape as a sacred site, a source of
supernatural power… and a basic element of their traditional way of life.
The Resolution Copper Mine
would erase most of Oak Flat from the map.
Using an underground
mining technique called panel spelunking, the company plans to mine some 40
billion pounds of copper.. worth more than $100 billion, supplying up to a
quarter of U.S. copper demand over the life of the mine.
Over time, however, the
vast underground operation will collapse in on itself, engulfing this historic
native cultural site in a crater 2 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep.
3. U.S. government promise
In 1955, the U.S.
government that led the Apache people off their ancestral lands and into
reserves made a new promise, declaring a 760-acre section of Oak Flat closed to
mining.
But that pledge began to
crumble in 1995 with the discovery of the vast Resolution copper deposit.
Rio Tinto and BHP would
spend most of the next two decades exploring the site and lobbying Congress to
lift the mining ban at Oak Flat.
Several bills have been
introduced, but all have failed.
Nosie rebuilds his camp at
Oak Flat on January 9.
In anticipation of the
Trump administration finalizing a land exchange with Resolution Copper., Apache
Stronghold moved his camp of occupation deeper into the Emery oak grove.
Then in 2014, Arizona's
two then Republican Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake engineered a
workaround.. slipping a last-minute provision into the 2014 military spending
bill.
That authorized the
transfer of Oak Flat and its environs to Resolution Copper in exchange for
5,300 acres that Resolution owned scattered across Arizona.
McCain - who in 2014
received $7,500 in contributions to the Rio Tinto campaign, more than any other
congressman – argued..
At the time that the land
swaps was a bipartisan "compromise" that copper was necessary to
"maintain the strength of the world's most technologically advanced
military," …
And that Apache tribal
leaders "declared Oak Flat campground not a sacred site.
The San Carlos Apaches
oppose the Resolution Copper project on religious grounds.
But Nosie stresses that
everyone should be concerned about the potential environmental impacts and the
precedent that the mining agreement would set for the privatization of
culturally rich federal lands.
4. Copper mine: project fear
The tribe has found many
allies. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Representative Raúl Grijalva
(D-Ariz.) introduced … companion bills in 2019 to cancel the Oak Flat land
swap.
And many environmental groups have lent their
support.
"They've led a very
concerted and courageous fight to stop this," said Randy Serraglio., a
conservation advocate at the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity.
"
The conservation group
promises to attack the Trump administration's decision with all the tools at
its disposal., and Serraglio said there is no doubt that litigation will show
that the final environmental review is flawed.
Nosie's camp at Oak Flat
on January 9th. Later in the day, he and other members of Apache Stronghold
moved the camp deeper into the Emery oak grove.
Opponents of the project fear that the Resolution copper mine is a repeat of recent environmental damage by Rio Tinto in Western Australia.
Last year, the company
destroyed old rock shelters at Juukan Gorge while expanding an iron ore mine.
The 46,000-year-old caves were sacred to the
Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura indigenous peoples.
It was only after outrage
over investor pressure on Rio Tinto that its CEO and two other company
executives resigned.
Company president Simon
Thompson issued a statement saying the company was "determined to ensure
that the destruction of a heritage site., of such exceptional archaeological
and cultural significance will never again occur in a Rio Tinto
operation".
Yet he continues his solid
copper project in Oak Flat.
Resolution Copper said it
was "committed to preserving Native American cultural heritage" in
the area and promised., that its operation will not damage Apache Leap.
But the draft
Environmental Impact Statement the Forest Service released in August 2019
clearly states that the mine and land exchange.,
"has a very high
potential to directly, negatively and permanently affect many cultural
artifacts, sacred seeps and springs, traditional ceremonial areas, traditional
ceremonial areas, resource … gathering communities, burial sites and other
places and experiences of great spiritual and other value to tribal members.
5. Now, Biden Rescinds Trump Decision
An independent analysis
concluded that there is a 9% chance that the mine will cause destabilization
and collapse of the Apache Leap cliffs, The Guardian reported in November.
Other major concerns
include adverse effects on species at risk, including ocelot, and the potential
for groundwater contamination.
It may have been former
Arizona GOP senators who slipped the Oak Flat land swap into an independent
military spending bill., but it was the Trump administration that worked to
make the mine a reality.
Commerce Secretary Wilbur
Ross met with Rio Tinto executives at least three times… according to schedules
obtained by the New York Times.
He visited the site of mine
in early October.
"The United States
particularly appreciates global companies like Rio Tinto that choose to engage
in projects like this on our shores…"
Ross told the event,
applauding President Donald Trump's "pro-growth policies.
At a meeting with
community leaders late last year, Forest Service officials revealed they were
"under pressure from the highest level… of the Department of Agriculture"
to speed up the environmental review, The Guardian reported in November.
The Forest Service told
that it was not commenting on the ongoing litigation. Resolution Copper insists.,
that the permitting process has not been expedited, but rather is "behind
schedule. »
If Trump's team cements
the land swap before Biden takes office… It will be a fitting coda to his
legacy of emptying the protections of wilderness and culturally important
places and undermining tribal sovereignty.
In Utah, he dismantled the
Bears Ears National Monument, a 1.35 million-acre landscape.
That houses thousands of
Native American archaeological sites and is the only monument honoring tribal
cultural heritage.
In Alaska, he ran to sell
oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
Which the native Gwich'in
of northern Alaska and Canada call "the sacred place where life begins.
Six weeks after these
facts and issued an environmental impact
statement green lighting the project on land known as Oak Flat in January.
Biden Rescinds Trump Decision to Turn Arizona Land Into a Copper Mine on Monday04/3/2021 .
The move
reflects the change of sea between the Biden and Trump administrations’
approaches to land, extraction, and Indigenous rights.
