Democratic Rep. Adelita Grijalva has introduced a bill in the U.S. House of Representatives that would repeal the federal land swap of an Apache Sacred site in central Arizona and halt one of the nation’s largest copper mines.
The Save Oak Flat from Foreign Mining Act is the first bill Grijalva has introduced as a member of Congress. She won a special election in September but wasn’t sworn in until Nov. 12.
The Oak Flat bill was first proposed by her late father, Rep. Raul Grijalva, a decade ago after 2,422 acres of Tonto National Forest, including 740 acres of Oak Flat, were traded to the mining giant Rio Tinto. The new measure would repeal parts of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act that contained the exchange.
“Oak Flat is sacred, irreplaceable, and it should never have been traded away to foreign mining giants in a backroom deal that ignored Tribal Nations, silenced the public, and put Arizona’s water and national security at risk,” says Grijalva.
She says Oak Flat hold religious, cultural, historical and environmental importance to Indigenous peoples and the Resolution Copper mine near Superior would deplete water resources and create a toxic waste site.
The mine is a joint venture between Rio Tinto and BHP, two of the world’s largest mining companies. They estimate it could produce as much as 40 billion pounds of copper over four decades, making it one of the largest such operations in North America.
The companies say they’re committed to protecting the land during and after mining and have begun various land management and restoration programs. They also dispute whether Oak Flat would be destroyed by the mine.
The U.S. Supreme Court said it wouldn’t reconsider the group Apache Stronghold’s effort to block the Resolution mine. But three other lawsuits are pending in the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that are expected to begin next year.
