Loren Thomas has lived in the Coppermine community on the western Navajo Nation for about 12 years.
Under salmon-colored sandstone, he and his partner herd their Rambouillet sheep and grow native corn, cucumbers, radishes and spinach.
“My livelihood is totally center[ed] around the preservation of our Diné way of life, relying solely on your land and your animals and then cultivating your own food,” Thomas says.
That way of life may change. A mining company is considering digging for copper on grazing land near the Coppermine chapter house, which serves as a division of local government, similar to a town.
The chapter is named after an open-pit copper mine run by Coconino Copper and Chemical Co. in the 1930s, which eventually closed in 1968 and underwent reclamation.
While Thomas acknowledges the possible economic benefits of a new mining project, he believes there will be real consequences.
“I … see the effects and the detrimental environmental impact that it will have on our land,” he says. “Like I just stated earlier, our livelihood surrounds solely on our produces — on products that we provide from our animals.”
Another community member, Elivra Nowlin, suspects historic copper mining in the area caused health issues in her family. For that reason, she opposes any potential mine.
“My family live[s] about a quarter of a mile away from the old copper mine,” Nowlin says. “And cancer … is a big issue in my family. My mom, she initially started with cancer in her bones, and then it went to her breast, and now she has skin cancer.”
But those affiliated with Essential Minerals, the mining company conducting initial reconnaissance of the Coppermine area, say the mine would be safe. Essential Minerals is a subsidiary of Chakana Copper, a Canadian minerals exploration company that also has an operation in Peru.
KNAU could not find studies that have definitively linked health issues in the Coppermine community to past mining activities.
Industry’s interest in the community
Adrian Dotson is a business development director for ETD, a Navajo-led environmental consultant firm in Flagstaff that Essential Minerals contracted to do outreach. He points to the economic value of jobs in the Coppermine chapter area, as opposed to residents having to travel to nearby Page or Flagstaff for work.
“We've heard from the people … that they want to maintain their way of life,” Dotson says. “So, if we can do the mine for 15 years — and also the other part of it is that we're working with the chapter to formulate a community benefits agreement.”
That community benefits agreement, which Dotson describes as being about what the mine can do for the community, would be legally binding and could contain regular road maintenance, scholarships, infrastructure projects and more, he says.
He wants chapter leadership to give Essential Minerals input about what they want in the agreement, which hasn’t been signed or written yet. Critics say while such agreements, also called CBAs, are often effective in holding companies to their promises, that’s not always the case.
“We're gonna take our time to build the relationships and earn that trust,” Dotson says.
At some point, the proposed project in Coppermine chapter could move from the ongoing reconnaissance phase, which involves geologists walking in the area and collecting samples, to exploration.
Exploration would require chapter support and Navajo Nation Resources and Development Committee approval.
It would also entail going through the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) process, approval from the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs and a host of studies and evaluations, according to documents shared on Facebook.
If exploration identifies a viable mining site, the process would then move to development and operations.
The mining project could operate for 10 to 15 years with about 300 jobs during construction and about 150 jobs during the operation phase, Dotson explains. It could wind up being around half a mile to two square miles once it starts up.
The company would mine by processing sandstone-hosted copper deposits on-site, according to David Kelley, the CEO of Chakana Copper and the president of Essential Minerals.
He acknowledges the history of environmental contamination from uranium mining on the Navajo Nation but says that stricter regulations in force today would make any copper mine they build safe. If the mine moves forward, he says water would be contained in a closed-loop system along with dust control.
Concerns about health
But Elvira Nowlin is concerned the dust control won’t be enough.
“Our worry is that when the wind blows — and it's really windy in Coppermine a lot, like most days are windy — so all of that's gonna get into our grazing land,” she says. “We're gonna be breathing that in. Like, there's still a lot of health risks to that.”
In March 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order allowing expedited permits for projects that will mine critical minerals, in part to reduce dependence on foreign nations and adversaries. In November 2025, the Trump administration added copper to the list.
The Center for Western Priorities, a nonpartisan conservation group, argued the move prioritizes resource extraction over other uses for federal land and raised concerns about speedily-approved mines’ environmental impacts.
On May 2, community members like Thomas walked in protest ahead of a public workshop hosted by Essential Minerals on the possibility of a copper mine.
Back in August 2025, Nowlin and Thomas say the chapter took a vote on whether or not to back a reconnaissance permit for Essential Minerals. They say a majority of attendees at that meeting voted against the idea, though Kelley and Dotson say there was “misinformation” about the mining process at that meeting. The Navajo Nation Minerals Department later gave Essential Minerals the permit.
Thomas acknowledges there’s a lack of studies on the correlation between copper mining in the chapter area and health impacts on residents. But he has his suspicions.
“There really has been no studies that were done to justify that's … happened,” he says.
“But orally, just knowing that when the [old] mine opened and individuals started working, they started coming in with health complications” like asthma and cancer, Thomas adds.
Kelley says his company wants to build trust.
“We understand there are a lot of concerns with the environment and with health,” Kelley says. “We plan on addressing all of those questions every step of the way. And, you know, these [public] workshops are one way to do that.”
