Discovered in Arizona’s Copper Triangle, Oak Flat is home to one of the richest copper deposits in the world. But the battle to mine there — about 60 miles east of Phoenix — has been bogged down by decades of politics.
To mine or not to mine, that’s been a debate hearkening back to at least President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who signed a 1955 order, deeming Oak Flat off-limits. Less than two decades later, President Richard Nixon issued a competing order undermining those protections in 1972.
Now, Resolution Copper, a joint venture between two of the world’s largest mining companies — foreign-owned BHP and Rio Tinto — wants to extract about 1.4 billion metric tons of copper ore sitting beneath Oak Flat.
This huge ore body is buried inside the Tonto National Forest.
Because of that, only Congress can authorize a federal land swap needed for Resolution Copper to gain access to what is considered to be potentially the third-largest undeveloped copper deposit in the world.
“It’s time for Congress to put an end to these delays,” said the late Sen. John McCain during a 2012 Senate Commitee on Energy and Natural Resources hearing. “The people in my state are hurting. This mine is an economic opportunity that shouldn’t be squandered.”
McCain became the most vocal champion of the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act — a bill his chamber colleague, fellow Arizona Republican Jon Kyl, introduced in 2005.
That’s when the modern political battle for Oak Flat ramped up on Capitol Hill.
Many Arizona federal lawmakers past and present from both sides of the aisle have backed it — from Republicans Jeff Flake and Paul Gosar to Democrats Ed Pastor and Ann Kirkpatrick — but none more passionately than McCain.
“We see the same agitators trotted out to play the tired role of the industry obstructionists,” continued McCain. “This vocal minority is so philosophically opposed to any mining in Arizona, they’re willing to throw away the future. ...”
He lashed out at the San Carlos Apache Tribe by name, telling them: “Just sit down, just listen to the Resolution Copper. They refuse to do it, and yet they will urge tribal consultation.”
“Well, it’s not, it’s not fair. It’s not right,” added McCain. “That’s not what America is supposed to be all about. I respect tribal sovereignty. I don’t respect people who refuse to sit down and at least listen to something that could help the tribe itself enormously, economically.”
San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler doesn’t deny refusing to consult with Resolution Copper. In fact, it’s a badge of honor to him.
He told KJZZ the tribe should be conferring only with the federal government, adding it’s based on treaties, congressional acts and executive orders, “so that’s who we’re consulting with, through USDA and the Tonto National Forest.”
His roughly 17,000-member tribe has grievances with that process. Rambler has argued the National Environmental Policy Act — a law requiring federal agencies to consider the environmental impact of their actions — has been violated.
“This land, it’s not ours. We’re just caretakers,” Rambler stressed. “We’re here temporarily, but in that time, not only do we have to take care of our own mind, body and soul, but we have to take care of the environment, and we can’t be greedy with this.”
Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act also requires the U.S. to consult with any tribe that ascribes cultural or religious significance to historic properties, which may be impacted by the decision-making of federal agencies.
“My job is to protect our people,” Rambler emphasized, “our people’s waters, lands, natural resources, and our identity as Apache. To me, that’s at the forefront. Everything else follows it, so I’m here for the long haul.”
The federal land swap stalled for nearly a decade until 2014, when McCain — then as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee — attached that deal as a midnight rider to a must-pass defense budget that President Barack Obama signed.
Resolution Copper agreed to trade eight privately owned parcels totaling 5,459 acres with the U.S. Forest Service in exchange for 2,422 acres, including Oak Flat.
The Obama administration’s Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management both disagreed with McCain’s decision to tuck this issue into the National Defense Authorization Act.
Then-Interior Secretary Sally Jewell stated she’s “profoundly disappointed,” adding the provision “short-circuits the long-standing and fundamental practice of pursuing meaningful government-to-government consultation.”
McCain’s midnight rider maneuver also upset some Apaches.
“I remember growing up not hearing very many good things about John McCain, and I didn’t know why,” said Marcus Macktima, an assistant professor of history at Northern Arizona University.
Macktima, a member of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, has drawn a link through his academic research between two big projects Apaches fought in Arizona: mining at Oak Flat and a massive telescope atop Mount Graham.
McCain used another defense bill rider in 1988 to skirt environmental regulations for the Mount Graham International Observatory near Safford, which was constructed by the University of Arizona — partnering with the Vatican.
The observatory operates with a special use permit from the U.S. Forest Service.
Sitting inside the Coronado National Forest, the 10,720-foot Mount Graham is part of the Pinaleño Mountains and the tallest peak among the Sky Islands scattered across southeastern Arizona. Macktima explained McCain’s political maneuvering for Mount Graham created a playbook for Oak Flat.
“He might be able to get support from people on the reservation, but he’s not able to get the act passed in Congress on its own merits,” added Macktima, “and so that’s where you get the NDAA. By the end of it, [McCain] says, ‘You know, it’s not going to pass. So we gotta find another way,’ and uses the same tactic.”
That decision caught the late Democratic Congressman Raúl Grijalva off guard.
“It’s important to hear those voices. They weren’t heard in the middle of the night when it was stuck in that legislation,” said Grijalva during a 2020 oversight hearing. “There was no transparency, there was no honesty, there was no process. It was just done in the behest of a major multinational mining company, that’s why it was done.”
Since then, lawmakers in the nation’s capital have been trying to pass laws that are supposed to help protect Indigenous sacred sites located off reservations, like Oak Flat, from mining and other industries that can damage them.
The Tribal Cultural Areas Protection Act would establish a system to identify and designate public lands with culturally significant sites to tribes and provide them the authority to manage these areas.
The Advanced Tribal Parity on Public Land Act would increase tribal consultation and even prohibit the sale of public lands containing an Indigenous cultural site — where a federally recognized tribe retains treaty rights or a former reservation.
Both bills were sponsored by New Mexico Sen. Martin Heinrich and the 12-term Arizona congressman, who died Thursday at age 77.
While McCain was Resolution Copper’s strongest congressional ally, Grijalva became the biggest defender of Oak Flat. For the last decade, Grijalva re-introduced his Save Oak Flat From Foreign Mining Act. He and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders teamed up to draft the first bill in 2015.
Among the bill’s supporters: the San Carlos Apache Tribe, Tohono O’odham Nation, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, Fort Yuma Quechan Tribe, Hopi Tribe, Ak-Chin Indian Community, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community, Inter-Tribal Association of Arizona and National Congress of American Indians.
Chinese state-owned company Chinalco — also known as the Aluminum Corporation China — is Rio Tinto’s single-largest shareholder, owning just over 14% of the British-Australian company.
Grijalva worried that American public lands and the precious minerals beneath them would be simply handed over to China — the world’s largest copper processor and consumer.
Rambler echoed his concern.
“We strongly believe Resolution’s copper will be exported to China, providing no direct benefit to the U.S. renewable energy economy,” he added, “while providing a huge benefit to America’s primary adversary.”
While Resolution Copper is already committed to mining the ore and turning it into copper concentrate all on-site in Arizona, smelting is another story. Rio Tinto owns Kennecott just outside of Salt Lake City, which is one of two operating copper smelters and refineries in the U.S.
When pressed whether Resolution Copper would also smelt domestically, the company stated “our ability to make specific plans for smelting and refining of concentrate has been impacted by land exchange delays.”
Grupo Mexico’s Arsarco Hayden copper smelter north of Winkelman shut down indefinitely following a labor strike in 2020. Beyond Rio Tinto’s Kennecott, the nation’s only other copper smelter is located in nearby Miami, owned by another mining giant, Freeport-McMoRan.
“It is very practical, and makes sense, right for Rio Tinto to send its copper concentrate from Resolution to its neighboring smelter in Utah,” Resolution Copper president and general manager Vicky Peacey told KJZZ, “and making it very well positioned to conduct domestic smelting and refining to meet the United States demand.”
Most of Arizona’s copper ore exports already go to Mexico. Then, the state of Sonora’s port of Guaymas ships from Mexico to China and Asian markets.
Despite the midnight rider, Grijalva kept bringing up Oak Flat, dedicating a considerable part of his public service career to stop McCain’s land swap from being finalized.
During his five-year tenure as chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, Grijalva even invited Wendsler Nosie Sr., founder of the nonprofit Apache Stronghold, to testify amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
This 2020 oversight hearing – meant to examine the “irreparable environmental and cultural impacts” stemming from Resolution Copper — convened with House members from the Subcommittee for Indigenous Peoples.
“But I think the biggest scam was, we’re going to the land trade, then we’re going to do some analysis, and regardless of what that analysis says, the land trade goes through anyway,” added Grijalva. “And so there is no, no opportunity for the tribe or anyone else to be able to affect the change.”
Then, he asked: “We have some tribal folk in the region that are for the development of this mine. … Your response to that?”
The former San Carlos Apache chairman suggested they’d been bought off.
“When Resolution Copper has come to Indian Country, they’ve come in with an abundance of money and has fed programs and opportunities,” Nosie replied. “This is why you don’t have a lot of people here is because they’ve already spread their money all out into the different tribes and different communities.”
Arizona Democrat Ruben Gallego — then a member of the House — questioned witnesses. So did future Interior Secretary Deb Haaland — a first-term New Mexico congresswoman at the time — who was serving as vice chair of the House Natural Resources Committee.
“I just have to say that I’m sorry I wasn’t here when this bill was finagled into the NDAA,” admitted Haaland, referring to McCain’s 2014 midnight rider. “I’m sorry that I didn’t have a voice in Congress when it was important, and I have to say that when they do things like that, Native people, they’re not heard either.”
Haaland only became one of the first Native women elected to Congress in 2018.
“If your organization, Apache Stronghold, would have had, you know, a couple million dollars in the bank, you could have hired some lobbyists to come out here and say, ‘Please don’t vote for this, please make sure that stays out of the NDAA, because this effect, this will affect the future of our tribe, that perhaps we wouldn’t even be having this hearing right now.”
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The nonprofit Apache Stronghold has argued its religious freedom case all the way to the highest court in the land. On Friday, the nine justices are meeting in conference once again, and an answer may arrive as soon as Monday. -
Resolution Copper is betting on gaining access to a large and lucrative copper ore east of Phoenix. A lot of money has already been invested in the project – over $2 billion – and opponents say some of it has been used to buy influence. -
Resolution Copper wants to dig up a massive amount of copper ore beneath Oak Flat inside the Tonto National Forest. And by doing so, a site that some Apaches consider sacred may be destroyed. -
While Resolution Copper is taking a proactive approach to meet its tremendous water needs, their actions may still have a lasting and severe impact on the local hydrological landscape around Oak Flat. -
While they’re not mining yet, Resolution Copper is slowly digging its way toward the lucrative ore. In fact, the site is already home to the deepest single-lift mine shaft in North America, and KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio goes thousands of feet underground to see it for himself. -
Oak Flat — an area east of the Valley — may soon be home to a massive copper mine. It holds cultural and spiritual significance to many Apaches, whose ancestors were forced off the land by the U.S. military. -
Watch a KJZZ panel discussion about Oak Flat — an area sacred to generations of Apaches that may soon be home to one of the largest copper mines in the world.
