The Arizona State Historic Preservation Office hosted a first-of-its-kind daylong listening session in Phoenix on Wednesday. A dozen tribes shared their thoughts and concerns about cultural landscapes across the Grand Canyon State that they wish to protect.
State Historic Preservation Officer Kathryn Leonard invited the tribes because while federal agencies more often consult with them, Arizona “rarely gets to hear directly” from its 22 federally recognized tribes about their perspectives.
“We have so much to learn,” Leonard said, “from the work that they do on a daily basis to ensure that natural qualities and cultural qualities of the landscape are preserved. But they do that work for all of us.”
They talked about the Colorado River, Grand Canyon, Gila River, San Francisco Peaks and many more geographical features of cultural and spiritual significance, including a hot spring near Wikieup.
Ha’Kamwe’ is considered sacred by members of the Hualapai Tribe, but also where lots of lithium may be underground – a critical mineral needed for manufacturing lithium-ion batteries in electric vehicles like Teslas.
Australian-owned Arizona Lithium and the Navajo Transitional Energy Company began drilling 131 boreholes until a federal judge issued a temporary injunction last year, delaying exploratory drilling at the Big Sandy Lithium Project.
“If that’s being impacted by drilling, that’s not going to hold the same spiritual meaning,” said Ka-Voka Jackson, director of the tribe’s cultural resources department. “It’s going to be unhealthy. That land is being attacked, and if that’s supposed to be a healing hot spring, how is the earth supposed to heal us?”
Oak Flat – like Ha’Kamwe’ – has also been saved for now.
Last week, another federal judge from the Arizona District Court granted an injunction to halt a federal land swap until the U.S. Supreme Court has made its decision on the nonprofit Apache Stronghold’s pending petition.
President Donald Trump is backing Resolution Copper, a multinational mining company that is looking to extract the critical mineral beneath an Apache holy site – located within the Tonto National Forest. Once done, it could leave behind a two-mile-wide crater and dry up sacred springs.
“Take a step out of the reservation to go back and be active and present on your ancestral lands,” said Vernelda Grant, tribal historic preservation officer for the San Carlos Apache Tribe. “It’s not being done enough, and it continues to show, I guess, people like Trump, that those are our lands, too.”
When asked earlier this week – during a CAP roundtable – whether Resolution Copper should use at least 250 billion gallons of water through the project’s six-decade lifetime, Gov. Katie Hobbs replied: “It is imperative that we work to find the right balance, so that we can continue to build a sector to contribute to national security and our continued path forward, and mining is a part of that.”
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