In Arizona, a controversial federal land swap leaves Apaches in the lurch
Al Jazeera America
Why is Congress giving federally protected Arizona land sacred to the Apache to a massive mining conglomerate?
SUPERIOR, Ariz. – A place of great natural beauty, popular among rock climbers and campers, a part of Tonto National Forest known as Oak Flat has been under federal protection from mining since 1955, by special order of President Eisenhower.
On the nearby San Carlos Apache reservation, many consider Oak Flat to be sacred, ancestral land – the home of one of their gods and the site of traditional Apache ceremonies.
But Oak Flat also sits on top of one of the world’s largest deposits of copper ore. Resolution Copper Mining, a subsidiary of British-Australian mining conglomerate Rio Tinto, has sought ownership of the land for a decade, lobbying Congress to enact special legislation on its behalf more than a dozen times since 2005.
Year after year the bills failed to pass. But in December, the legislation was was quietly passed into law as part of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has long championed the deal, said the land exchange would “maintain the strength of the most technologically advanced military in the world” since copper is the second-most-utilized mineral by the Department of Defense.
As part of the deal, Resolution Copper will swap roughly 7.8 square miles of land scattered across Arizona for roughly 3.8 square miles of Tonto National Forest, which includes Oak Flat. The new legislation will open up Oak Flat for copper mining.
But critics say the move allows the company to privatize the land and make an end run around critical environmental and cultural protections. What’s more Resolution Copper can’t promise that any of the copper produced by the mine will remain in the United States – which raises the question: How does this help national defense?
'A bad feeling’
Apache tribal council member Wendsler Nosie Sr. has been flying to Washington, D.C., to fight the land exchange for years. But this time, he said he could tell something was different. Tribal representatives were in the Capitol for the annual White House Tribal Conference when he heard the news.
“We got wind that there might be some movements happening in Washington,” he said. “It was a bad feeling because when I got there, you knew something was moving, where you were asking questions night and day but nobody was giving us a definite answer.”
Negotiated behind closed doors and with no public discussion, details of the land swap were first revealed shortly before midnight, the day before the 1,600-page defense bill was up for consideration in the House of Representatives. A day later, the bill passed the House.
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