Contributed Photo/Courtesy Sacred Land Film Project: Oak Flat, Chich’il Bildagoteel, is at the center of a dispute between the San Carlos Apache Tribe and Resolution Copper.
Contributed Article/Courtesy SCAT
San Carlos Apache Reservation, Ariz. — The San Carlos Apache Tribe strongly disagrees with a recent Arizona Supreme Court ruling that determined the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) properly renewed a water pollution permit for the proposed Resolution Copper Mine.
“This ruling will allow Resolution Copper Company to dump contaminated water pumped from its proposed mining operations into already polluted Queen Creek,” said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler. “The decision amounts to an egregious gift to Resolution Copper Company and a serious blow to the environment. The Tribe is reviewing all options including an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
The Tribe has vehemently opposed the construction of the proposed Resolution Copper Mine because it will destroy Chi’chil Bildagoteel, also known as Oak Flat, a sacred Apache religious site located in the Tonto National Forest about 70 miles east of downtown Phoenix.
The Tribe sued the ADEQ in 2017 for treating the new $2 billion-plus Resolution Copper project that will exploit an untouched ore body as part of the old Magma mine which began operations in 1912 and was shuttered in the 1990s.
The Superior Court affirmed the ADEQ’s decision before the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the Tribe in 2022. The appeals court determined the ADEQ improperly issued an Arizona Pollution Discharge Elimination System (AZDPES) Permit to Resolution Copper as an existing source rather than as a new source.
Because Queen Creek already violates water quality standards established in the 1980s, a new source determination would have required ADEQ to develop Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) standards for copper discharges into Queen Creek before it could issue the permit to Resolution. ADEQ and Resolution appealed that ruling to the Arizona Supreme Court arguing that the Resolution mine, which has not yet begun operations, was simply a continuation of the defunct Magma mine and was not subject to the TMDL standards.
The Arizona Supreme Court agreed with the ADEQ and ruled that Resolution Copper did not construct a new source because the proposed new mine will use parts of the Magma mining operations and, like Magma, will also mine copper.
Surprisingly, the decision only considers the 7,000-foot-deep Mine Shaft #10 that Resolution constructed and ignores all the new mineworks where mining will take place.
In addition to petitioning the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari, the Tribe may challenge future permitting decisions to the extent the current permit is limited to the new shaft and does not include the mineworks that the court ignored.
“The Tribe believes the facts clearly show that Shaft 10 along with new mining processing operations constitute a new pollution source and that Resolution Copper must meet the more stringent pollution control standards,” Chairman Rambler stated.
