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
SAN CARLOS APACHE RESERVATION — The San Carlos Apache Tribe has requested a meeting with five Republican members of Congress who are in Arizona to promote mining projects including the proposed Resolution Copper Mine which is owned by a company with close ties to Communist China.
The Tribe requested the meeting with Arizona Representatives Paul Gosar, Eli Crane, Debbie Lesko, Andy Biggs, and Georgia Rep. Mike Collins. The delegation is expected to tour the Resolution Copper Mine site located adjacent to sacred indigenous land at Oak Flat, 70 miles east of Phoenix on the Tonto National Forest.
“We believe it is essential for the Republican Congressional delegation to understand that the proposed Resolution Mine not only will destroy sacred indigenous land at Oak Flat, but it would also create a significant national security threat,” said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler.
Resolution Copper Company is owned by Anglo-Australian miners Rio Tinto and BHP. The company plans to construct a block cave mine that would collapse Oak Flat into a 1,000-foot-deep, two-mile-wide crater. Oak Flat is on the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Property and is culturally significant land to nine Southwestern tribes.
Rio Tinto and BHP have extremely close ties to Communist China. Last year, more than half of Rio Tinto’s and BHP’s sales were to China. The Chinese state-owned aluminum company Chinalco owns about 15% of Rio Tinto’s stock. China is by far the world’s leading importer of the type of raw copper that will be produced at the Resolution Mine.
The United States already exports 25% of the copper extracted by domestic mines because of a lack of domestic smelter capacity. There are only two operating smelters in the U.S. Domestic copper smelters have closed in recent years because they are major pollution sources emitting heavy metals and sulfur dioxide. Resolution Copper has stated it does not intend to build a copper smelter to process the raw copper. Meanwhile, China operates 9 of the 20 largest copper smelters in the world.
“We believe the facts clearly show that copper from the Resolution Mine will be exported overseas, most likely to China,” Chairman Rambler stated. “It clearly is not in the best interest of the United States to allow foreign mining companies to extract American copper and export it overseas where it will be used to develop the renewable energy economies of competing nations.”
The Resolution Mine will also seriously deplete groundwater aquifers in the East Salt River Valley. The mine is projected to use at least 775,000-acre-feet of groundwater (250 billion gallons). Arizona groundwater laws allow mining companies to extract unlimited amounts of groundwater for free. The Arizona Department of Water Resources has determined that the East Salt River Valley groundwater aquifers will be the most seriously impacted in the Phoenix metropolitan area over the next 100 years.
“The Resolution Mine will have (a) permanent negative impact on sustainable, long-term economic development in the East Salt River Valley,” says Chairman Rambler. “It is in the best interest of Tribal sovereignty, long-term economic development in Central Arizona, and U.S. national security not to build this mine.”
