Apache Women Urge Supreme Court to Block Copper Mine After Land Transfer

A group of Apache women rushed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court last week after the federal government completed the transfer of Oak Flat to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary of mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP that plans to extract one of the largest copper deposits in North America.

Title to the land was conveyed on Friday, March 13, after an appeals court denied requests by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and environmentalists to block the move and lifted an emergency injunction that had been in place since last summer. The Apache women, joined by the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the activist group Apache Stronghold, and environmental plaintiffs, had spent years fighting to protect the site. The Supreme Court filing represents their most urgent action yet.

The site at the center of the dispute is Oak Flat, known to tribal members as Chi'chil Bildagoteel, a parcel of federal forest land in Arizona that the San Carlos Apache and other Native American tribes have used for centuries for religious ceremonies, prayer, and the gathering of medicinal plants. The appeals court, in denying the injunction, acknowledged the full weight of what the transfer means: the ruling recognized that it "will fundamentally alter the nature of the land and lead to the destruction of sites sacred to the tribe and other plaintiffs."

Despite that acknowledgment, the court ruled against the plaintiffs. "Despite those grave harms to Native religious practice, Congress has chosen to transfer this land, and plaintiffs have not raised any viable challenges to that decision," the court stated.

Resolution Copper, the project's developer, estimates the mine will generate $1 billion a year for Arizona's economy and create thousands of jobs. The project has backing in the nearby community of Superior, where Apache Leap Mountain overlooks the town. Supporters have pointed to the site's national strategic importance, with one advocate quoted in connection with the transfer arguing the project "unlocks a major domestic source of copper, essential for defense, grid modernization and next-generation energy, and positions the nation to secure its future by expanding mineral production and unleashing America's full resource potential."

The Resolution Copper facility, whose mine shafts 9 and 10 rise above the company's operations in Miami, Arizona, sits at the center of a project that has drawn years of litigation and protest. Apache Stronghold and tribal members argue no economic projection changes the spiritual and cultural destruction that underground mining at Chi'chil Bildagoteel would cause.

Whether the Supreme Court will halt the project now that the land has already changed hands remains the defining legal question. The transfer's completion narrows the available remedies, but the Apache women and their allies have made clear they intend to press every option that remains.