Oak Flat – Apache Sacred Ground – DEIS Comment period
Please check this out and then comment on the DEIS.
For a little background into, check this out: https://sacredland.org/oak-flat-united-states/, then take a minute to look through their website at some of the other films this project has produced.
DEIS Commenting info:
The Tonto National Forest has released a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) (https://www.resolutionmineeis.us/documents/draft-eis) examining Rio Tinto’s Resolution Copper mine proposal and is asking for your comments.
The deadline for comments is November 7, 2019. Please go to our alert (http://org.salsalabs.com/o/676/p/dia/action4/common/public/?action_KEY=23780) to learn more and to edit a sample comment letter to send to the Forest Service.
The DEIS contains some frightening information about what this proposal would do to Oak Flat and thousands of additional acres of public land. However, much of that data minimizes the damages and there is a large amount of information about this project that is missing.
Rio Tinto proposes a huge experimental underground block cave mine that would create a 2-mile-wide 1,000-foot-deep crater at Oak Flat, would dump a billion and a half tons of toxic mine waste into an unlined toxic tailings dump, and would and would use enough of Arizona’s precious water to supply the city of Tempe, Arizona, for 40 years. What could possibly go wrong?
Foreign mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP have formed a subsidiary called Resolution Copper that is planning to build a large underground copper mined under Oak Flat Campground. Oak Flat is sacred to Native Americans and is a recreational and ecological haven. The proposal would not only destroy Oak Flat, but thousands of additional acres of public and would decimate water sources over a wide area.
Oak Flat has been one of my primary outdoor recreation sites for over 40 years. I have hiked extensively from the highway down past the 5 pools, from the escarpment over to Rawhide Canyon and beyond; both in the canyon itself and the many trail which crisscross the area from bulldozer trails created to install the powerlines to barely discernible trails which may pre-date the arrival of Europeans. There are very few remains of the ranches that were there and even less of the nomadic/seasonal occupation by earlier inhabitants.
One of the things that has impressed me the most in the canyon is the availability of water from live springs throughout the year and through droughts. This water is not mentioned very much, but it is an important part of the discussion because of the role it plays in the ecology of the region. Year round water in the desert is rare and the presence of sign from apex predators like lions is an indication of a vibrant community, the loss of which will probably have a negative affect on the region.
The effect of the mine on the ground water is difficult to predict because there is little known about it and the entity that has the most recent and detailed information is not sharing it with anyone or chooses to cherry pick data to serve their cause.
I don’t have the details, but I understand that the productivity of the Magma mine was compromised because of the volume of water that was flooding the mine at the -6000 ft level at a rate that made it difficult to pump out. That water will still be there and flowing down stream towards the Gila River if the area is block mined carrying all of the toxic chemicals with it.