PHOENIX— Dozens of Tribal advocates, conservation groups, faith leaders and community organizations today urged Gov. Katie Hobbs to prevent the auction and conversion of thousands of acres of Arizona state trust land upstream from the Gila River into a massive dumping ground for mine waste from the proposed Resolution copper mine.
The Dripping Springs Valley site has been chosen as a tailings storage facility for nearly 1.4 billion tons of mining waste from Resolution Copper’s proposed mine east of Phoenix. The mine would ultimately destroy Oak Flat, a sacred Native American site.
“Gov. Hobbs has the power to stop Arizona from being used as a dumping ground for toxic mine waste and we need her to use it before it’s too late. The governor can make sure our state isn’t complicit in Oak Flat’s destruction,” said Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center for Biological Diversity. “These state lands are supposed to serve the public and future generations, not expose people and wild places to long-term risk. Arizonans deserve better.”
The U.S. Forest Service’s final environmental impact statement says the proposed facility would cover more than 9,200 acres — roughly 14 square miles — which would make it one of the largest tailings facilities in the world. Tailings are toxic and include numerous heavy metals such as lead and arsenic. The proposed site, known as Skunk Camp, would require construction of a nearly 500-foot-high dam to contain these toxic tailings over the long term.
“The Forest Service’s own analysis says the Skunk Camp tailings facility would harm people nearby, including Tribal communities and many lower-income, rural and Latino communities in the region,” said Henry Muñoz, a retired underground miner and member of Retired Miners Concerned Citizens in Superior, Arizona. “A tailings failure would contaminate the Gila River Basin all the way to Phoenix and hurt Arizonans and the environment for generations.”
The Arizona State Land Department has concluded that the proposed tailings facility would depreciate surrounding land values. In a letter sent to Hobbs today, the groups said auctioning off state trust land for the facility would conflict with Arizona’s constitutional and statutory obligation to manage those lands in the best interest of the trust’s beneficiaries.
“Arizonans would bear the environmental risks, water depletion and long-term liabilities of this project, while foreign investors reap the profits,” the letter says. “Your Administration has the authority to protect Arizona families and preserve the integrity of state trust lands by rejecting this dangerous mine tailings facility proposal.”
“Arizona’s state trust lands are held in trust to generate long-term value for schools and other beneficiaries, and that responsibility requires careful, forward-looking stewardship,” said Sandy Bahr, director of the Sierra Club’s Grand Canyon Chapter. “Approving a massive toxic tailings facility that would devalue surrounding lands and create lasting environmental liabilities is incompatible with the State Land Department's fiduciary duty. State leaders have both the authority and the obligation to ensure these lands are managed in a way that protects their value and avoids shifting long-term risks onto future generations, including the school children who are trust beneficiaries.”
The proposed tailings facility is closely connected to lands of deep cultural and historical importance, including Oak Flat, which is recognized on the National Register of Historic Places as a traditional cultural property, the Chí’chil Biłdagoteel historic district, and remains central to the religious and cultural practices of Western Apache and other Tribal nations.
“Don’t mine what can’t be remade — protect Oak Flat,” said Selena Lamas (Akimel O’odham), a member of the Brophy Xavier Native American Club, Class of 2028. “Some places are more than resources; they hold history, culture and life that can’t be replaced once they’re gone. When land like this is destroyed, it isn’t just nature that’s lost, but a part of identity and legacy that future generations will never get back.”
Resolution Copper plans to use block-cave mining to extract ore thousands of feet underground, a method that would cause Oak Flat’s surface to collapse, leaving a crater up to nearly 2 miles wide and more than 1,000 feet deep. The operation would require pumping vast amounts of groundwater – enough to supply the City of Tempe for 40 years, which would threaten regional water supplies. It would send 1.4 billion tons of mine waste through pipelines to the tailings storage facility at Skunk Camp, where it would be deposited across thousands of acres of what is now state trust land.
