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By: Hannah Northey

09/23/2024 04:07 PM EDT

E&E NEWS PM | The San Carlos Apache Tribe accused Interior Secretary Deb Haaland and other department leaders of failing to ensure federally required consultation is occurring around a company’s bid to explore for copper in a sensitive and fragile watershed in Arizona.

Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning on Capitol Hill. Francis Chung/POLITICO

Terry Rambler, chair of the San Carlos Apache, criticized Haaland and Tracy Stone-Manning, director of the Bureau of Land Management, in a letter last week for not doing more to ensure consultation around Faraday Copper’s proposed exploration adjacent to the Aravaipa Canyon Wilderness and within the sensitive and fragile San Pedro Watershed, an area of cultural importance to the tribe.

The activity, Rambler said, is “very close to our Tribe’s trust lands, and we think the drilling may be affecting the Tribe’s cultural and ancestral resources, water rights, and downstream interests.”

BLM “has yet to complete substantive steps in the processes required by the National Environmental Policy Act or to otherwise learn about and analyze our concerns,” said Rambler, who added that the letter was signed on behalf of more than 17,000 tribal members.

Members of the same tribe are also at the center of a protracted fight around the Resolution Copper mine in Arizona. A group called Apache Stronghold, which includes some tribe members, asked the Supreme Court last week to hear its case against the copper mine, which it argues would destroy a sacred site, Oak Flat.

That site consists of a vast grove of Emory oaks sacred to Apache people, where tribal members go to pray, hold ceremonies and collect acorns to cook with. It’s now part of the Tonto National Forest about 60 miles east of Phoenix, where the Forest Service currently has a campground.

Rambler called Faraday’s proposal “deeply alarming” and said two letters had been sent to BLM’s Arizona state director — one from the tribe and a second from the Center for Biological Diversity — but neither has received a response nor has consultation been scheduled. The tribe is asking Haaland and Stone-Manning to direct BLM to revoke or suspend the notice-level approval of exploration until consultation is considered.

“Neither of us have received a reply, no consultation has been scheduled, and Faraday Copper continues drilling on public land in Copper Creek,” Rambler wrote.

The Interior Department did not immediately respond when asked for comment.

The “Copper Creek Project” involves exploring a vast copper deposit in Arizona’s Pinal County, less than two hours northeast of Tucson in the “heart of the prolific southwestern North America porphyry copper province,” according to the company’s website.

Faraday Copper said it is exploring about 73 square kilometers that the company exclusively owns and, according to its site, has drilled more than 560 holes over an expanse of 200,000 meters to date.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the San Carlos Apache Tribe in the letter said Faraday Copper is engaging in consultation and attached a May 13 letter from Faraday and its subsidiary, Redhawk Exploration.

In that letter, the company said it had not caused any discharges that would have violated the Clean Water Act and that it had identified two ancestral cultural sites on private lands that the company owns. The company said it’s committed to preserving those sites and that Redhawk “seeks open dialogue with the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the other eleven Apache, O’odham, Hopi, and Zuni tribal nations that have traditional connections to the San Pedro Valley.”

Redhawk also said the company is operating in an area that contains legacy mine workings dating back to the early 20th century and that, should a mine be developed, reclamation of sites impaired by previous mining activity would be included.

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