Earlier last year, Darrin Lewis paid $ 800,000 for a hardware store in a small Arizona town where mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.L) hopes to build one of the world’s largest underground copper mines.
Rio buys materials from Lewis’s Superior Hardware & Lumber for its Resolution mine site, accounting for a third of the store’s sales and helping keep it afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
But U.S. President Joe Biden suspended the mining project last month in response to concerns from Native Americans who say it will destroy the sacred land and environmentalists who worry it will swallow water in a drought-stricken state.
This fueled the anxiety between Lewis and other people here in Superior, Arizona, who want to reap the economic benefits of a mine that would harvest more than 40 billion pounds of copper.
“I sank everything I have in this place,” Lewis said, surrounded by hammers, nails and other items in his store. “It would absolutely devastate us if this mine didn’t open.”
By stopping the project, Biden reversed a decision by predecessor Donald Trump that he would have given land to Rio for the mine. Biden ordered further government analysis of the project.
The ongoing struggle pits conservationists and Native Americans against local officials and residents who support their economic benefits. The complex debate is a harbinger of the battles to come, as the United States intends to build more electric vehicles, which use twice as much copper as those with internal combustion engines. The Resolution mine could cover approximately 25% of U.S. cooperative demand.
The Arizona dispute centers on Oak Flat Campground, which some Apaches consider to be home to deities known as Ga’an. There are religious ceremonies at the site, near the San Carlos Apache Reserve, to celebrate teenagers. Many Apaches have ancestors buried under volcanic rock.
In 2014, the Obama administration and Congress began a complex process to give Rio 3,000 acres of federally owned land, including the camp, in exchange for 4,500 acres that Rio owns nearby. Biden has stopped this transfer.
The White House did not respond to any requests for comment.
“If Rio gets this place, the mine will kill the angels and deities living here,” said Wendsler Nosie, a member of the San Carlos Apache tribe who has run a protest camp for 18 months at the site. A sign there describes the earth, known as Chi’chil Bildagoteel in the Western Apache language, as the physical incarnation of the spirit of the earth.
Nosie has garnered widespread support for his cause, aided by greater global attention to the rights of indigenous peoples. Rio himself fueled this cause last year when he blasted culturally significant Aboriginal rock shelters in Australia.
If the land exchange is approved, Rio has said it will keep the campsite open for decades to come before the underground mine causes a crater to engulf the site. The company has also said it will seek tribal consent for the project and study ways to avoid the cause of the crater.
“Land exchange gives us the opportunity to collect more data and then we can refine our plans and look for ways to avoid and minimize” site damage, said Vicky Peacey, Rio’s senior project manager. .
Rio, based in Australia and the United Kingdom, has also pledged to preserve other cultural sites, including the Apache Leap, a rocky cliff overlooking Superior and where the Apaches jumped to their deaths to avoid the capture of American troops in the late 19th century.
“AMERICAN COPPER”
Politicians in Superior, a city of 3,000 people who voted nearly two to one in favor of Democrat Biden last November in a majority Republican county, are now urging the president to change his mind.
The land exchange, if Biden approves, would also allow the city of Superior to buy more than 600 hectares, according to officials, which are crucial to diversifying the local economy by expanding the airport, developing an industrial park and building affordable housing. .
“President Biden will have to make brave decisions,” said Democratic Mayor Mila Besich.
Mining is key to achieving Biden’s goal of expanding production of electric vehicles, he said. “We’ll need more American copper,” he said.
Although the region has long been popular with hikers and campers, it is best known as the “Copper Corridor,” with mines from Freeport-McMoRan Inc (FCX.N) and others.
The closure of the Magma Copper Mine in 1996 devastated Superior’s economy. Officials have now set their hopes on Resolution. Since the copper deposit was first discovered in 1995, Rio and minority partner BHP Group Plc (BHPB.L) have spent more than $ 2 billion digging an exploratory mine shaft and dismantling an old Magma smelter. . They have not yet produced copper. BHP declined to comment.
More than half of the Superior Center buildings are empty. Several Tesla Inc. (TSLA.O) charging stations hint at the city’s aspirations to be part of the electric vehicle boom. Nikola Corp (NKLA.O) and Lucid Motors are building their own EV plants within 80 km.
Rio has pledged to hire 1,400 full-time workers with an average annual salary of more than $ 100,000. That is, almost half the population of a city whose average income is one-third lower than the national average.
“What is sacred to my community is that people have jobs and have homes,” Mayor Besich said.
The mine would increase state, local and federal tax coffers by $ 280 million annually and add $ 1 billion to the state’s economy, the Arizona governor said.
Besich backtracked when studies showed that Rio would only pay the city $ 350,000 a year in taxes, well below the $ 1 million it would need annually to increase policing, firefighting and road maintenance. .
Rio agreed to pay more to the city, secure Superior’s water supply, and donate $ 1.2 million to the school district. Superintendent Steve Estatico said without Rio’s support schools in the district (where enrollment has dropped 13 percent since 2016) could close.
“Rio has had to learn over the last few years that it can’t take host communities for granted,” Besich said.
STOLEN NEGOTIATIONS
The Apaches of San Carlos, one of the first Native American tribes to endorse Biden’s presidential candidacy, have not negotiated with Rio because its tribal council favors direct talks with the U.S. government, President Terry Rambler said.
Rio copper chief Bold Baatar said he hopes to negotiate directly with the tribe when he visits Arizona as early as June, once pandemic restrictions allow.
“We are listening to everyone’s concerns,” Baatar told Reuters. “There will be no mine until we get the maximum effort to ask for consent.”
Not all local Native Americans oppose the mine. Some members of the White Mountain Apache tribe, whose reserve lies north of the San Carlos Apaches, say they do not consider the camp a sacred place.
“The belief that the place is religious is news to me,” said Alvena Bush, a White Mountain Apache councilor who supports the project.
WATER CONCERNS
Rio has dug a mine shaft almost 2 km underground in a plot of land near the camp. The lower part of the axis has become a starting point for future mining operations.
The miner drains water from the nearby copper tank to facilitate extraction. More than 600 gallons of water are pumped every minute to surface treatment plants for use in local agriculture.
Rio plans to exploit the copper using a technique known as block caving. It involves cutting a cave from a large section of rock, which then sinks under the weight of the rock above, creating a crater 3 miles wide and 1,000 feet deep.
This method would damage aquifers that feed two local sources, according to an environmental study by the U.S. Forest Service. The entire mine would reduce the groundwater available in the area, which has been in drought since the late 1990s, according to the report.
“This land will be useless if there is no water to accompany it,” said Henry Munoz, who leads a group of retired senior miners who oppose the project.
Biden is expected to decide later this spring whether to cede land for the mine to Rio. Lewis, owner of the hardware store, hopes his situation will be considered among all competing interests.
“If I had anything to say to President Biden, it would be,‘ Let the mine open, ’” he said.
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