Oak Flat is an area about an hour east of Phoenix that is a sacred site known to Apaches as Chi’chil Bi?dagoteel. Home to a diverse desert ecosystem, it’s also currently federal land within the Tonto National Forest. In December 2014, a land-exchange rider to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act Bill was added.. The bill included the Oak Flat land exchange which gave multinational mining company Resolution Copper this area, located in Tonto National Forest, to build one of the world’s largest copper mines, the largest in North America. The mine is slated to permanently decimate Oak Flat and surrounding desert features. Apache and mining-reform activists had been successfully fighting the proposal for nearly a decade before this “backroom deal” was made in Congress. Currently the Forest Service is undertaking an environmental impact statement, a legally mandated assessment that must be completed before the land exchange is finalized. We are fighting to repeal this land exchange.
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