#tontonationalforest — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #tontonationalforest, aggregated by home.social.
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“If they take #OakFlat, they destroy our #religion & who we are,” said Vanessa Nosie, an archaeology aide for the #SanCarlosApacheTribe who also helps her father lead a nonprofit fighting the mine. Lozen, she added, is “dancing to carry the fight for all we’re trying to save.”
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #HistoricPlace #Arizona #ApacheLeap
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#Mining #OakFlat, however, would eventually transform the landscape, creating what geologists say would be a vast crater. To prevent this, the tribe & other opponents of the mine have filed multiple lawsuits & tried unsuccessfully to get one of the cases heard before #SCOTUS. A federal appeals court will hold a hearing for several of the suits in early January.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona
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The company #ResolutionCopper believes there are 20 million tons of #copper under #OakFlat that could supply up to ¼ of the US copper demand over 40 years. At today’s prices, experts say that much copper would be worth about $200 billion. The company asserts it will create more than a thousand jobs in an area with high unemployment.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona #SanCarlosApacheTribe
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What worried many of those who came to this mesa in mountainous southern #Arizona in early October was the very real possibility that this Sunrise Dance might be the last one at #OakFlat.
Oak Flat sits on one of North America’s largest undeveloped deposits of #copper. The mineral is used in dozens of items, including smartphones, electric vehicles & solar panels.
#conservation #law #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #Apache #SacredLands #TontoNationalForest #mining #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanLands
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Surrounded by a hundred family & fellow tribal members, dancers, singers & medicine men, she would perform the Sunrise Dance, reenacting part of the #Apache creation story. At the end, after she had been daubed in clay to represent the mythological mother of all Apaches & ritually cleansed, Lozen would emerge as a young woman.
#law #conservation #ChíchilBiłDagoteel #SacredLands #ApacheStronghold #TontoNationalForest #NativeAmericanLands #Arizona #SanCarlosApacheTribe #ApacheLeap #mining
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Not surprising...😠
#ApacheStronghold -- Supreme Court Again Declines to Protect Sacred #OakFlat
By Apache Stronghold, via @bsnorrell.blogspot.com, Oct. 6, 2025
Apache Stronghold - Supreme Court update
"This morning, we received word the Supreme Court has decided not to reconsider our case. While this decision is deeply disappointing, the fight to protect Oak Flat is far from over.
We will continue pressing our case in the lower courts. In addition to our case, three other cases are also seeking to protect Oak Flat, and the Ninth Circuit will hear oral argument in those cases on
January 7, 2026. We’ll also keep urging Congress, the President, and federal agencies to stop the destruction of Oak Flat and protect our ancestral sacred land.Oak Flat deserves the same respect and protection this country has long given to other places of worship.
Wendsler Nosie Sr. responding to the Supreme Court result, 'First, thank you everyone for all the hard work. You have been a blessing to us all in our country. Most importantly deep within us we
knew, but now we definitely witness the truth of this country, by the Supreme Court taking no action. What is evil created the unfairness, not just to us human beings but to all of God’s creations. When this country was founded, humans with the heart of #greed worked to mute the voice of the Creator. By this undertaking, we now live with a third entity, who was created to take and destroy every blessed
gift God gave us through our #MotherEarth. We know this evil as #Corporations, which comes from
#capitalism which #colonizes people. We must defend what is spiritual, holy and God’s greatest gift to us all, our Mother. Today is a new day for me as I now take the blessings from Usen (God), to walk
the footsteps of the purpose I was blessed with and no longer be a captive.'America has shown us the government’s true intentions, we are unheard and ignored once again. Our judicial system’s voice is muted by capitalism, the ultimate destruction of Mother Earth has been given permission as if they control her, she supplies our lives not the reverse. Such a sad reality.
We call on all people to pray, to raise their voices, and to join us in defending Mother Earth. Thank you for standing with us."
Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/10/apache-stronghold-supreme-court-again.html#SanCarlosApache #ChichilBildagoteel #WesternApaches #Fight4OurExistence #SacredLand #ReligiousLiberty #CensoredNews #Apache #ProtectOakFlat
#CopperMining #CorporateColonialism #SaveOakFlat #ProtectTheSacred #SCOTUS #SCOTUSIsCompromised #TontoNationalForest #ResolutionCopper #RioTinto -
#SanCarlosApache Tribe welcomes Federal Court ruling delaying trade of sacred Oak Flat to Chinese-backed #ResolutionCopper
By San Carlos Apache Tribe, Censored News, June 9, 2025
#SanCarlosApacheNation, #Arizona — "The San Carlos Apache Tribe welcomes Friday’s federal court ruling preventing the Trump Administration from trading sacred Oak Flat to Chinese-backed Resolution #CopperMining no sooner than 60 days after the government releases an environmental report expected to be published later this month.
"The #Trump Administration had indicated that it intended to trade 2,422 acres of #TontoNationalForest 70 miles east of #PhoenixAZ that includes Oak Flat to Resolution Copper immediately upon publication of the mine’s updated environmental report.
U.S. District Court Judge Dominic W. Lanza’s order 'preclude(s) the United States Forest Service from proceeding with the challenged land exchange until 60 days after the issuance of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, which is anticipated to be issued on June 16.'
" 'We are grateful that Judge Lanza has provided us an opportunity to be heard,' said San Carlos Apache Tribe Chairman Terry Rambler. 'The two-month window provides the Tribe an opportunity to file an amended lawsuit challenging the legality of the pending environmental report and request an injunction to stop the land exchange until the merits of our case are settled.'
"The Oak Flat land transfer was mandated by a last-minute amendment to the FY2015 #NationalDefenseAuthorizationAct that was added by the late Arizona Senator #JohnMcCain and former Arizona Senator #JeffFlake. The land transfer provision, which failed to pass Congress in previous years, avoided the normal course of business and was not debated before it was added to the mustsign [#NDAA] defense spending bill that was signed into law by President Barack #Obama.
" 'The bill that authorized the land exchange is not in the best interest of the American people, Arizona or the San Carlos Apache Tribe,' Chairman Rambler stated. 'We have filed this lawsuit because of our concerns of the mine’s massive use of groundwater, which will be devastating for both Arizona
and eventually the Tribe. We are also deeply concerned about the environmental destruction and the obliteration of Oak Flat will have on Apache culture and religion.'"Resolution plans to collapse Oak Flat, known as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel in Apache, into a two-mile wide, 1,100-foot-deep crater. Chi’chil Biłdagoteel is listed in the National Register of Historic Places as a Traditional Cultural Place.
"Resolution Copper is owned by Melbourne-based #BHP (45%) and London-based #RioTinto (55%), the two largest mining companies in the world. The Chinese state-owned Aluminum Corporation of China, which spearheads China’s acquisition of strategic minerals worldwide, is Rio Tinto’s single largest investor with a 14.6% stake. Both BHP and Rio Tinto rely on China for the majority of their revenue.
" 'We fully expect Resolution’s copper to be exported to China, which poses a national security threat,' Chairman Rambler said. “The United States already exports 30 percent of the copper produced by U.S. mines because of a lack of copper smelting capacity.
"'The Trump Administration’s Oak Flat appraisal concludes that Resolution’s copper will be exported to southeast Asia,' Chairman Rambler added. 'It’s clearly in the best interest of the United States to withhold publication of the Resolution environmental report at least until there is a change in the ownership of this project to companies that are not reliant on China for more than half their business.' "
Source:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2025/06/san-carlos-apache-tribe-federal-court.html#Fight4OurExistence #ProtectOakFlat #LandBack #sacredland #OakFlat
#SaveOakFlat #SanCarlosApache #Apache #ReligiousLiberty #NativeAmericans #FirstNations #CensoredNews #ReaderSupportedNews
#ProtectTheSacred #ApacheStronghold #NativeAmericanNews #NativeAmericans #RioTinto #CopperMining #Arizona #LeaveItInTheGround #ChichilBildagoteel #WesternApaches #BecketLaw #ResolutionCopper #USPol #MiningTheSacred #NationalForests #CorporateLandGrabs #CorporateColonialism #CulturalGenocide #McCainShame -
via @arizonamirror
If #Hobbs is serious about protecting #groundwater, she must work to close the #mining loophole
by Russ McSpadden
February 12, 2024"In her first State of the State address just over a year ago, Gov. #KatieHobbs was unequivocal about her commitment to tackling one of the state’s greatest challenges: our dwindling #water supply.
“Our groundwater should be used to support #Arizonans, not foreign business interests,” she said in that speech, referring to the Saudi Arabian conglomerate #Fondomonte. Over the past few years, Fondomonte has been pumping unlimited amounts of groundwater in La Paz County for alfalfa crops that it ships to feed cows on the other side of the earth.
"Though the Hobbs administration has already canceled one of Fondomonte’s four leases and says it won’t renew the others when they’re up this month, the problem doesn’t end with Saudi agriculture.
"It’s also mining companies that take advantage of loopholes in the state’s water laws to maximize profit at the expense of Arizonans — including mining giants #RioTinto and# BHP.
"Because of intense pressure from #lobbyists, when lawmakers adopted the much-heralded #ArizonaGroundwaterManagementAct in 1980 they exempted #mines from groundwater regulation, even when located in #ActiveManagement Areas — state-designated areas where groundwater pumping is controlled. That means that mines can pump unlimited amounts of water without paying the state a dime.
"This exemption was controversial in 1980. Today it’s existentially dangerous.
#ResolutionCopper, a subsidiary of Rio Tinto and BHP, is a perfect example. Their proposed mine at #OakFlat — about 70 miles east of #Phoenix in the #TontoNationalForest and within the Phoenix Active Management Area — would pump 250 billion gallons of desert groundwater over the life of the project.
"That’s 17 million gallons of water every day for four decades.
"Under current water prices, that equates to $404 million worth of groundwater that Resolution Copper will get for free. Arizona won’t see a cent for it. And it’s more than likely that the copper ore from Oak Flat will be exported to China for smelting, again depriving local communities of economic benefit.
"This limitless pumping would happen even as the #megadrought that has plagued the #AmericanSouthwest for the past two decades is likely to worsen, straining the #ColoradoRiver and #Gila rivers even more and making us all more reliant on groundwater aquifers.
"If left intact, the mining loophole will facilitate construction of Resolution’s massive mine. The extreme water pumping from the #EastSaltRiverValley will lead to groundwater depletion and subsidence, threatening to deplete wells and damage infrastructure.
"The #CenterForBiologicalDiversity, where I work, has been fighting for decades to stop this mine, and Canadian mining company Hudbay’s disastrous plan to mine for copper in the #SantaRita Mountains south of #Tucson (in the Tucson Active Management Area).
"Both projects would devastate surrounding fragile #ecosystems, pushing endangered species like the #MexicanSpottedOwl closer to the brink of #extinction. They would also destroy sacred #TribalLands and gulp down massive amounts of water when other users are being asked to conserve.
"Handing mines unlimited access to Arizona’s precious desert groundwater would be an injustice to Arizona’s #Tribes and every resident of this state.
"Fortunately, Hobbs has the vision and courage to fight for a secure water future for Arizona. It is time for her to work with legislators to close the mining loophole in Arizona water law and subject mines to the same groundwater pumping limits that apply to other entities within the state’s Active Management Areas.
"We’re hopeful she will work to block #ResolutionCopperMine and other terrible mining projects like #Hudbay’s. At the very least, it’s time for mining giants to pay for the water they use just like the rest of us."
#WaterIsLife #HumanRightsViolations #CulturalGenocide #CopperMining #Mining #CorporateColonialism #EnvironmentalRacism #IndigenousNews #SaveOakFlat #IndigenousRights #Apache