Early last year, Darrin Lewis paid $ 800,000 for a hardware store in a small town in Arizona where mining giant Rio Tinto Plc (RIO.L) hopes to build one of the largest underground copper mines in the world.
Rio buys material from Lewis’s Superior Hardware & Lumber for its resolution mining site, which accounts for a third of the store’s sales and helps keep it afloat during the coronavirus pandemic.
But U.S. President Joe Biden thwarted the mining project last month in response to concerns from Native Americans who say it would destroy sacred land and from environmentalists worried it would suffocate water in a drought-stricken state.
It is fueled by Lewis and others here in Superior, Arizona, who want to reap the economic benefits of a mine that will harvest more than 40 billion pounds of copper.
“I sank everything I had in this place,” says Lewis, surrounded by hammer drills, wrenches and other goods in his shop. “It will absolutely destroy us if this mine does not open.”
Upon cessation of the project, Biden reversed a decision by predecessor Donald Trump that would give Rio land for the mine. Biden ordered more government analysis of the project.
The ongoing battle pits conservationists and Native Americans against local officials and residents who support its economic benefits. The complicated debate is a harbinger of the coming battles because the US wants to build more electric vehicles, which use twice as much copper as those with internal combustion engines. The Resolution mine can fill about 25% of the demand for US cooperatives.
The Arizona dispute is over the Oak Flat campsite, which according to Apache is the god known as Ga’an. Religious ceremonies are being held on the premises near the San Carlos Apache Reservation to celebrate teenage girls coming of age. Many Apache buried ancestors under the volcanic rock.
In 2014, the Obama administration and Congress launched a complex process aimed at giving Rio 3,000 acres of federally owned land, including the campground, in exchange for 4,500 acres owned by Rio in the area. Biden interrupted the transfer.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
“If Rio gets this place, the mine will kill the angels and the gods who live here,” said Wendsler Nosie, a tribal member of the San Carlos Apache tribe who led the site for 18 months. A sign there describes the land, known as Chi’chil Bildagoteel in the Western Apache language, as the physical personification of the earth’s spirit.
Nosie has garnered great support for its cause, aided by the increasing global attention to the rights of indigenous peoples. Rio itself fueled the cause last year when the culturally significant indigenous rock shelters in Australia were blown up.
If the land swap is approved, Rio has said it will keep the campsite open for the next few decades before the underground mine causes a crater to engulf the site. The company also said it would seek tribal approval for the project and study ways to avoid the crater.
“The land change gives us the opportunity to gather more data, then we can refine our plans and look for ways to further avoid and reduce the damage to the site,” said Vicky Peacey, a senior permit manager for the Rio project , said.
Rio, based in Australia and the United Kingdom, has also promised to preserve other cultural sites, including Apache Leap, a rock outcrop overlooking the Superior and where Apaches jumped to prevent US troops from escaping in the late 19th century. be caught.
‘AMERICAN BUYER’
Politicians in Superior – a city of 3,000 residents who voted for Democrat Biden in a majority-Republican province nearly two-to-one last November – are now urging the president to change his mind.
The land swap, if Biden approves it, will also allow the city of Superior to buy more than 600 acres, which officials say is crucial to diversifying the local economy by expanding the airport, developing an industrial park and building affordable housing.
“President Biden will have to make courageous decisions,” said Mayor Mila Besich, a Democrat.
Mining is essential to achieving Biden’s goal of expanding EV production, she said. “We’re going to need more American buyers,” she said.
Although the region has long been popular with hikers and campers, it is better 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 pinned 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 any copper. BHP declined to comment.
More than half of the buildings in downtown Superior are empty. Several Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) charging stations indicate the city is striving to be part of the EV boom. Nikola Corp (NKLA.O) and Lucid Motors build their own EV plants less than 80 km away.
Rio has promised to hire 1,400 full-time workers at an average annual salary of more than $ 100,000. This is almost half of the population in a city whose median income is a third below the national average.
“What is sacred to my community is that people have jobs and a home,” said Besich, the mayor.
The mine will increase the state treasury, local and federal tax havens annually by $ 280 million and add $ 1 billion to the state’s economy, the Arizona governor said.
Besich pushed back when studies showed that Rio would pay the city only $ 350,000 a year in taxes, which would be well below the $ 1 million annually needed for increased police, firefighting and road maintenance.
Rio has agreed to pay the city more, to guarantee Superior’s water supply and to donate $ 1.2 million to the school district. Superintendent Steve Estatico said without the support of Rio, the district schools – where enrollment has dropped by 13 percent since 2016 – could possibly close.
“Rio’s has had to learn over the past few years that it cannot take host communities for granted,” Besich said.
DETERMINED NEGOTIATIONS
The San Carlos Apache – one of the first Native American tribes to endorse Biden’s presidential bid – has not yet negotiated with Rio because its tribal council advocates direct talks with the U.S. government, said President Terry Rambler.
Rio’s copper chief, Bold Baatar, said he hopes to negotiate directly with the tribe when he visits Arizona as early as June, as soon as pandemic restrictions allow.
“We hear everyone’s concerns,” Baatar told Reuters. “There will not be a mine until we try our best to get permission.”
Not all local Native Americans are against the mine. Some members of the White Mountain Apache tribe, whose reservation is just north of the San Carlos Apache, say they do not consider the campground a sacred site.
“The belief that the site is religious is news to me,” said Alvena Bush, a White Mountain Apache board member who supports the project.
WATERWERRIES
Rio has dug a mine shaft of about 2 km underground on land he owns near the campsite. The bottom of the shaft became a scene for future mining operations.
The miner taps water from the nearby copper deposit to extract it more easily. More than 600 liters of water are pumped to surface treatment plants every minute for use in local farms.
Rio plans to mine the buyer using a technique known as block cavity. This involves cutting out a cave from a large section of rock, which then collapses under the weight of the rock above, creating a crater 3 km wide and 304 meters deep.
This method will damage aquifers that feed two local fountains, according to an environmental study by the U.S. Forest Service. The report said the entire mine would reduce the available groundwater in the area, which had been dry since the late 1990s.
“This land will be worthless if no water goes along with it,” Henry Munoz said. He leads a group of retired Superior miners who are opposed to the project.
Biden is expected to decide later this spring whether to give Rio the land for the mine. Lewis, the owner of the hardware store, hopes that his precarious position will be considered among all the competing interests.
“If I had one thing to say to President Biden, it would be, ‘Let the mine open,'” he said.
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