Save Oak Flat—Protect these Sacred Lands

Hear Naelyn Pike of Apache Stronghold talk about why Oak Flat is sacred to her people and worth fighting for!

In the midst of barren rock spires and deep canyon walls, greenery sprouts around serene springs and wetlands. Medicinal and basketry plants cluster near the cool, life-giving water. Animals gather, too, seeking water to slake their thirst. Emery oaks with deep roots drop acorns in the fall, providing a nourishing staple without the need for refrigeration.

The site also feeds souls as a consecrated place for prayer and sweat lodges. It is a site of the Sunrise Dance, the Apache girls' coming-of-age ceremony.

Oak Flat or Chí'chil Biłdagoteel, "a broad place of Emery oak trees," has been a cultural and religious touchstone for many Native peoples in the region for centuries.

"My mother and grandmother would talk about when they would go in, and after the acorn dropped, there's a ceremony for the trees, for the acorn, for the food," said Wendsler Nosie, the former San Carlos Apache Chairman (Naelyn’s grandfather) who now heads a grassroots group dedicated to keeping this place intact. For all the significance Oak Flat holds among Indigenous peoples, the site is not protected by tribal boundaries. Much of the area is overseen by the U.S. Forest Service, leaving land-use decisions to the agency. It was withdrawn from mining during the Eisenhower administration, and Native and non-Native peoples who treasure the area thought it safe from future hard-rock mining.

But in December 2014, Arizona Sen. John McCain added a midnight rider to a defense spending bill that left Apache and other Native peoples reeling. That language, the Southeast Arizona Land Exchange and Conservation Act, authorized the transfer of 2,400 acres of Tonto National Forest land to Resolution Copper, a U.S. subsidiary of two British-Australian mining firms, in exchange for more than 5,400 acres of private land.

The amendment gave Resolution Copper and its supporters access to one of the country's remaining large copper deposits. But for those who consider the site sacred, it is a desecration of one of the Apache people's holiest sites as well as one of Arizona's rare riparian zones.

And because Resolution succeeded in getting the swap into federal law, the Forest Service says its hands are tied from making any decision other than approval. The process was on hold after the Forest Service withdrew the final environmental impact statement on March 1, which delayed the land swap.

The Apache Stronghold has long talked about what will happen: Oak Flat would sink nearly 800 feet deep into the earth, obliterating it and a large part of Apache religious heritage. A mine would also disrupt essential groundwater passageways that feed nearby Queen Creek and other areas in the east Salt River Valley and eastward past Globe. The mine would use 250 billion gallons of precious desert water and destroy the area from camping, hiking, birding and hunting.