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Signs reading 'Protect Oak Flat' can be seen near the entrance of Oak Flat campground by members of the San Carlos Apache Tribe in this 2016 photo.

A federal court said Thursday that it will take another look at claims that the proposed Resolution Copper mine should be delayed because it sits on land sacred to the Apache and would violate their religious rights. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

A federal appeals court rejected Rosemont Copper's bid for a new hearing on its mining project southeast of Tucson, keeping a ruling in place which effectively halted the long-controversial mine in the Santa Rita Mountains. Read more»

Protests against the Resolution Copper mine near Oak Flat have been going for years, as shown in this 2015 file photo from a rally at the Capitol. Opponents say the mine will harm the environment and sacred sites, supporters say those issues have been dealt with and the mine will bring jobs and economic development. Few expect the fight to end soon.

Lawmakers, federal regulators and courts have been grappling with questions surrounding the Resolution Copper Mine since 2004 – and both sides agree that the debate is likely to continue for years to come. Read more»

Strikers in Bisbee's Warren Ballpark, having been forced there at gunpoint by a vigilante posse.

"For 14 years I have claimed Bisbee as my home. But after Thursday, the 12th day of July. I hang my head in shame and sorrow for the sights I have witnessed here. When the full truth reaches the outside world, it will be looked upon with deserved aversion." — Rosa McKay, writing in 1917 of the now infamous Bisbee Deportation Read more»

IWW members gathered up at Warren Ballpark after the two mile march from downtown Bisbee.

From the archive: Bisbee wound up a week-long commemoration of the forced removal of nearly 1,300 striking miners from their homes 100 years ago. The event, known as the Bisbee Deportation, was "the biggest mass kidnapping in American history" but hasn’t always been well known, even to people who grew up in the area. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

The 15-year struggle over proposed mining activities in the Santa Rita Mountains continued to play out in June, as Toronto-based Hudbay Minerals, the Biden Administration and environmental groups continue to engage in legal wrangling and shifting priorities. Read more»

Rep. Raúl Grijalva pushed the Army Corps of Engineers to take immediate action against Rosemont Copper, telling federal officials they "cannot remain on the sidelines," and must review the company's efforts to "hastily" grade and fill dry washes on a chunk of private land along the western reaches of the Santa Rita Mountains. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

A federal judge dismissed a pair of lawsuits filed by three Native American tribes and an environmental coalition over Rosemont Copper's move to expand its mining operations to "Copper World" on the western slopes of the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

In a win for environmental groups and three Native American tribes,, a federal appeals court has upheld a ruling that halted the long-controversial Rosemont open-pit copper mine in the Santa Rita Mountains about 30 miles southeast of Tucson. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

Rosemont Copper's move to expand its operations in the Santa Rita Mountains south of Tucson faces a new challenge after the Tohono O'odham Nation, Pascua Yaqui Tribe and Hopi Tribe asked a federal court to block the company from grading the slopes and dumping fill material in dry washes. Read more»

An aerial photo of Rosemont's new effort to dump tailings and other rock waste into dry streams along the west-side of the Santa Rita Mountains.

Led by Center for Biological Diversity, environmental groups filed a notice of intent—a prelude to a federal lawsuit—against Rosemont Copper, arguing the company violated federal law. Read more»

Environmentalist Max Wilbert with the group Protect Thacker Pass stands in front of a gate blocking access to Lithium Nevada Corp.'s proposed mine at Thacker Pass outside of Orovada, Nevada, on March 10, 2022. Wilbert and others, including several tribal communities, are trying to stop the mine. The area contains some of the largest concentrations of lithium in the U.S.

As the country sources more of the materials needed for green energy domestically, tribal nations and Indigenous groups are fighting a proposed lithium mine in Nevada and a proposed copper mine in Arizona over impacts to culturally important land. Read more»

Bartram's stonecrop is the latest endangered species hobbling the proposed Rosemont Mine.

I'm sympathetic to keeping mines in the U.S. where we can see them, but less on board with punching half-mile deep holes in aquifers as Tucson's water future looks brackish. Read more» 1

Opponents of the proposed Resolution Copper Mine in southeast Arizona, shown here at a Washington protest in 2015, say that the mine would destroy Oak Flat, a site they say is sacred to the Apache. The site won a listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

As we recently witnessed in Australia, Rio Tinto's promises to protect sacred sites are meaningless. Congress must pass the Save Oak Flat Act to protect an Arizona grove where tribes have gathered to conduct ceremonies and gather traditional medicines for millennia. Read more»

Members of the San Carlos Apache tribe gathered at the Capitol in this photo from 2015 to protest the proposal to swap lands in the Tonto National Forest, including the Oak Flat area that is sacred to them, for the Resolution Copper mine.

As President Donald Trump was hailing the pace of border wall construction Tuesday, Tohono O’odham Nation Chairman Ned Norris Jr. was bemoaning it as a project that continues “to destroy … sacred sites.” Read more»

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