Overview of the Issue

Oak Flat is a unique and irreplaceable climbing area and Apache ancestral territory only fifty miles east of Phoenix, Arizona. Heavily used by rock climbers, boulderers, campers, hikers, birdwatchers and other outdoor enthusiasts, Oak Flat was recognized sixty years ago as an important recreational area and withdrawn from mining activities by Federal executive order.

In December 2014, a bill to vacate the executive order and to transfer this protected land to a foreign-owned mining conglomerate was signed into law. Unless this action can be reversed, mining activities at Oak Flat will result in the complete destruction of the rock climbing and other wonderful recreational resources that exist there.

Resolution Copper (RCM) intends to employ block caving at Oak Flat. This involves creating a mining infrastructure below the actual ore deposit that will cause the copper deposit itself and all of the ground above it to collapse over time, as the ore is extracted from below. By RCM’s own estimate, the resulting surface crater from this mining operation would be over a mile wide and 1,000 feet deep—consuming Oak Flat and all of its fantastic recreational and cultural resources.