OAK FLAT, Ariz. — The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a case brought by an indigenous group, seeking to block a massive copper-mining project on government-owned land in Arizona that has sacred significance to Western Apache people. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a case brought by an Indigenous group, seeking to block a massive copper-mining project on government-owned land in Arizona that has sacred significance to Western Apache people

  • In doing so, the court left in place an appeals court’s ruling from March 2024, allowing for the federally owned land in the Tonto National Forest to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary owned by international mining giants

  • Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas dissented, and Gorsuch called the court's decision not to hear the case "a grave mistake.”

  • Gorsuch noted that the federal government plans to publish a new environmental impact statement on June 16 and proceed with the land transfer on that date or shortly after

In doing so, the court left in place an appeals court’s ruling from March 2024, allowing Oak Flat in the Tonto National Forest to be transferred to Resolution Copper, a subsidiary owned by international mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP.

But two justices wrote that they believe the nation’s top court should have weighed in. 

“Apache Stronghold asks us to review the Ninth Circuit’s extraordinary conclusion,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote in a dissent, for which he was joined by Justice Clarence Thomas. “But the Court today turns aside the group’s request. Respectfully, that is a grave mistake.”

Apache Stronghold, a Native American nonprofit organization, sued to stop the U.S. Forest Service from transferring the land, citing the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 that prevents the government from “substantially burdening” people’s right to exercise their religion and an 1852 treaty between the U.S. government and the Apaches.

For Western Apaches and other indigenous people, Chí’chil Biłdagoteel — known also as Oak Flat — is a sacred space that allows a “direct corridor” for worshippers to “speak to [their] creator,” plaintiffs said. 

“Members of the tribe report that they 'cannot have this spiritual connection with the land anywhere else on Earth,'” the appeals court wrote in its summary.  

The site also sits atop the world’s third-largest deposit of copper ore, which Resolution Copper — a joint venture by Anglo-Australian companies — plans to extract by digging a network of shafts and tunnels, detonating explosives to fracture the ore and progressively removing more and more of the mineral deposit over the subsequent 41 years as the ground collapses inward, according to court filings.

In a statement, Resolution Cooper President and General Manager Vicky Peacey said that the company was “pleased” with the Supreme Court’s decision allowing the company to move forward and touted an estimated $1 billion in economic impact to Arizona's economy and thousands of jobs the project would create.

“More than a decade of extensive consultation and collaboration with Native American Tribes and local communities has directly led to major changes to the mining plan to preserve and reduce potential impacts on Tribal, social, and cultural interests, and this ongoing dialogue will continue to shape the project,” she said. 

The Forest Service previously estimated in a 2019 environmental impact document, which was later withdrawn, that the mining would create a large surface crater, spanning 1.8 miles in diameter and between 800 and 1,115 feet in depth.  

Gorsuch noted that the federal government plans to publish a new environmental impact statement on June 16 and proceed with the land transfer on that date or shortly after.

In a statement, Wendsler Nosie Sr. of Apache Stronghold called on Congress to intervene. 

“We will never stop fighting—nothing will deter us from protecting Oak Flat from destruction,” he said in a statement. “While this decision is a heavy blow, our struggle is far from over.”

Both an attorney for the indigenous group and the dissenting justices also contended that the decision not to hear the appeal strayed from the Supreme Court’s tendency to take religious freedom cases. 

“It is hard to imagine a more brazen attack on faith than blasting the birthplace of Apache religion into a gaping crater,” Luke Goodrich, senior counsel at Becket, a nonprofit legal group that represents the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “The Court’s refusal to halt the destruction is a tragic departure from its strong record of defending religious freedom.”

Wrote Gorsuch: “Just imagine if the government sought to demolish a historic cathedral on so questionable a chain of legal reasoning. I have no doubt that we would find that case worth our time. Faced with the government’s plan to destroy an ancient site of tribal worship, we owe the Apaches no less.”

Earlier this month, a federal court judge had temporarily halted the plan until the Supreme Court either declined to hear the case or ruled against the Indigenous plantiffs.