GALLUP, New Mexico—A group of Apache opposing a copper mine in the Oak Flat area of Arizona stopped to make their case in New Mexico on their way to Washington, D.C., where they will file a petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear their case against the federal government.
Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group of San Carlos Apache and others, has been fighting the proposed Resolution Copper mine planned for development in Oak Flat, an area in Tonto National Forest outside of Superior, Arizona.
Oak Flat, known in Apache as Chi’chil Bi∤dagoteel, is ancestral land of the San Carlos Apache Tribe. In English, the name means “Emory Oak Extends on a Level.” For the Western Apache, Oak Flat is a “direct corridor to their Creator and the site of essential religious practices that ‘cannot take place anywhere else,’” Apache Stronghold said in an April appeal to the 9th U.S. …