"The Supreme Court refuses to hear the San Carlos Apache Tribe’s appeal for Water Right Protections.", 4 November 2024

In September the San Carlos Apache Tribe appealed the Arizona Supreme Court decision to allow Resolution Copper to discharge copper-contaminated water into polluted Queen Creek contrary to Clean Water Act San Carlos Apache Reservation, AZ. 

The San Carlos Apache Tribe asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an Arizona Supreme Court decision that allowed Resolution Copper Mining, LLC, a joint venture between Anglo-Australian mining giants Rio Tinto and BHP, to discharge copper contaminated water from its the new mine under development into Queen Creek.  Today Turtle Talk reported that the US Supreme Court refused to hear the case...  

... The legal question in the Tribe’s Sept. 25 petition for a writ of certiorari to the U.S. Supreme Court centered on whether Resolution’s plan to construct one of the largest copper mines in the world will be a new source of pollution under the Clean Water Act or an existing source....

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled in June that discharges from the Resolution mine will be classified an existing source of pollution, allowing Resolution to avoid meeting the highest pollution control standards... 

The Tribe originally sued the ADEQ [Arizona Department of Environmental Quality] in 2017 for treating Resolution as an existing pollution source.... The Tribe has vehemently opposed construction of the Resolution mine because it will destroy Chi’chil Bildagoteel, also known as Oak Flat, a sacred Apache religious site located in the Tonto National Forest about 70 miles east of downtown Phoenix.

In a separate petition, the non-profit group Apache Stronghold is asking the country’s highest court to prevent the United States from transferring Oak Flat to Resolution Copper arguing that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act protects their right to worship at the sacred site...