Click the link to read the article on the AZCentral website (Debra Utacia Krol). Here’s an excerpt:
July 29, 2025
Key Points
- A group of Apache women has asked a court to stop a land exchange that would lead to a huge copper mine at Oak Flat.
- The suit is the latest attempt to block Resolution Copper from building the mine on land east of Phoenix considered sacred to the Apache and other tribes.
- A judge will hear arguments in a separate lawsuit next week as the date nears for the land swap to take place.
A group of Apache women asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to halt a disputed land exchange at the center of a long battle over plans to build a huge copper mine at Oak Flat. It’s the fourth lawsuit that seeks to stop the U.S. Forest Service from signing over title to the site, held sacred by Apache peoples and culturally significant by other tribes, to Resolution Copper in exchange for other plots of environmentally sensitive land in Arizona. The four women, who all have spiritual and cultural connections to the 2,200-acre campground in Tonto National Forest about 60 miles east of Phoenix, filed their suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia July 24. Nelson Mullins, a law firm based in Washington, D.C., and South Carolina, outlined the case, which asks Judge Timothy J. Kelly, an appointee of President Donald Trump, to stop the exchange until the plaintiffs can have their day in court. The suit claims the exchange violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the plaintiffs’ First Amendment-guaranteed religious rights protections and two environmental laws.