Residents of a town in central Arizona are engaged in a tug of war with Native American groups over a huge copper mine that’s been proposed on national forest land. Those who support the mine at Oak Flat outside the town of Superior tout its economic benefits. Native American opponents, however, consider the land sacred and say it must be protected from mining. The project is planned by Resolution Copper Mining, a joint subsidiary of U.K. and Australian mining giants and could satisfy a quarter of U.S. copper demand. But it’s held up by wrangling in federal court between the nonprofit Apache Stronghold that wants to preserve the land and U.S. government agencies.
US Interior Secretary Haaland reflects on tenure and tradition amid policy challenges.
It was never about making history for Deb Haaland, but rather making her parents proud. She says she worked hard, putting herself through school, starting a small business to pay bills and eventually finding her way into politics — first as a campaign volunteer and later as the first Native American woman to lead a political party in New Mexico. Haaland, the first Native American Cabinet member in the U.S., spoke in a recent interview about her tenure leading the 70,000-employee agency that oversees subsurface minerals and millions of acres of public land.
Those are your headlines at this hour. I’m Colette Keith in the KIPI News center.
