Last hope to save Apache sacred land fizzles out at Supreme Court
Kelsey Reichman
WASHINGTON (CN) — In a loss for Apache women, Justice Elena Kagan refused on Thursday to pause a massive copper mining project set to turn a sacred religious site into a 2-mile-wide crater.
The Barack Obama appointee did not refer the Apaches’ emergency application to the full court or explain her denial.
An attorney for the women said the group will immediately renew its application to another justice. Under the Supreme Court’s rules, emergency applications that are denied by a single justice can be renewed with another justice until the full court has ruled on the appeal.
However, Miles Coleman, an attorney with Nelson Mullins representing the group, said the Apaches’ fight was far from over, stating that they would seek relief from the full Ninth Circuit and the Supreme Court again if necessary.
“The transfer and exploitation of a sacred site in the most destructive way possible is contrary to the law, the Constitution, and our best ideals as a nation. We will not flag or falter in stopping this injustice,” Coleman said.
Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, or Oak Flat, has been locked in a decadeslong tug-of-war between the Apaches, who claim the 6.7-square-mile site as holy land, and Resolution Copper, which seeks to mine the land’s large copper deposit.
The federal government protected Oak Flat until 2014, when senators slipped a land transfer into the Defense Authorization Act. In the final days of his first term, President Donald Trump accelerated the project to complete the transfer.
For over a decade, the project has been voluntarily delayed while the Apaches pursued legal pathways to protect the land.
Last week, the Ninth Circuit ruled the Forest Service met its responsibilities under the National Environmental Policy Act by analyzing environmental impact and considering possible alternatives in its final environmental impact statement.
Seizing on the lower court victory, the Trump administration claimed the Oak Flat land transfer was a done deal. A group of Apache women responded with a Supreme Court emergency application, seeking to stem any further harm to the land while the courts determined whether the transfer was lawful.
“The United States government has a tragic history of destroying Apache lives and lands for the sake of mining interests,” the group wrote in an emergency application. “The Apaches simply ask that the land not be transferred beyond federal control and destroyed before the courts (including this court) resolve their claims.”
A previous challenge from Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit, said the land transfer would violate the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by preventing the Apaches from conducting their most sacred religious practices after the site’s destruction.
The Supreme Court refused to review the nonprofit’s case last May, but the women brought a new appeal citing the free-exercise right of Apache parents to direct the religious upbringing of their children under Mahmoud v. Taylor .
However, with the land transfer finalized, the Justice Department said the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to intervene.