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| A View Of The Proposed Site For The Rosemont Open Pit Copper Mine Along Scenic Highway 83. |
By Judy Jennings
© Copyright 2015
Good news, Tucson! The proposed Rosemont Copper Mine is far from
a done deal. You’ve probably already
heard about the proposed mile-wide, half-mile deep open pit mine along Scenic
Highway 83, thanks to the efforts of a group called Save The Scenic Santa Ritas.
SSSR, which has been staging
what film director Frances Causey calls a “robust opposition” to the mine,
scored a major victory recently when their lawsuit successfully overturned
Rosemont’s air pollution permit. Other
critical permits are in serious jeopardy, as well, such as the Aquifer
Protection Permit, a crucial state water permit needed to begin construction of
the mine. SSSR currently has another
lawsuit pending in Mariopa County challenging what they call the illegal issuance
of this permit.
That position is supported by
the Environmental Protection Agency, which stated in a November 2014 letter to
the Army Corps Of Engineers that the proposed wetlands mitigation around the
mine is insufficient to avoid ‘significant degradation’ of the aquatic
ecosystem. Importantly, the EPA has veto
power over the proposal.
This is all great news. But Causey’s film Ours Is The Land, which
screened at The Loft this month, takes this fight to another level. She makes it personal.
Ours Is The Land tells the
story of the connection of the Tohono O’odham people to Ce:wi Duag, or the
Santa Rita Mountains, entirely from the perspective of Tohono Nation tribal
members. In their own words, tribal
members describe a connection to the land that is the foundation of their
culture, both spiritually and physically.
The film brings home an
important realization. While many of us
find the idea of an open pit mine in the Santa Ritas abhorrent, there’s a lot
more than environmental protection at stake for our neighbors on the
reservation, who are fighting for their very way of life.
Causey’s film is powerful, in
no small part because of the way she, herself, gets out of the way. This is very much a film of the Tohono O’odham
Nation, crafted through the words of tribal elders and basket weavers,
profoundly conveying a sense of exactly what it is the Nation stands to lose
with this mine.
This week’s screening at The
Loft was only the second showing of Ours Is The Land, so follow the Facebook
page for future show dates. This is a
great time to get informed about this issue!
For a lot more information,
visit Frances Causey’s blog at the Huffington Post, where she writes
extensively about issues and regulations regarding open pit mining in Arizona.
Ours Is The Land on Facebook:
Save The Scenic Santa Ritas
website:
Frances Causey on the
Huffington Post:
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