Case Study

Oak Flat Cooper Mining, Patagonia

Developer-led CBAs on the frontline of the energy transition minerals boom

Case study from Building Community Power: Community Benefits Agreements Across the Global Energy Supply Chain by Climate and Community Institute

Supplying 74 percent of US-produced copper and containing extensive deposits of other minerals, Arizona is a major producer of precious metals in the United States. Mining represents a major share of the “copper state’s” economy, contributing approximately $15.4 billion in economic activity in 2020. Interest in the state’s mineral resources has only grown with increased demand for metals used in renewable energy technology. Pointing to demand for copper and other metals in electric vehicles and other advanced technologies, mining companies have proposed several new projects in Arizona. Alongside these proposals, CBA negotiations in Arizona have emerged largely as part of developers’ efforts to obtain public support to operate new mines. Two projects in particular, the proposed Resolution Copper Mine and the Hermosa Manganese/Zinc Mine, offer examples of these new mine developments and associated CBA efforts.

Resolution and Religious Rights

Perhaps the most contentious of new Arizona mining projects is the Resolution Copper Mine, a proposed underground mine 60 miles east of Phoenix. According to the mining operator Resolution Copper, a joint venture owned by Rio Tinto and BHP, it “is expected to become the largest copper mine in North America, capable of producing up to 25 percent of U.S. copper demand each year.” Resolution’s plans involve mining up to 7,000 feet underground via a method known as block-caving, which will permanently destabilize the site as a consequence. A study commissioned by the San Carlos Apache Tribe estimates that the mine will use approximately 250 billion gallons of water over its lifetime to cool its underground operations, manage tailings, control dust, among other needs. Water used by the mine would be supplied by nearby groundwater pumping.

The project area is located on land previously held by the US Forest Service (USFS) and overlaps with cultural sites important to the Apache people. Known to the Apache as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat), the site is home to Emory oaks, a culturally significant food source. In 2014, ownership of the proposed mine site was transferred from the USFS to Resolution Copper thanks to then-Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Jeff Flake (R-AZ), who inserted a legislative rider for a land exchange in a must-pass Congressional defense spending authorization bill. The land exchange and project have been strongly opposed by the San Carlos Apache Tribe and Apache Stronghold, an Indigenous organization leading the Tribe’s efforts to stop the project. Other local communities, particularly the nearby mining town of Superior, have expressed support for the project owing to its potential to create jobs.

Aerial view of the Hermosa Mine. Photo courtesy of Patagonia Area Resource Alliance.

A public meeting between Patagonia community members and Hermosa Mine owner, South32, to discuss a potential “community protections” agreement. Photo courtesy of Caroline Schafer, Patagonia Area Resource Alliance.

Following the required NEPA process to complete the land exchange, the USFS under the Trump Administration issued an Environment Impact Statement (EIS), paving the way for the completion of the land exchange and mine construction. This EIS was subsequently withdrawn by the Biden Administration, which determined that additional time was necessary to “understand concerns raised by the Tribes and the public and the project’s impacts to these important resources.” Nevertheless, as a consequence of the 2014 budgetary rider, the land transfer must eventually be executed barring new legislation undoing the transfer.

The land exchange has been the subject of a lawsuit filed by Apache Stronghold, which argues that the land exchange and subsequent mine development would prevent the Apache from exercising their constitutionally protected religious rights at Oak Flat. On March 1, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling against Apache Stronghold’s claims. The 9th Circuit Court ruled 6-5 against Apache Stronghold, determining that the mine would not pose a substantial burden on Apache people's First Amendment religious rights. Apache Stronghold subsequently appealed the decision to the US Supreme Court. In May of 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear the case, effectively upholding the lower court’s ruling against Apache Stronghold. In a dissenting opinion joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote,

“While this Court enjoys the power to choose which cases it will hear, its decision to shuffle this case off our docket without a full airing is a grievous mistake—one with consequences that threaten to reverberate for generations.”

At the time of writing, the fight for Oak Flat remains unresolved: on June 9, 2025 a federal judge in Arizona temporarily halted the Oak Flat land exchange by barring the federal government from proceeding with the transfer until 60 days after the issuance of the final EIS, which is expected on June 16, 2025. Assuming the existence of legal deficiencies in the final EIS, the ruling gives Apache Stronghold and other mine opponents an opportunity to file new motions for an injunction on the transfer.

With these contentious politics as a backdrop, CBA development has largely been led by the project developer. Resolution Copper, through a facilitator, has convened a “Community Working Group” (CWG) since 2012 “to better understand the concerns of the community and establish more open and direct lines of communication for accurate information with the diverse stakeholders in this project.” Resolution invited both project supporters and opponents to participate in these discussions. Project opponents, including Tribes and environmental groups, initially participated in the CWG but later stopped. In 2024, the work of the CWG culminated in the signing of a Good Neighbor Agreement (GNA) signed by Resolution, various community groups from the mining town of Superior, and local governments. Tribes and environmental groups did not sign the GNA, raising questions about its legitimacy. According to the text of the agreement, the GNA serves largely to maintain an open line of communication between Resolution and the local community and provides no direct community payments, local hiring guarantees, environmental mitigations, or reclamation commitments. The GNA directs Resolution to seek CWG input on development and provides the CWG members with a forum to request additional project information, submit problems, or request further studies, audits, or assessments. The GNA also requires Resolution to continue funding the CWG for the duration of the project.

The Resolution GNA does little to meet the demands of Indigenous and environmental groups opposed to the project, perhaps evincing why these groups ended their CWG participation. While Resolution has publicly announced modifications to its mining plans to avoid particular Apache landmarks on the site, these mitigations are not included in the GNA.

Shifting Responsibilities in the Hermosa Manganese and Zinc Project Advisory Panel

New mine projects and CBA negotiations are also occurring elsewhere in Arizona. Located in a historic mining district near the town of Patagonia, the Hermosa Mine project is seeking to produce two federally designated “critical minerals”–manganese and zinc–which the developer South32 touts as “essential minerals for powering the nation’s clean energy future.” Australian-based South32 acquired the project from a small firm in 2018 and has moved quickly to position itself to commence mining as soon as necessary permitting approvals are given. South32 has already conducted exploratory drilling and constructed a water treatment plant and tailings facility to manage existing mine waste from historic activity. If fully developed, mine activity would expand onto lands administered by the USFS.

The project has met opposition from environmental and local community groups concerned about the impacts the project will have on scarce water resources in a global biodiversity hotspot recognized by scientists as one of the top regions in the world most in need of research and protection for species survival. In the early years of the Hermosa project, local environmental groups successfully sued the USFS on its initial approvals for exploratory drilling, arguing the USFS failed to adequately consider drilling's impacts to endangered species. South32 acquired the Hermosa project from the Junior company in mid-2018. After its acquisition, South32 operated on only private, patented lands requiring only state permits and with no federal oversight. South32 has since submitted plans to the USFS to use USFS public lands to construct a tailings facility, triggering a NEPA review process. As a project pursuing federally designated "critical minerals," the NEPA review was fast-tracked by the Biden Administration under Title 41 of the 2015 Fixing America’s Surface Transportation Act (FAST-41), which was intended to coordinate environmental reviews, hold agencies accountable to timetables, and resolve any disputes for projects addressing national priorities as determined by the federal government. Public comment for the scoping period closed on June 20, 2024. A draft EIS is expected in May 2025 and a final decision is expected in May 2026.

Like the Resolution project to the north, the developer South32 formed a working group, the Hermosa Project Advisory Panel, as a forum where local stakeholders could ostensibly provide input on the mine development process, including on efforts at mitigating the potential environmental impacts. The Advisory Panel has met monthly since 2021 and includes 17 members representing the Town of Patagonia, Santa Cruz County, business groups, environmental organizations, among others.

For Carolyn Shafer, who represents a local grassroots group called the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA) at Advisory Panel meetings, the Advisory Panel represents a “classic mining industry social license effort to say they consulted with the community.”

The Advisory Panel began considering an agreement with South32 after Shafer pointed to examples elsewhere in the mining industry, namely the Sibanye-Stillwater “Good Neighbor Agreement” in Montana. While the company initially appeared receptive to drafting a similar kind of agreement, it contracted a consultant to draft agreement language that Advisory Panel members broadly perceived as weak and unsatisfactory. South32 refused to give the Panel any power in providing input or drafting language. According to Shafer, South32 repeatedly failed to answer questions about water consumption over the course of these discussions, leading many Advisory Panel members, including some that were initially supportive of the project, to become more skeptical of the company’s plans.

Ultimately, the Advisory Panel elected to “hand off” the work of negotiating an agreement to three local government entities: Santa Cruz County, the Town of Patagonia, and the City of Nogales. In Shafer and PARA’s view, these governmental entities are better suited to negotiating an agreement as they can be held to account via the democratic process. This suggests a level of trust in local governments that may not be as well established with other grassroots groups in other locations, such as Imperial Valley, California. Subsequently, these local governments have largely agreed to take on the responsibility of drafting an agreement. In Santa Cruz County’s case, taking on drafting an agreement has complemented its engagement with the federal FAST-41 process. For PARA, shifting responsibility to formal governments also eliminates any obligation to sign an agreement with South32. In Shafer’s words, not signing an agreement is a deliberate strategy that enables PARA “to maintain [its] independence to monitor [South32’s] activity and litigate when necessary.”

South32 has met the shift of agreement drafting responsibilities from the Advisory Panel to local governments with less enthusiasm. In June, South32 announced a restructuring of the Advisory Panel that reduced the number of panel members to 15 and imposed restrictions that prevented the participation of members South32 deemed to have “conflicts of interests” and supported efforts of organizations that might be working to have South32’s federal permit application rejected or delayed. Project critics like Shafer and PARA were not invited to participate in the new Advisory Panel, who subsequently accused South32 of stacking the advisory panel with supporters. While these developments suggest that the Advisory Panel’s supposed purpose of fostering a dialogue over the Hermosa Project has been a failure, for Shafer the Advisory Panel has served as the necessary catalyst to organize the community.

“For our county [the Advisory Panel] was hugely successful because it allowed for representatives from a broad spectrum of organizations throughout the county to come to understand that these jobs and economy that are being promised come at a significant environmental cost. That was a huge outcome of the Panel. Not the one [South32] wanted, but an important one for this county. So, I view it as it was a success. And the fact that they disbanded it and blew it up was an embarrassment.”

– Carolyn Shafer, Patagonia Area Resource Alliance (PARA)

Reference List:

“Good Neighbor Agreement between Stillwater Mining Company and Northern Plains Resource Council, Cottonwood Resource Council and Stillwater Protective Association”; Sibanye-Stillwater, “US PGM Factsheet: The Good Neighbor Agreement.”

Kenney et al., “Evaluating the Use of Good Neighbor Agreements for Environmental and Community Protection.”

Levy-Uyeda, “Can a Mining Corporation Ever Truly Be a Good Neighbor?”; Eggert, “Forest Service Forwards Plan to Keep East Boulder Mine Operating.”

Ehrlick, “Residents Demand More Protection from East Boulder Mining Company • Daily Montanan.”

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