HCN: But Rifle is wedded to the extractive industries with its oil and gas development. Are you surprised that the West still seems so firmly wedded to the extractive industries?
PROPST: Boy, were we naïve. I think many of us (conservationists) thought that the "lords of yesterday" would fade away and that the new economy would be more environmentally benign -- that people would move to the West for high-paying, high-tech jobs and instantly become environmental advocates. The lords of today are different -- the timber industry is fundamentally different. But none of us anticipated that mining or energy industry would be so strong, or driven so much by foreign economies. For a long time, the West was a resource colony for Houston or Denver; now, we are a colony for Beijing. The new economy has its own challenges -- the impact of the new economy on the environment was underestimated -- in terms of golf courses, large-lot housing, and recreational uses such as ATVs, which have a disproportionate impact on the environment.
HCN: What are you most proud of in your work at the Sonoran Institute?
PROPST: I'm very proud of the organization itself; it’s no small feat to start a nonprofit conservation group and keep it afloat for 20 years. I'm also proud of our focus. In the market place of ideas, we've helped articulate that to build a positive vision environmentalists need to go beyond; I'm proud of the local groups that we've helped create to carry out his vision. Next month, I'm speaking at the Beartooth Front Community Forum in Red Lodge, Mont., an organization that the Sonoran Institute played an instrumental role in creating 20 years ago and that has had a profound impact on the community. I'm also proud of specific projects we've worked on -- to restore water to the Colorado River Delta, to expand Saguaro National Monument.
HCN: Any disappointments?
PROPST: Maybe despair is the right word. We've kept beating our heads against the wall on reforming the management of state trust lands in Arizona. We are going to get there on Nov. 6 of this year. I'm also disappointed in the strong anti-conservation and anti-community sentiment in state legislatures around the West. We've had some success with smart growth at the county level, and done quite well at the municipal level, but then you've got these state legislatures that are just pawns, or they are just misinformed about what really matters in the West. Some of their hostility to community values and conservation is stunning.
HCN: Is it getting harder to find money for conservation?
PROPST: Fundraising is a huge challenge. Over the past 20 years, foundations have moved away from making multi-year pledges and providing general institutional support. Now, more funding is project/activity driven. It's a weakness in the conservation movement compared to the property rights movement, for instance, where funding partners stick with groups for years and years. It makes it very hard to carry out long-term projects when you have foundations with very short attention spans.
HCN: Why are you stepping down now?
PROPST: Twenty-one years is a long time. I just decided I wanted to do fewer staff meetings, budget meetings, board meetings, meetings to prepare for board meetings. It is time to turn things over to someone who is excited about managing the organization. To paraphrase E.B. White, I want to spend more time savoring the West, more time being outdoors. I want to work on a few specific projects that really matter to me, including securing water for the Colorado River Delta, protecting lands in Arizona and Wyoming, and helping undo or redesign many of these zombie subdivision in the West. I want to go back to being a project manager, as I started out so many years ago. The Sonoran Institute has built its work around the premise that change is inevitable. It is, and I'm looking forward to it.
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In a July 18 High Country News article, Luther Propst explained the Sonoran Institute’s approach to collaborative conservation and referred to the proposed Resolution copper mine near Superior, Arizona as an example of that philosophy. After all, the location of that mine is in a well-established mining district. Luther qualified his support by calling for the “right kind of mitigation” to be employed by Resolution.
However, the Access Fund does not believe that Resolution's proposed copper mine currently embodies the spirit of collaborative conservation. An enormous amount of mitigation would be required by Resolution to reach any sort of reasonable balance with recreationalists, Native Americans, and environmentalists. Therefore the Access Fund’s only viable option is to oppose to the current Resolution mining plan.
The Access Fund is not an anti-mining organization. Representing the interests of some 2.3 million rock climbers around the United States, we work to find collaborative solutions that balance the interests of rock climbers with competing interests such as mining or other types of land development. Thus our approach to complicated land-use issues is often similar to that of the Sonoran Institute.
Resolution’s current plan is to employ a federal legislative land exchange bill (HR 1904) to obtain ownership of Tonto National Forest land at Oak Flat. This land has been specifically withdrawn and protected from mining activity for over fifty years. After gaining ownership of this land, Resolution intends to block-cave or panel-cave, which would lead to massive surface subsidence. This land that has been protected for camping and recreational use since the Eisenhower administration would be completely destroyed.
In the early 1950’s the Eisenhower administration sought to protect these lands, instructing the Tonto Forest Supervisor to select recreation areas for protection that were of high recreational value and were also likely to have “future conflict with mining”. The administration’s protections proved prophetic, as mining companies have asked the Forest Service numerous times over the years if the mining withdrawal at Oak Flat could be lifted. Each time the Forest Service has denied the request on the basis that the Oak Flat area was still heavily used for camping and recreation, and thus the original rationale for the withdrawal was still valid.
And lifting the long-standing protections for Oak Flat isn’t the only troubling aspect of the Resolution land exchange bill. HR 1904 proposes to completely bypass any National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis before conveying the protected Forest Service land to Resolution. The language contained in the bill simply states that the land exchange is “in the public interest” and denies the Secretary of Agriculture his normal ability to make a public interest determination based on a proper NEPA analysis.
This bill does not represent good public policy. While we do not dispute the right of Congress to make public interest determinations, we do question whether such a determination should be made without first having access to the very NEPA data on which an informed determination would be based.
Yet another concern is that Oak Flat is an area of great cultural and traditional value to the San Carlos Apaches, and HR 1904 does nothing to address the legitimate concerns of Native Americans who consider this area sacred. The San Carlos tribe uses this area for annual acorn gathering, sunrise ceremonies, sweat lodge events, and other cultural and traditional purposes.
The Access Fund believes that Resolution needs to fundamentally rethink its mining plan to find a sustainable mining solution that can coexist with Oak Flat’s other high-value land uses. Economic modeling done by Dr. David Chambers and vetted by other mining engineers and PhD mineral economists strongly suggests that there are highly profitable alternatives to Resolution’s destructive block-cave or panel-cave design.
There are other alternatives for realizing the economic value of the Resolution copper deposit without destroying the unique recreational and Native American resources that exist at Oak Flat. That kind of compromise—in conjunction with a proper NEPA review—would truly embody the concept of collaborative conservation and could be something the Access Fund would support.
Curt Shannon
Arizona Policy Analyst | Access Fund
September 18, 2012