Looking out of an EcoFlight plane over the Sky Islands in Southern Arizona on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025.
I’m in a small Cessna Centurion 2-10, a six-seater plane, flying southeast over the San Pedro River.
Our pilot Bruce Gordon is the founder of EcoFlight. He’s flying our group toward the proposed Copper Creek Exploratory Mine Project near Mammoth, Arizona, in Pinal County. The proposed copper mine is adjacent to the Galiuro Mountains and close to a sky island of the Madrean Archipelago– a rugged and remote biodiversity hotspot with more than 7,000 species of plants and animals including black bears, coatis, and Mexican owls.
This area encompasses 55 mountain islands surrounded by desert and grassland seas.
On our way southeast, I see the SunZia Transmission Line below us. Another big project carving its way through the Sky Islands that is designed to carry wind and solar power from New Mexico, through Arizona to California.
Steve Fry is our tour guide. He and his wife Melissa are a part of the Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance (LSPWA), a group of concerned citizens working to protect the ecological integrity and cultural heritage of the last free-flowing river in southern Arizona.
Melissa describes the area as one of the last undisturbed landscapes in the state, with no freeways or highways nearby and no industrialization except for SunZia and copper prospectors looking to be the next Resolution Copper as conservationists describe it.
“It’s the same geography and geology as Resolution,” Steve said.
Like SunZia, conservationists say that the Copper Creek Mine project threatens the area with heavy equipment traffic, ecological fragmentation and threats to local watersheds.
“There’s SunZia to our south, Resolution Copper Mine to our north, it’s just a lot. If no one knows the importance of the San Pedro River Valley, go look it up. Between it being one of the last undammed rivers in Arizona to being a bird sanctuary for all the different species,” Steve said. “Just take a look into it to see how special it is.”
Copper Creek is operated by Redhawk Exploration, a U.S. subsidiary of the Canadian company, Faraday Copper.
In May of 2022, the company submitted an Exploration Plan of Operations (EPO) to the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) proposing a 28-square mile footprint, 6 open-pit mines, two block-cave mines and estimated water usage of about 70,000 gallons per drill rig per month using private wells.
LSPWA believes usage is much higher. The organization said it obtained a 2023 email by FOIA request, from a BLM hydrologist that projected the actual amount of about 175,000 gallons a month.
“The destruction the mine would do, the amount of water that it would use,” Steve emphasized. “The San Pedro River Valley has suffered.”
VIEW LARGER The SunZia Transmission Line project crossing through southern Arizona, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. In 2023, the company purchased about 6,000 deeded acres within 32,000 acres of controlled ranch land for $10 million.
“The acquisition aligns with the Company’s strategy of land consolidation, advancing and de-risking the Copper Creek Project,” the company said in a press release.
The project is in the exploration stage. AZPM reached out to Faraday Copper for an interview, but the company provided written responses instead.
The company described the current phase of the project as involving minimal disturbance and small-footprint work confined to drill pads across private land and adjacent federal lands.
“For those who are familiar with drilling to install water wells, this work is similar in nature. Should a mine be proposed for development, this would involve a robust public consultation process where members of the community and other interested stakeholders are consulted,” the company said, also noting that it is currently surveying data on local surface and groundwater, including flow and groundwater elevation to understand the local water quality and quantity.
When asked about the company’s contingency plan if groundwater contamination were to occur they said:
The Company has a monitoring program to ensure that this does not occur. All drilling and other activities are closely regulated by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR), the Arizona State Land Department (ASLD), and the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). We strictly adhere to all permit requirements for our activities. This means working closely with other water users in the area to ensure that our activities align with the long-term water balance in the region.
When asked about the mine’s long-term environmental impact, beyond extraction the company commented:
While we are focused on exploration and site characterization, should a mine be proposed and permitted, it will be through a robust public process with many opportunities for interested stakeholders to comment and help shape the project through the entire life cycle, from concept to closure. Modern mines are developed differently than in previous generations. The industry designs facilities with the end of the life cycle in mind, making sure that we leave a positive legacy. That includes robust protections for the environment. All activities are bonded for full reclamation and closure.
Last week, BLM published the project’s draft Environmental Assessment (EA) and is accepting public feedback from the public through April 14. The agency also hosted a virtual public meeting on March 6 to provide information about the project.
If the draft EA is approved, Redhawk Copper would be authorized to modify 18 acres of public lands, including six acres to construct the 67 drill pad sites and 12 acres for access roads, according to BLM.
“We’ve been waiting more than two years for the environmental assessment from BLM. It was promised to us in October of 2023, and November of 2024 and then we finally got it in 2025. So the community really has had zero ability to weigh in on this issue of a 28-square mile open pit mine until now,” Melissa said.
Steve said one of the biggest concerns has been the lack of public input.
AZPM asked Faraday about concerns regarding a lack of meaningful opportunities for input, the company said:
We have a community hotline, email address, a local website with FAQs, an active social media presence, community advisory groups, and host an annual open house event. We have hosted our open house events every year since 2022. We frequently interact with local stakeholders and have an open door for those who want to interact constructively and respectfully. We incorporate feedback from the public whenever we can.
“To call them an open house is a stretch, that’s a lot of their presentation, it’s staffed by many of their employees. The community-employee ratio [has] sometimes been questioned but there’s a lack of communication not only between Faraday but also federal and BLM,” Steve said.
Like many other environmental advocates, Steve and Melissa encourage the public to review the 1872 mining law.
“Figure it out that these companies can come in, pay no royalties on any of the materials they extract, they can get all the water that they need for these projects and they’re all protected by this antiquated law that needs to be resolved,” Steve remarked.
“In the 1870s the amount of damage that you could do to an area was minimal and now you know fast forward to 2025, and yes you can extract more copper but you do it over massive scales,” Melissa said. “The footprint of the destruction is so much greater and part of that is just because this is 1872 mining law, everything still applies the way it did back then.”
Last week, President Trump signed an Executive Order launching an investigation into how the U.S.’ reliance on copper imports threatens national security and economic stability.
Melissa hopes the EO will examine how foreign mining companies pay zero royalties on the US minerals they extract.
“I hope that they investigate the definition of domestic copper and really delve into the fact that the majority of copper production in this country actually happens at the hands of foreign companies who then, in most cases, ship that copper concentrate to our adversaries in China,” she said.
Copper is one of Arizona’s largest export products.
This week, tariffs were implemented on the U.S.’ biggest trading partners, Mexico and Canada– then paused again. During his speech on Tuesday night, Trump said he would implement retaliatory tariffs if retaliatory tariffs were to be implemented on the U.S.
While foreign companies extract U.S. minerals without paying royalties, local communities bear the environmental and economic costs.
Melissa argues that any serious investigation into copper imports should also examine how the 1872 mining law enabled this system.
AZPM asked Faraday about operational plans given the fluctuating copper demand. The company said:
Currently, there are no commercially viable, economic alternatives to copper. There are none expected any time soon. It is reasonable to expect that demand will fluctuate, but globally, there is a significant shortage of the mineral with very few near-term solutions. Modern-day life depends on copper. Solutions to climate change depend on copper. Clean water depends on copper. A steady supply of food cannot happen without it. What is in our control is where we get it. Our commitment is to discover, explore, and plan for the development of copper in a way that respects the natural environment and human rights.
…
After a bit of turbulence, we safely descended back into Tucson.
Bruce, our pilot, mentioned he’s been flying since the early 1980s.
I asked him if he’s noticed any changes to the landscapes he’s flown over after all these years in the sky.
Without hesitation he said absolutely, before describing the melting glaciers up north, trees in forests battling pine beetle infestations due to warming temperatures, water levels dropping in the Southwest and dust from Utah making its way into the mountains near Aspen, Colorado, where he lives.
“EcoFlight really wants to balance the debate, we want people to think about everything,” he said. “Warming temperatures, climate change have drastically changed the landscapes I’ve flown over for many years.”
As Arizona grapples with proposals like the Copper Creek Mine, along with issues such as the 1872 mining law, water availability, and economic growth, development remains part of a broader conversation.
EcoFlight is a non-partisan non-profit that uses a plane as a platform to educate and advocate environmental stewardship.
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