On the banks of the San Pedro River lies one of the American Southwest’s few remaining old-growth mesquite bosques—a streamside forest in more than 3,000 acres of riparian ecosystem that is one of Arizona’s last intact landscapes. Known as the 7B Ranch, the mesquite forest is vital to the area’s biodiversity. … [J]ust eight miles up the road is another proposed mine, this one pursued by Faraday Copper, for which the Bureau of Land Management has approved exploratory drilling. Now, the San Carlos Apache Tribe and a coalition of environmental groups appealed to the BLM’s Arizona state director to review the agency’s approval of Faraday’s Copper Creek project, citing its impacts to 7B Ranch as a property mitigating the impacts of a mine elsewhere, and for the “serious risks to wildlife, water resources, landscape connectivity, human health, and cultural resources” it poses to the tribe, land and other local communities. 

Other tribal water news:

• SJV Water (Bakersfield, Calif.): Video: Kern River Valley tribe excluded from river rights