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A Copper Mine Could Advance Green Energy but Scar Sacred Land



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SUPERIOR, Ariz. — As Wendsler Nosie finished his evening prayers sitting before a mesquite fire, a ceremonial yucca staff festooned with eagle feathers by his side, he gazed sternly toward a distant mesa where mining companies hope to extract more than a billion tons of copper.That mine could help address climate change by helping the United States replace fossil fuels and combustion engines with renewable energy and electric cars. But to Mr. Nosie, a former chairman of the San Carlos Apache Tribe, it’s the latest insult in a bitter history. The tribe considers the rolling hills and hidden canyons under which the copper lies — an area of Arizona called Oak Flat — to be a corridor to God inhabited by holy spirits. The tribe’s r …

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