VICELAND host Sarain Fox sits down with Roy Chavez, former mayor of the neighboring town of Superior, to talk about what will happen to Oak Flat, an area of land on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, if unsustainable mining methods proposed by Resolution Copper are used.
Chavez explains that the use of block cave mining would create subsidence areas, where the surface of the earth will cave in. These voids would be "two and a half miles wide, a thousand miles deep. The Eiffel Tower could fit inside it, and you could see the tip of it," says Chavez.
About 1.6 billion tons of waste will be created and dumped three miles away. Despite the wishes of the tribe to preserve the land and the questionable efficacy of the proposed plan, the fight to protect Oak Flat is just beginning.
RISE airs Fridays at 9 PM on VICELAND.
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