On June 30, 2025, despite heavy public opposition (7,500 public comments), the Bureau of Land Management quietly approved Redhawk/Faraday Copper’s 67-site exploration project in the Galiuro Mountains near Mammoth, authorizing round-the-clock operations for the next two to three years.
Just three days after LSPWA submitted its appeal letter, the State BLM Director, Raymond Suazo, issued an immediate refusal to even review our comments.
See our appeal letter to BLM, which outlines our concerns regarding a lack of meaningful public participation with the BLM Safford Field Office, as well as overlooked and inconclusive responses to substantive comments, and a FONSI unsupported by evidence and analysis. Review the San Carlos Apache Tribe and Center for Biological Diversity’s joint appeal letter here, which we – and a dozen other organizations signed.
You can still voice your concerns by Aug. 27: A quick email to BLM, in support our appeal letters, will send a message that mining does not belong this close to the San Pedro River. Click the button below for paragraph samples.
In April 2025, LSPWA joined partner efforts to protest the holding of a University of Arizona summit on Earth Day, the purpose of which was to enable the mining industry to better manage and manipulate public opinion. The coalition faulted the University, in particular, for failing to include the voices of those who stand to be most impacted by mining's depredations, namely, local communities and Tribal nations. Learn more.
In October 2024, LSPWA and the Cascabel Conservation Association together issued a joint response to the Draft Environmental Impact Statement issued by the U.S. Air Force in regard to the "Regional Special Use Airspace Optimization to Support Air Force Missions in Arizona." Our comments focused in proposed proposed plans for the Outlaw and Jackal Military Operation Areas (MOAs) that would permit up to 30 daily sorties, involving cadres of low-flying supersonic aircraft, over vast portions of the San Pedro River Valley and nearby Native Tribal lands.
For over 13 years, LSPWA worked, alongside the Cascabel Conservation Association and other partners, to educate policy makers and the public, as well as undertake legal actions to prevent the construction of a 33-mile corridor of behemoth transmission lines through the most remote and ecologically sensitive portion of the San Pedro River ecosystem. Read the Dec. 12, 2022 filing related to that effort.
The need for an infrastructure corridor along the San Pedro was obviated by the fact that existing industrial-infrastructure corridors could have well served the purpose. While the last court of judgment did not find in our favor, the battle continues as a lawsuit brought by San Carlos Apache Tribe and Tohono o'Odham Nation is being given new life. Learn more.
The Lower San Pedro Watershed Alliance is an independent nonprofit organization funded by and large by Lower San Pedro stakeholders, with vital pro-bono support provided by nationally active conservation organizations such as Earthjustice and the Center for Biological Diversity. Our financial independence from corporate interests and government agencies allows us to speak our minds freely to policy makers and to pursue legal remedies when agencies fail to follow through on their mandates. We have thus become a watershed-wide voice for volunteer conservationists in legal and other advocacy efforts.