Keep SEC. 70201 in the reconciliation bill, Support the Save Oak Flat Act (SOFA)

Please support the Save Oak Flat Act (SOFA) and keep in SEC. 70201 OAK FLAT WITHDRAWAL of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill. Right a wrong, protect the religious freedom of Indigenous people, save an important recreational area, and protect the plants and animals that inhabit this biologically rich part of the Tonto National Forest. Oak Flat is sacred to the San Carlos Apache and several other tribes and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. For centuries it has provided Native people in Arizona with sustenance, habitation and medicine. It has served as a holy place for ceremonies still conducted there today. According to tribal experts, Oak Flat holds the best Apache cultural artifacts in existence. It's also a highly popular campground, world-class climbing area, and home to myriad plants and animals. A midnight rider (section 3003) attached to the unrelated 2015 National Defense Authorization Act pushed through a land exchange in which Oak Flat will be conveyed to Rio Tinto for complete destruction by a vast copper mine. The Resolution Mine will collapse Oak Flat into a crater two miles wide and 1,000 feet deep. The land would forever be unstable and unsafe for people to visit, and the crater would fill with toxic, contaminated water. The mine would create 1.4 billion tons of toxic waste to be dumped on thousands of acres of nearby wildlands. It’s truly frightening — in this era of climate change, megadrought and water shortages — that the mine would use more water annually than the whole city of Tempe. The Save Oak Flat Act, H.R. 1884 and S. 915, and SEC. 70201 OAK FLAT WITHDRAWAL of the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill will protect Oak Flat's irreplaceable cultural, historic and natural value and repeal the unethical rider section 3003 of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act. I urge you strongly to support the Save Oak Flat Act (SOFA) and keep SEC. 70201 OAK FLAT WITHDRAWAL in the $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill and push for their passage as soon as possible.