Climbers worry about losing access to crags, rocks and cliffs. In Arizona, they worry not only about losing Oak Flat, but access to other nearby canyons.
They worry, in part, because the road that takes to them to climbing challenges like Devils Canyon — U.S. Highway 60 — could be rerouted. There are no plans to do so, but the idea has been studied.
Devils Canyon lies about three miles east of Oak Flat.
As for talk about rerouting U.S. 60, Erik Filsinger sees the fingerprints of Resolution Copper Co.
“There are discussions that Resolution may work with the state to condemn the road and use it for mining trucks,” says Filsinger, land advocacy chairman for the Arizona Mountaineering Club.
It’s a notion Resolution outright dismisses, along with speculation that the mine activity could damage the road where it skirts Oak Flat.
Resolution plans to extract copper ore by what is known as block cave mining, if a complex land exchange gives the company title to Oak Flat. The process would create large cavities some 7,000 feet below the ground.
That could lead to subsidence at the surface. But Resolution President John Rickus says the road is safe.
“It won’t affect 60. It’s too far away,” he says.
In any case, says one transportation consultant, the idea of rerouting U.S. 60 came up before Resolution arrived on the scene a few years ago.
The Arizona Department of Transportation began puzzling over the Superior-Globe corridor in the late 1990s, says Ingo Radicke, transportation consultant to Gila County and a former member of the Arizona State Transportation Board.
ADOT and county planners looked at ways to handle increased traffic on the two-lane highway. The growth of greater Phoenix has meant more drivers going to places like Superior and Globe.
One thought was to build a bypass, taking traffic and congestion around Superior and Globe.
3 alternatives
A 2004 ADOT report sketched out three alternatives. One bypass would bend seven miles north of Superior, winding around Peachville Mountain and staying north of Oak Flat. It would cross the northern reaches of Devils Canyon. The other two would bypass Superior, then drop south to Oak Flat.
A fourth possibility was entertained as well — keeping the current alignment and widening the road. That would be no simple matter either, since the road winds through mountain passes and canyons. Mountainsides and canyon walls would have to be blasted away to make room for additional lanes.
But that might be less damaging than the alternatives, Radicke says.
It would be better, Radicke says, “the more we can stay on the existing alignment and don’t destroy any new countryside.”
But the 2004 report isn’t the last word. ADOT recently received proposals for a new U.S. 60 realignment study, Radicke says. The study is expected to cost about $3 million, he adds. It could take two to three years to complete. The study’s contractor will likely spend much of that time getting public comment, Radicke says.
As for Resolution, it doesn’t really have an opinion on a U.S. 60 bypass — contrary to what some might think, says company President Rickus.
And it might not matter what the study concludes anyway, Radicke says. He estimates that a realignment could cost up to a half-billion dollars. And ADOT, for the moment, is preoccupied with building urban freeways, he says.
“This report could be sitting on the shelf for awhile for lack of funds,” Radicke says.
But growth from Phoenix likely will not stop for want of a road. And plans are already underway to widen U.S. 60 from Florence Junction to the doorstep of Superior. Resolution Copper, with the promise of jobs and investment, could be a magnet for that growth.