The Supreme Court declined Tuesday to hear an Apache religious challenge to the construction of a massive copper mine on Oak Flat, a swath of untouched federal land in Arizona that tribe members consider sacred and irreplaceable.
The decision, which leaves intact a lower court's ruling against the tribe members, marked a major loss for Apache Stronghold, a group that has long argued that the mine's construction would violate their religious rights by permanently wiping out a unique sacred site used for Apache religious ceremonies.
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