Oak Flat by Lauren Redniss

Author:Lauren Redniss [Redniss, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2020-04-21T00:00:00+00:00

Apache Leap is a point of pride on the Superior landscape. Residents describe watching sunsets turn the cliffs gold and scarlet, how when they’re returning from out of town, they see Apache Leap in the distance and that moment marks their homecoming.

Superior’s annual town celebration, with its staged mine rescues, drilling competitions, and parade of homemade floats, is known as the Apache Leap Mining Festival. Resolution Copper is the festival’s principal sponsor.

Apache Leap is 1,500 feet from what is slated to be Resolution Copper’s deepest mineshaft, the former Magma mine’s No. 9 shaft, which Resolution is enlarging. In a concession to public outcry, Resolution Copper has forfeited the right to extract ore directly underneath Apache Leap. The company has stated that its accommodations will “ensure that Apache Leap is fully protected in perpetuity.” The U.S. Forest Service, which is charged with coordinating oversight of the Apache Leap Special Management Area, is not as definitive. In response to a question about damage to Apache Leap, Forest Service public affairs specialist John Scaggs wrote in an email, “Yes, there is possible risk. The magnitude of the mine subsidence and associated effects are under analysis.”

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ALBO GUZMAN WAS BORN IN SUPERIOR IN 1941. That year, his father, Mike, bought a dump truck and opened a sand and gravel business. Mike Guzman was tired of working underground in the Magma Copper mine, tired of the disorienting darkness and the temperatures that reached 125 degrees. He told his son that the tunnels where he spent his days were “hot and invisible.” The sand and gravel business was a success, but Mike Guzman was still restless, searching for new opportunities. Like prospectors before him, Guzman stalked the land, hoping to strike it rich.

ALBO GUZMAN: “He was always going around, looking for gold, or silver, or copper. He’d go out and look in the hills. Dig a little here, dig a little there.”

Not far from the base of Apache Leap, Guzman discovered not silver or gold or copper, but another mineral that had become profitable to mine: perlite. Guzman staked his claim.

Perlite is a hydrous form of obsidian. Obsidian has low moisture content, but if exposed to groundwater over time, it absorbs the water and turns into perlite. When heated, perlite pops, like popcorn, swelling to occupy up to 20 times its original volume. Expanded perlite is light, strong, and fire-resistant, making it a versatile industrial material. Perlite is used in construction, in cinder blocks, in insulation, in ceiling tiles, in filtration systems. Perlite is used to filter beer. It’s used in aerospace, marine, and ground vehicles. Gardeners use horticultural perlite to aerate soil and improve drainage. In their natural state, unprocessed obsidian nodules bulge out of a white perlite matrix like cartoon eyeballs staring out into space. Soon after planting his mine claim, Guzman discovered his perlite deposit was full of obsidian.

Albo Guzman has run his late father’s sand and gravel business since 1988.

ALBO GUZMAN: “My dad said that when the United States Cavalry went up to Apache Leap and attacked the Indians, the Indians jumped off, and the squaws cried.

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