The last mountain - Mount Graham in Arizona

American Forests, March-April, 1993 by Evelyn Martin

The Mt. Graham controversy raises fundamental questions about whether we humans should reach for the stars without coming to know the land at our feet.

If you want to travel from Mexico to Canada, but have only half a day to spend, consider visiting Mt. Graham, 75 miles northeast of Tucson, Arizona. This "sky island," created 11,000 years ago when the last glaciers receded, contains five of America's seven biological zones. Ascending from the Lower Sonoran desert to the Hudsonian spruce-fir forest, the mountain is home to 18 plant and animal species that can be found nowhere else. Draw nearer to the 10,720-foot summit, and you will find yourself in a battle zone between heaven and earth.

Fanning the flames of controversy is the University of Arizona's plan to build Mt. Graham International Observatory, a world-class group of three to seven telescopes. Subplot one: The Mt. Graham red squirrel, (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus grahamensis), is an endangered subspecies whose only earthly habitat is the summit area. This is the same red squirrel that caused former Interior Secretary Manuel Lujan, overseer of the Endangered Species Act, to publicly question whether we need to save every subspecies of creation. Subplot two: The mountain is sacred to the San Carlos Apache Indians. Dzil nchaa si an, or Big-Seated Mountain as traditional Apaches call it, is home to the ga'an spirit dancers. The Apaches want their prayers to flow unimpeded from the summit.

Despite the sign "Coronado National Forest--Land of Many Uses," the controversy is not simply a matter of multiple land use. Passions have been enflamed about nothing less than inquiry into the mysteries of the universe, the preservation of a unique ecosystem, and freedom of religion. Ultimately, Mt. Graham raises fundamental ethical questions about the very relationship between people, the land, and the cosmos.

THE SETTING

Beginning in at least the 1600s, several Apache tribes lived and traveled in the area around Mt. Graham. During the so-called Indian Wars in the mid-to-late 1800s, the mountain variously provided sanctuary to the Apaches and served as a summer recuperation area for ailing U.S. soldiers and their families. Heliographic Peak is named for the Army heliograph network used during the last year of the wars, when signals from mirrors were reflected across southern Arizona. Now the observatory itself involves sophisticated mirror technology.

Reflecting Apache territorial patterns, the original San Carlos Apache Reservation encompassed Dzil nchaa si an. But, as happened so often, the U.S. decided it wanted the land--the mountain for logging, and the adjacent Gila River valley for mining and agriculture. In 1873, the Apaches lost their mountain.

Today Mt. Graham is a model of the U.S. Forest Service's policy of multiple use. More than 200,000 visitors come each year to savor the cool mountain air and the variety of landscapes. Most frequent the lower elevations and Riggs Lake. There are 70 communications transmitters on Heliographic Peak; six campgrounds, 94 cabins, two artificial lakes, one Bible camp, and sundry other uses spread over 201,000 acres. A crow could fly 10 miles to cover the relatively high elevations, although the highest zone--that of the spruce-fir forest--is limited to 1,300 acres.

THE OBSERVATORY

The University of Arizona has played a preeminent role in catapulting southern Arizona to the status of a world astronomy center. The new wave of advanced telescopes requires higher altitudes than are found at existing sites, and the university surveyed 280 possible locations to house its own new telescopes. Of three astronomically preferred locations, only Mt. Graham was not in a designated wilderness or national monument. Its other attributes: clear daytime and dark nighttime skies, low water vapor, low wind, moderate operating cost, an access road, and presumed availability, given the precedent of sitting telescopes on Forest Service land.

Not even the site's qualifications are spared dispute, though. Robert Witzemann, chair of the Maricopa County Audubon Society's conservation committee, points to an analysis by two scientists at the National Optical Astronomical Observatories (NOAO). This study indicated that Mt. Graham's "merit ranking" was only 38th of 57 sites reviewed. But Peter Strittmatter, director of the university's Steward Observatory, praises the site's excellence. "Mt. Graham is expected to at least match the best image sharpness demonstrated anywhere in the continental U.S.," he stresses, citing numerous limitations in the NOAO study.

The kind of research to be carried out at Mt. Graham is the stuff of which scientific dreams are made: studies of the early universe and galaxy formation from up to 10 billion years ago, star and planet formation in the Milky Way and other galaxies, ultra high-resolution imaging, and the search for other planetary systems in the universe. These would be conducted in Phase I of the observatory plan with the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope, a collaboration with the Vatican Observatory, and with the Submillimiter Telescope, a collaboration with the Max Planck Institute for Radioastronomy in Germany. These telescopes are scheduled to open this spring.