The following is an original production of AZPM News.

(Tom) This week on Arizona Illustrated, actor Craig T. Nelson is taking on a new role in Tucson.

(Craig) The excitement that I have is working with young people.

(Tom) Learn the real history of the "A" Mountain Crater.

(Homer) People from throughout Tucson said, "No, we don't want the entire "A" Mountain taken away and quarried."

(Tom) A big controversy takes over the small town of Patagonia as the South 32 Hermosa Mine moves in.

(Andrea) Our biggest concern was the impacts from the mine that have to do with our environment.

(Tom) And I'll sit down with recently announced Guggenheim fellow, Dr.

Erika Hamden.

Hello and welcome to Arizona Illustrated from the beautiful Fox Theater in downtown Tucson.

I'm Tom McNamara.

And we begin in a film and television class at the University of Arizona where a writing assignment turned into something much bigger.

AZPM intern and film student Clinton Willis wrote a script about a deeply personal Western film.

Well, that script caught the attention of actor Craig T. Nelson who agreed to star in the film.

So now Clinton is stepping behind the camera to bring his story to life.

♪ COUNTRY GUITAR ♪ (Clinton) Right now I'm a student at the University of Arizona, School of Theater, Film and Television.

And last semester, my professor came in, and she was like, "Start writing your scripts over the summer."

And then on August 1st, you guys are gonna submit them, and then Craig T. Nelson wants to be in one of your senior films.

♪♪ COUNTRY GUITAR CONTINUES ♪ (Craig) I think I indicated two years ago that I wanted to do something with the drama department or film or television and what I could do to support some of the kids that are coming up, and— So we started talking and then gradually it kind of evolved into doing some student films and reading them and maybe getting involved that way.

♪ SPAGHETTI WESTERN MUSIC BEGINS ♪ (Clinton) My dad is kind of a modern cowboy.

He grew up riding horses, working on a ranch and stuff like that.

And as I was growing up, I always noticed like he was watching these Westerns, and they look so exciting— and there's like shootouts and fights and all this like hyper-masculine type things.

And as I got older, I was thinking like what happens to a cowboy after all that.

And so that's kind of where it came from.

Rewind back to August, we're all sitting in class and stuff, and we're going through our daily normal things and she comes in, and she's like, "Hey, by the way, Craig's gonna be in your film."

It was very like nonchalant type announcement.

And we're here, we're in the set right now.

We're filming it.

♪ SPAGHETTI WESTERN MUSIC CONTINUES ♪ Let's get it guys.

[ CLAPPING ] (Clinton) Everybody on this set right now has been handpicked because we've worked together before in the past.

(Phoenix) My role, as one of the producers, is I'm mainly in charge of set logistics as well as I helped quite a bit in the casting process.

Action.

Rose, I gave that stuff to you.

(Phoenix) Getting to see him in his element as a director has been— it's been awesome.

Can we do it one more time?

(Miles) As a producer, my day-to-day really consists of taking care of this crew.

Everybody's lent their time and talents to us and I wanna make sure that everybody gets the opportunity to do what they can at the best of their abilities.

(Phoenix) And between the three of us, we worked a lot on the script and the story.

♪ GENTLE SYNTHS ♪ (Clinton) This is my senior thesis film, "Be Still, Boone."

It's about a cowboy who's gone through a lot in his life.

And it's kind of a story about him reflecting on that time and realizing that the times that meant the most to him weren't like shooting guns and doing cowboy stuff, but rather like the family that he ultimately made and like fostered along the way.

So he figures that out along this journey.

(Craig) The other way is too, we even do that with words.

So his inability.

One of the motivations I had for getting in the business was to do a Western, because that's what I grew up with.

Yeah, you get a kind of a chance to fulfill a portion from that dream.

And I think this one specifically was one that authentically, I think, represented what I wanted to do, portray—except I'm not on a horse and I'm not shooting anybody.

So that's a real bummer.

♪ TENSE STRINGS ♪ (Clinton) I originally grew up in Oklahoma.

At an early age, I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life.

So I kind of found a little bit of direction when I joined the Air Force.

And I was in the Air Force for about 10 years.

I was working on turbine engines on the flight line and they ended up deploying me to Afghanistan.

[ GUNSHOTS ] Eventually, I got super sick to the point where I couldn't even get up and walk and I couldn't really breathe.

It got way worse because of the dust out there.

My supervisor came to me, he's like, "Dude, you gotta go to the hospital."

They asked me if anybody had done an X-ray on me.

And I told him no.

Went to the hospital, did the X-ray with them and went back to my dorm and they were like, "Hey, we're gonna give you a call in a couple days."

So I hop on the phone with my now wife and I was just telling her, I was like, "I don't wanna be here right now."

And she's like, "I have a feeling something's gonna come around and just knock you on your ass."

And I get a call from that hospital and they say, "Hey, we need you to come back here right now."

There's like 10 doctors all in the room with me and they told me that I had a giant mass in my chest bigger than a softball and it was pressing on my heart and my left lung.

♪ TENSE STRINGS RISE ♪ They sent me to Washington, DC where I got amazing care.

They found out that it was Mediastinal B-cell lymphoma.

So they're like, "We're gonna try chemo."

So, did chemo for about six months and I go to my appointment and my doctor's like, "You're done."

Like literally like on the same day.

And I called Catherine, I was like, so happy, so excited.

Then like another challenge arose from that where I did this thing for like 10 years and I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life now and I just remembered like when I was younger, me and my friends used to have a lot of fun making stupid videos like YouTube videos.

And I was like, "There's gotta be like, you know, some kind of job in this type of thing."

And so I eventually ended up going back to school for film.

And then that's your desk over there.

Boone, the main character in this film.

I kind of based a little bit off of my father just because my dad is a cowboy guy, like gruff, like grit, dude.

But whenever I started going through my cancer stuff, I saw like a totally different side of him.

I saw him like shed tears, which I'd never seen really before.

And I just noticed like this kind of like outside shell that he had been personifying the whole time.

He had a lot of like deep emotions beneath that.

And that's kind of how Boone is in this story.

My gosh, he's cruel.

(Craig) It's his inability to get out of a memory and be able to communicate not only in the present time, but he can't even talk about or reflect on the memory with words that he can form.

He's kind of choked up.

He's blocked up.

And he's becoming aware of that.

I hope it helps people kind of reflect on people in their lives that might have a hard exterior and maybe be understanding and give grace to those who have a hard time expressing themselves.

The excitement that I have is working with young people that have a desire and maybe get the experience of actually going through the process of somebody that's been in the business for a while.

(Miles) And that's the beautiful part of it is watching those two have a great dialogue and rapport for each other, even though he's been in the industry for, you know, however long and then we're just, you know, diving into it.

So it's been a great experience.

It's been very educational.

That's what I was given at the U of A when I went here was all of the professors in the drama department were nothing but encouraging.

I feel like it just represents how strong that network is and how this university really teaches us how important it is to help and support other filmmakers trying to put important stories out.

(Phoenix) Having Craig and Doria here working with us, it's given me a better idea of what working in the industry looks like.

All right, everybody.

That's a wrap on Mr.

Craig T. Nelson.

[ CHEERING ] (Clinton) I know that the most substantial amount of growth that I've had as a person was from the experience that I had to go through.

My wife says it all the time, like, I'm not the same person that I was before that experience.

And she said, it's for the better.

And it's kind of like what she said on that phone call, like, something's gonna knock you on your ass and everything's gonna change for the better.

And she was totally spot on.

(Craig) The experience for me was really refreshing.

I—you know, it's great.

Gives you kind of a new awareness.

Or maybe this acting stuff ain't so bad, you know?

I kind of just want to, you know, say thank you to everybody who's helped along this journey and worked to make this thing happen.

And giving me a platform to tell a type of story that I think is very important for everybody.

♪ COUNTRY GUITAR FADES OUT ♪ Here's your chance to see Clinton's film "Be Still Boone" on the widescreen along with thesis films from other graduating seniors right here at the Fox Tucson Theater.

It's all part of a showcase called "I Dream in Widescreen" taking place on May 9th.

And we'd like to congratulate all of the senior filmmakers.

If you've ever looked up at "A" Mountain and wondered about that crater in its side, you're not alone.

Some folks think it was a meteor, others say a volcano, but the truth of the matter is much more grounded and explosive.

(Homer) We are at Sentinel Peak, also known as "A Mountain."

There's thousands of years of history here.

Sentinel Peak is a volcanic flow from 20 to 30 million years ago.

So it's a volcanic basalt rock, and it's brownish black in color.

♪ INTRIGUING MUSIC ♪ Besides being an ancient volcanic flow, people have been farming here for 4,100 years.

If you look around on the top of Sentinel Peak, you can find bedrock mortars where people were pounding mesquite beans into flour.

Some people think that it is opening for the volcano that made this area, but that's not true.

And other people say it's where a meteorite struck the mountain, and that's not true either.

♪ INTRIGUING MUSIC ♪ In 1879, the Sisters of St.

Joseph and Bishop Salpointe decided to construct the St.

Mary's Hospital, and they wanted to build a three-story rock structure.

So they started a quarry on the side of A Mountain.

So it's just a quarry area.

♪ COMPELLING MUSIC ♪ It is a historical feature of the mountain since it's been a quarry since 1879, and the quarry was in operation up into the 1930s.

♪ COMPELLING MUSIC ♪ The main gate at the University of Arizona was constructed in 1916 from this rock.

Lots of the houses in the University District have the rock as their foundation stones.

But then in 1941, somehow the mayor of Nogales got involved, and he wanted to reopen the quarry, and he wanted to enlarge it.

And the residents of the area and people from throughout Tucson said, "No, we don't want the entire A Mountain taken away and quarried."

So then the city did an eminent domain thing and acquired it to be Tucson City Park.

Also, the local neighborhood people were tired of the explosions from the dynamite that they were using to blast the rock.

So uh its both the entire community, but especially this neighborhood.

♪ INSPIRING MUSIC ♪ There is a concrete cave leading into the mountain, and that's where the people working in the quarry stored their dynamite.

♪ INSPIRING MUSIC ♪ For the Tohono O'odham, you know, this was the village where they lived at, was right next to it.

And for local residents, it's just a landmark I lived 500 feet away, so I can say, "I live next to A Mountain."

People know where I live.

♪ INSPIRING MUSIC ♪ Most people who come to Tucson have no idea about where the name came from.

In Tohono O'odham, it's like something like S-cuk Son, "at the base of the black," and that, of course, refers to Sentinel Peak/A Mountain.

And that's where our name came from.

♪ INSPIRING MUSIC ♪ The South 32 Hermosa Project is a developing mine located near the town of Patagonia in southern Arizona.

Now, the aim is to source two federally designated critical minerals, zinc and manganese, to keep up with demand for renewable energy projects.

But people who live in the area say they're concerned about the project's water consumption and about its effects on air quality and wildlife.

♪ CALMING MUSIC ♪ (Andrea) It's become more of a nature-based economy here.

We have a very diverse group of people that live here, and we're very accepting of one another.

So we're like a big family.

I love this town.

I mean, I don't want to live any place else.

♪ CALMING MUSIC ♪ (John) When I bought the place, I did ask the owners if they thought there would ever be an issue with mining sort of starting up again.

And they said, no, the ore is too deep.

It's 5,000 feet.

It's not economic to go down and get it.

In the early 2010s, there was a Canadian outfit that came in and started poking around.

When South32 acquired 100% interest in the mine, I realized it was gonna be a problem.

(Andrea) I think our biggest concern was the impacts from the mine that have to do with our environment, you know, our water, our soil, our air, what those impacts might be for the people that live here.

Historically, this was a mining town, but it was a lot different than the kind of mine that is going in now.

(Chris) Patagonia is unique, this water, Sonoita Creek Watershed, in that it's somewhat of a horseshoe shape.

At the edge of the horseshoe, it's high elevation.

And we've got winter storms and monsoons.

People rely on the precipitation to eventually fill their aquifer that they use for drinking water.

We're 100% dependent on groundwater for everything.

We don't have any potable water reservoirs.

Our lakes are not potable.

(Susan) I've lived along Harshaw Creek now for over 30 years.

We started to have an impact with water around 2021.

Susan relies on a well that's about 165 feet from Harshaw Creek.

I think it's about four and a half miles downstream from the mine.

The well was installed in 2009.

It didn't have the best water quality and they had a treatment system to take care of some of those issues.

It worked well until 2021 when they noticed iron staining.

If you look on the hardscape, the irrigation has stained the concrete.

Similar to, you know, if you have high iron in your drinking water, you see that, you know, you get iron staining in your toilet.

That water treatment system clogged with the iron.

I've been dependent upon the Patagonia Fire Department to bring water out for me since May of 2022.

♪ ENGAGING MUSIC ♪ (Pat) We need to move that water away from the area where we're sinking the shafts to access the zinc deposit.

And so we permitted these facilities so we could pump that water away from the zinc from the shafts.

Treat it in the water treatment plant to an Arizona surface water quality standard and then put that clean water back into the environment.

(Trevor) So they're discharging clean water.

Once that water is discharged, they don't have any additional responsibility because I don't have any additional authority of what that water might pick up further down the stream But that clean water is soaking into soil that has naturally occurring lead and iron minerals and those minerals are dissolving and then flowing in the groundwater.

There are already minerals out there because, why else would you mine there if there were no minerals there, right?

And this area has, according to the details, we are aware of been mined since the 1600s.

We're working with the friends of Sonoita Creek.

We have an agreement with them where they're helping with our community science program, which we very much appreciate.

We've been working with them since 2021.

They've taken almost 1800 samples for us, which helps us have a better picture of what's going on in the area.

The data that they're sharing with us shows that the data is consistent across the past few years that we're aware of.

So the mining activity has not caused any significant change in the water chemistry or the water quality.

We are just starting to work with them on well sampling.

So they're sampling groundwater.

This is the first in the state where we've coordinated with a community group to collect well samples.

They've only taken one sample from about 20 different wells.

All of those wells are showing that the water quality is below safe drinking water act standards.

The standards don't technically apply, but it shows that the water is safe to drink.

The house is bigger than I probably need, but it's an in-holding inside the National Forest.

It had a creek on the property that flowed at one time.

It had a pond on the property that used to have water in it.

The mine is saying that it's climate change and drought conditions.

What we're seeing in these wells is very normal for a drought period coming off a wet period.

The numbers that have been thrown out there about percentage drops on any well in this region, if you measure from a monsoon high precip period to the dry season, you're going to get that same number.

Whether you're near us or not.

The mining law of 1872 is pretty clear.

They can take all the water they want.

I, you know, I can't do anything about that.

But what they can't do is destroy my property value, which is what they're doing.

We knew that at some point we would be implementing this groundwater management program, and we wanted baseline information for private wells.

Well, individual citizens own those wells, so we went to everybody within a five-mile radius and said, "Look, are you interested in having your well monitored?

We will pay somebody to collect the information and provide it to you on a quarterly basis."

We don't have to do well protection agreements.

Whatever happens with those wells happens.

But that's, again, that's not how we have committed we would work with the community and work with state lawyers.

(Robin) When you have a dark forest multiplier, like a billion dollar mining company coming in that requires so much water, what does that then affect?

And then we're in this horrendous drought.

I think water is really very, very, very worrying to people.

♪ EMOTIONAL MUSIC ♪ (John) We knew that there had been previous mining in the area, but we had no idea that this South32 was going to move in and really expand the mining process.

They're going to monitor our well, and now we're going to have to disclose that on a disclosure statement if we could ever sell this home, which is very doubtful.

When you sign a disclosure statement that says there's water problems on your property, you're done.

I would say they have protection for their groundwater supply if they sign that agreement that they don't have today.

So if you go to sell a house today, adjacent to, I mean, anywhere around here and you don't have that agreement, anybody can move in next door and start pumping groundwater and impact you.

I feel as though the mine is a neighbor.

It's here to stay, and I'd like to see them stand up on their responsibilities to helping those of us who have been truly impacted by their activities.

The agreement provides them if anything we do impacts their water supply and their well, we will pay and take measures to address that by either deepening their well, moving their well to where they get continuous supply.

I asked them if they would help me figure this out because by having cleaned my system and the problem still existed, I felt like I had enough evidence to suggest they were part of the problem, if not the problem.

(Alex) I'm with Friends of Sonoita Creek, which is attempting to monitor the changes in the environment, particularly in the groundwater and the flowing water in the Patagonia Mountains and how it affects the town of Patagonia.

We have a great collaboration of citizens and scientists that are studying these things, trying to make sense for ourselves.

Let's not point fingers, let's solve the problem.

Let's figure out how to provide water for the community and for the wildlife, which is actually my biggest concern.

Not everybody's going to be okay with what we're doing.

All we can do is, and we're continually trying to get through different avenues to engage people on their concerns.

I hope we're judged by how we respond.

(Tom) South 32 Hermosa was a financial supporter of Arizona Public Media in 2024.

To learn more about this ongoing story, mining and water issues in southern Arizona, follow AZPM reporter Katya Mendoza on news.azpm.org In April, University of Arizona professor Erica Hamden was named a Guggenheim fellow, adding to her long, long list of accomplishments.

And recently I had the chance to sit down with Erika as part of our new show, "Speaking Personally," where we get to know people on a deeper level and find out what makes them tick.

- What's left now what keeps you awake at night what's that what's what's burning in your soul still as far as what you want to accomplish?

[ LAUGHS ] So many things yeah um yeah like like professionally I still have you know telescopes that I want to build and and really it's it's observations that I want to make and like things that I want to know.

I like want to know the sun formed out of this big cloud of hydrogen and we have like a nice story about like how stars form in in a galaxy anywhere.

But actually, like all the details of that story are unknown.

Like how does the cloud condense like what are the conditions like why does one cloud make stars and one cloud doesn't.

So there's stuff like that or like how galaxies form out of the kind of hydrogen formed in the Big Bang.

And I like I find I have all these questions about like the formation of things like I like a star I like the galaxy they're very beautiful but I actually don't care once they're made I like want to know how they got to be.

So that question of like how do you make a galaxy how do you make our galaxy an our star like you know if 40 years from now we have even half of an answer I'll be like oh great great we did it!

[ LAUGHS ] (Erika) Or we're doing it.

So that the scientific questions are still really there's still a lot of them and the more that you know the more questions like bubble up!

(Tom) Be sure to watch my full interview with Erika Hamden on YouTube or listen to it on our new Speaking Personally podcast.

For more information, go to azpm.org/speakingpersonally Thank you for joining us for Arizona Illustrated from here at the Fox Theater.

I'm Tom McNamara and we'll see you again next week.