- The Biden administration quickly began an environmental review of the Rhyolite Ridge mine in Nevada.
- Environmentalists have vowed to challenge the mine’s approval, saying it violates the Endangered Species Act and threatens the survival of endangered wildflowers.
- Nevada currently has the only existing lithium mine in the United States, and another is under construction.
The Biden administration wants to move quickly on what could be the third lithium mine in the U.S. amid expected legal challenges from conservationists over the threat it poses to endangered Nevada wildflowers. An important step has been taken in this environmental study.
The Bureau of Land Management released more than 2,000 pages of draft environmental impact statements for the Rhyolite Ridge Mine last week. Lithium is a key metal in making electric vehicle batteries, a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s “green energy” agenda.
Officials at the agency and its parent company, the Department of the Interior, touted the news, saying that progress on the review of lithium and boron mine projects is a “Biden support for responsible domestic development of critical minerals to power clean energy.”・It represents a new step for the Harris administration.” energy economy. ”
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“Federal agencies working together to efficiently solve problems while protecting vulnerable species and other irreplaceable resources is exactly what we need moving forward if we are to produce these critical minerals in the United States.” “There is a way,” said Steve Feldgas, assistant secretary of the interior. Land and Mineral Management.
This photo on May 22, 2020 shows the Teems Soba plant near a proposed lithium mine site in Nevada. The Biden administration has taken an important step as it quickly considers plans for what will be the nation’s third lithium mine. Conservationists fear it could lead to the extinction of endangered Nevada wildflowers near the California border. (Patrick Donnelly/Centre for Biological Diversity, via AP, File)
Environmentalists vowing to fight the mine say it is designed to protect the nation’s native wildlife and rare species in the name of slowing climate change by reducing dependence on fossil fuels and cutting greenhouse gas emissions. They say it is the latest example of the regime’s overreach toward protection.
Patrick Donnelly, director of the Great Basin at the Center for Biological Diversity, described this as a “green extinction.” In 2019, a nonprofit conservation group first petitioned the federal government to protect the teal buckwheat, a rare flower that grows near the California border.
“We believe the current conservation plan violates the Endangered Species Act, and we will almost certainly object if the BLM approves it as proposed,” he told The Associated Press last week.
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Nevada is home to the only existing lithium mine in the United States, and another is currently under construction near the Oregon line, 350 miles north of Reno. By 2030, global lithium demand is predicted to increase six times compared to 2020.
The agency issued a draft review of new mines after Australian mining company Ionia, which has been planning to mine lithium at the site for years, adjusted its latest blueprint to reduce destruction of critical ore. It was announced that public comment had begun until June 3rd. A habitat for plants that exist nowhere else in the world.
Ionia managing director Bernard Lowe said lithium production could begin as early as 2027. He said the company has spent six years coordinating plans so the mine and factory can coexist, and has invested $2.5 million in conservation efforts and pledged an additional $1. More than 1 million plants per year to ensure the protection of plants and their surrounding habitat.
“Rhyolite Ridge will help accelerate the transition to electric vehicles and secure a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren,” said James Calaway, Executive Chairman of Ioneer.
In addition to reducing invasiveness of the 15-centimeter-tall wildflower with yellow and cream-colored flowers, the strategy includes a controversial breeding program that involves growing and transplanting the flowers nearby. But conservationists say this won’t work.
The plant grows in eight subpopulations that together cover about 10 acres (an area equal to about eight football fields). They are located halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, making them a kind of high desert oasis for plants and the insects that pollinate them.
The Fish and Wildlife Service added the flower to the U.S. list of endangered species on December 14, 2022, citing mining as the greatest threat to its survival.
Less than a week later, the government issued a formal notification to begin work on a draft environmental impact report. Three weeks later, the Department of Energy awarded Ionia a $700 million conditional loan for a mining project that could produce enough lithium to support the production of about 370,000 electric cars a year for 40 years. Announced.
The Center for Biological Diversity said a series of internal documents obtained from the Bureau of Land Management through a Freedom of Information Act request show the government is moving quickly to review the mine.
Scott Distell, the BLM project manager in charge of the review, expressed concerns about the accelerated schedule in an email to district supervisors when the schedule was suddenly pushed back to December 2023.
“This is a very aggressive schedule that deviates from other project schedules for similar projects completed recently,” Distel wrote in a Dec. 22 email.
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The draft environmental impact statement sets out three different options for the project, including a “do nothing alternative” which would mean not building a mine. Under the plan the agency says it wants, Ionia’s conservation plan would include about 22 acres of the 910 acres (368 hectares) of plant habitat the Fish and Wildlife Service designated as critical habitat when it listed the species as endangered. We predict that it will be possible to directly destroy %. This is down from an estimated 38% in the previous version of the plan.
“For an extremely rare species that lives in such a small area, any amount of destruction of its critical habitat is unacceptable,” said Naomi Fraga, director of conservation at the California Botanical Garden.
Donnelly said federal agencies work with the Fish and Wildlife Service to ensure that projects do not result in “the destruction or adverse impact of designated critical habitat” when projects could impact endangered or endangered species. He pointed out that consultation is required under the Endangered Species Act.
“Reducing habitat destruction for this rare plant from 38% to 22% is like cutting off one leg instead of both,” Donnelly said. “They are still dealing a devastating blow to this precious and rare wildflower.”
