Bureau of Land Management pulls plug on lithium mining plan near endangered wildlife refuge

LAS VEGAS (CN) — The Bureau of Land Management will not go through with a planned lithium exploration project near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in southern Nevada, an area home to 12 species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act.

“I’d say we’re pretty thrilled," said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Speaking by phone from his home near the refuge, Donnelly noted the quick speed with which the project was stopped after he got the news late Wednesday.

"Sometimes these fights play out over months and years, and it can be a real slog. Sometimes it’s really fast and furious, and that’s what this has been,” Donnelly said.

Along with the Amargosa Conservancy, Donnelly's group in July sued the bureau aiming to stop exploratory mineral drilling near Ash Meadows, located about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Lithium is an essential component in electric vehicle batteries, a focal point in the Biden administration’s effort to lessen the country’s dependence on fossil fuels.

“BLM’s actions in this case threaten one of the most unique and biologically diverse areas in the United States, and possibly the world. The refuge is a place of unparalleled beauty and natural wonder, where spring-fed wetlands draw a stark contrast to the surrounding desert shrublands and woodlands," the groups wrote in the suit.

“Because of its isolation within the vast Mojave Desert, the refuge harbors one of the most remarkable assemblages of rare and endemic species in the world, including a dozen species protected as 'threatened' or 'endangered' under the Endangered Species Act.”

Rover Metals, a Canadian mining exploration company, proposed drilling 30 boreholes on public lands just north of Ash Meadows for a possible lithium mine. Some of the proposed drill sites were less than 2,000 feet from springs in the refuge.

“The litigation had to be accelerated," Donnelly said. "Those drill rigs were supposed to show up next week. And then the reaction from the community was so overwhelming that BLM felt compelled to act."

In a letter, the bureau concluded that proposed operations would likely result in “disturbance to localized groundwaters that supply the connected surface waters associated with threatened and endangered species in local springs in the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, and perhaps cause significant impacts to other threatened and endangered identified species in and around the Notice area.”

The agency also pointed out that the United States Fish and Wildlife Service expressed concern about potential impacts to water quality on the Ash Meadows refuge resulting from the exploration drilling. The USFWS specifically highlighted the proximity of the project to the Fairbanks, Rogers and Longstreet springs.

Donnelly explained why the bureau may have chosen to spike this project when earlier this month it greenlit the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, near the Oregon border. The earlier approved project is a full-blown mining operation, he said, unlike the exploratory Ash Meadows proposal, intended to see if there is enough lithium in the ground to mine. Different sets of laws govern each project.

The cancellation at Ash Meadows is by no means the end of lithium battles.

“Certainly, the political overtones of lithium mining right now are quite intense. To be frank, that’s why we were girding for a long-term battle here (Ash Meadows). BLM did the right thing and the politics apparently didn’t get in the way of science and the law,” Donnelly said.

“I’ve documented 122 lithium projects in the Western United States. Some of them are in acceptable places, but some are very unacceptable,” Donnelly said. “I don’t think we’ve seen the end of conflict over lithium in the American West.”

Donnelly also noted the Center for Biological Diversity is not against lithium mining.

“We support lithium production as part of our renewable energy transition," he said. "It’s just got to be done right, and I think it was pretty obvious to everybody that this (Ash Meadows) was the wrong place.”

Calls to Rover Metals and the Bureau were not returned by deadline.

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