Nevada lithium mine gets final approval despite possible harm to endangered wildflower

RENO, Nev. (AP) – For the first time under President Joe Biden, a federal permit for a new lithium mine has been approved for a Nevada project vital to his clean energy agenda, even as environmentalists vowed to sue over the plan. They say it will drive an endangered wildflower to extinction.

Ioneer Ltd.’s mine will help accelerate production of a mineral important for producing batteries for electric vehicles, which is at the center of Biden’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, administration officials said in Reno on Thursday.

Acting Deputy Home Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said this was “essential to advance the clean energy transition and power the economy of the future.”

“The process we are engaged in demonstrates that we can pursue responsible critical mineral development in the United States while protecting the health of our public lands and resources,” he said.

Australia-based Ioneer said construction of the Rhyolite Ridge mine in the middle of the high desert between Reno and Las Vegas should start next year, after six years of work.

Production at the mine, which will produce enough lithium for 370,000 vehicles per year for more than two decades, is planned to begin in 2028, officials said. Worldwide lithium demand is predicted to increase sixfold by 2030 compared to 2020.

“I can say with certainty that there are very few deposits in the world as effective as Rhyolite Ridge,” Ioneer Chief Executive James Calaway said Thursday.

“Today’s approval of Ioneer’s federal permit is the culmination of many hours of work and a testament to our extraordinary team’s dedication to developing and building one of the most sustainable mining projects in the country,” he said.

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management granted the permit after the Fish and Wildlife Service concluded (in consultation with the bureau required under the Endangered Species Act) that the mine would not jeopardize the survival of buckwheat in Tiehm.

The service added the 6-inch-tall (15 centimeters-tall) wildflower with yellow and cream-colored flowers to the U.S. endangered species list on Dec. 14, 2022, citing mining as the biggest threat to its survival.

The bureau started the mine’s permitting process five days later. Ioneer’s subsequent changes to the mine’s footprint alleviated concerns about potential damage to the flower, the agencies say.

Environmentalists said Thursday that the mine’s final approval was a politically motivated violation of numerous U.S. laws. “The only way to stop the Ryolite Ridge Mine is to file a lawsuit,” the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement.

“We need lithium for the energy transition, but the cost of it is out of the question,” said Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Great Basin director. He said the Biden administration has “abandoned its duty to protect endangered species like the Tiehm buckwheat and is making a mockery of the Endangered Species Act.”

Fewer than 30,000 of the plants remain in Nevada, the only place in the world where they are known to exist, in eight subpopulations covering a total area of 10 acres (4 ha); This is an area equal to the size of approximately eight football fields.

The USFWS said the project, including infrastructure and waste rock dumping, would come within 15 feet (5 meters) of buckwheat and result in the loss of some of the designated critical habitat that is home to neighboring bees and other pollinators integral to its reproduction. .

But the service said the operation would not cause a direct disturbance to individual facilities and that the reclamation, mitigation and monitoring efforts promised in the plan should provide necessary protections to coexist with an open-pit mine deeper than the length of a football field.

Opponents of the project say it is the latest example of the Biden administration cracking down on U.S. protections for native wildlife, rare species and sacred tribal lands in an effort to slow climate change by reducing reliance on fossil fuels and strengthen national security by reducing reliance on foreign resources. It is one of the critical minerals.

“We have been fighting to save Tiehm’s buckwheat for six years and we are not giving up now,” Donnelly said.

Nevada is home to the only existing lithium mine in the United States. Another is currently under construction near the Oregon line, 220 miles (354 kilometers) north of Reno. The Lithium America mine at Thacker Pass, approved in the final days of former President Donald Trump’s administration, has survived numerous legal challenges from environmentalists and Native American tribes who said it would destroy lands they consider sacred, where their ancestors were massacred by U.S. troops. 1865.