by RENO, Nev. (AP) – The Biden administration has taken a significant step in its expedited environmental review of a potential third lithium mine in the United States, amid expected legal challenges from conservationists over it the threat they say is that Nevada is at risk. wild flower.
The Bureau of Land Management released more than 2,000 pages of documents in a draft environmental impact statement last week for the Rhyolite Ridge mine. Lithium is a key metal for the manufacture of batteries for electric vehicles – a central element of President Joe Biden’s “green energy” agenda.
Officials at the bureau and its parent Department of the Interior announced the news, saying the progress in the review of the lithium-boron mine project “is another step by the Biden-Harris administration to support responsible, domestic development of critical minerals to power the net. energy economy.”
“Federal agencies working together to effectively resolve issues while protecting vulnerable species and other irreplaceable resources is exactly how we need to move forward if we are going to produce these critical minerals in the United States,” said Steve Feldgus, deputy assistant secretary of the Interior for. land and mineral management.
Environmentalists voting to fight the mine say it is the latest example of the administration running roughshod over US protections for native wildlife and rare species in the name of slowing climate change by reducing dependence on fossil fuels and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. reduction.
Patrick Donnelly, director of the Great Basin at the Center for Biological Diversity, described it as “green nonchalant”. The nonprofit conservation group first petitioned in 2019 for federal protection of the rare flower, Tiehm’s buckthorn, which grows near the California line.
“We believe the current protection plan would violate the Endangered Species Act, so if BLM approves it as proposed, we will certainly challenge it,” he told the Associated Press last week.
Nevada is the only existing lithium mine in the US and another is currently under construction near the Oregon line 220 miles (354 kilometers) north of Reno. By 2030, global demand for lithium is expected to increase sixfold compared to 2020.
The bureau said it published the draft review and opened public comment through June 3 for the new mine after Ioneer Ltd., an Australian mining company that has been planning for years to dig lithium at the site. , adjusting its latest blueprint to reduce critical destruction. a habitat for the plant, which exists nowhere else in the world.
Bernard Rowe, Ioneer’s managing director, said lithium production could begin as early as 2027. He said the company has spent six years adjusting its plans so the mine can coexist with the plant. , invested $2.5 million in conservation efforts and pledged an additional $1. million per year to ensure that the plant and its surrounding habitat are protected.
“Rhyolite Ridge will help accelerate the transition to electric vehicles and ensure a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren,” said Ioneer Executive Chairman James Calaway.
In addition to shrinking back the 6-inch (15-centimeter-tall) wildflower with yellow and cream-colored flowers, the strategy includes a controversial propagation plan to grow and transplant flowers nearby – which conservationists say does not it will work. .
The plant grows in eight subpopulations that together cover about 10 acres (4 hectares) – an area equivalent to the size of about eight football pitches. They are located halfway between Reno and Las Vegas in a high desert oasis of sorts for the plants and insects that pollinate them.
The Fish and Wildlife Service added the flower to the US endangered species list on December 14, 2022, citing mining as the greatest threat to its survival.
Less than a week later, the government published a formal notice of intent to begin work on the draft environmental impact statement. Three weeks later, the Department of Energy announced a $700 million conditional loan to Ioneer for the mining project it said could produce enough lithium to support the production of about 370,000 electric vehicles a year for four decades.
The Center for Biological Diversity said a set of internal documents it obtained from the Bureau of Land Management through a Freedom of Information Act request shows the administration is fudging its review of the mine.
Scott Distell, the BLM project manager in charge of the review, raised concerns about the accelerated schedule in an email to his district manager when it was suddenly accelerated in December 2023.
“This is a very aggressive schedule that deviates from other project schedules on similar projects that have been completed recently,” Distell wrote in a Dec. 22 email.
The draft environmental impact statement sets out three different options for the project, including a “no action alternative” which would mean no mine would be built. The bureau said it expects Ioneer’s protection plan to allow the direct destruction of about 22% of the plant’s habitat in the 910 acres (368 hectares) that the Fish and Wildlife Service designated as critical habitat when it listed it. as an endangered habitat. That’s down from 38% estimated in an earlier version of the plan.
“For such a rare species confined to such a small area, any destruction of their critical habitat is unacceptable,” said Naomi Fraga, director of conservation at the California Botanic Garden.
Donnelly cites the Endangered Species Act’s requirement that federal agencies consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service whenever a project may affect an endangered or threatened species to ensure that there will be no “destruction or modification resulting in adverse effects on designated critical habitat.”
“Reducing the habitat destruction of this rare plant from 38% to 22% is like amputating one leg instead of both,” Donnelly said.
