RENO, Nev. (AP) — The Biden administration has taken a key step in an expedited environmental review of what could be the third lithium mine in the United States. wild flower
The Bureau of Land Management last week released more than 2,000 pages of documentation on its draft environmental impact statement for the Rhyolite Ridge mine. Lithium is the metal key to battery production for electric vehicles and a centerpiece of President Joe Biden’s “green energy” agenda.
The bureau and parent Interior Department officials announced the news, saying the progress in reviewing the lithium-boron mine project “represents another step by the Biden-Harris administration to support responsible, domestic development of critical minerals to power clean energy.” energy economy.”
“Federal agencies collaborating to solve problems efficiently while protecting sensitive species and other irreplaceable resources is exactly the way we need to proceed if we are to produce these critical minerals in the United States,” said Deputy Secretary of the Interior Steve Feldgus. land and mineral management.
Environmentalists who have vowed to combat the mine say it is the latest example of the administration running roughshod over U.S. protections for native wildlife and rare species in the name of slowing climate change by reducing dependence on fossil fuels and cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
Patrick Donnelly, the Center for Biological Diversity’s Great Basin director, described it as a “green extinction.” The nonprofit conservation group first petitioned in 2019 for federal protection of Tiehm buckwheat, the rare flower that grows near the California border.
“We believe the current conservation plan would violate the Endangered Species Act, so if the BLM approves it as proposed we will almost certainly appeal it,” he told The Associated Press last week.
Nevada is home to the only existing lithium mine in the United States, and another is currently under construction near the Oregon line, 220 miles (354 kilometers) north of Reno. By 2030, worldwide lithium demand is predicted to increase sixfold compared to 2020.
Australian mining company Ioneer Ltd., which has been planning to drill for lithium in the area for years, has published the draft review for the new mine and opened public comment until June 3 after adjusting its latest plan to reduce the destruction of critical minerals, the bureau said. The habitat of the plant found nowhere else in the world.
Bernard Rowe, managing director of Ioneer, said lithium production could start as early as 2027. He said the company spent six years adjusting plans for the mine to co-exist with the facility, investing $2.5 million in preservation efforts and committing another $1. million per year to ensure the protection of the plant and its surrounding habitat.
“Rhyolite Ridge will help accelerate the electric vehicle transition and ensure a cleaner future for our children and grandchildren,” said Ioneer Chief Executive James Calaway.
In addition to reducing encroachment on the 6-inch-tall (15 centimeters-high) wildflower with yellow and cream-colored flowers, the strategy also includes a controversial propagation plan to grow and transplant the flower nearby — something conservationists say will not work.
The plant grows in eight subpopulations covering about 10 acres (4 ha); This is an area equal to the size of approximately eight football fields. They sit halfway between Reno and Las Vegas, 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. endangered species list on December 14, 2022, citing mining as the greatest threat to its survival.
Less than a week later, the government issued a formal notice of intent to begin work on the draft environmental impact statement. Three weeks after that, the Department of Energy announced it would give Ioneer a $700 million conditional loan for the mining project that it said could produce enough lithium to support the production of about 370,000 electric vehicles annually 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 show the administration rushed its review of the mine.
Scott Distell, BLM’s project manager for the review, expressed concern about the accelerated schedule in an email to the county boss when it was suddenly accelerated in December 2023.
“This is a very aggressive schedule that deviates from other project schedules on similar projects recently completed,” Distell wrote in a Dec. 22 email.
The draft environmental impact statement lays out three different options for the project; these include the “no action alternative”, which means no mine will be built. The one the bureau says it prefers predicts that Ioneer’s conservation plan would allow for the direct destruction of about 22% of plant habitat in the 910 acres (368 hectares) of land the Fish and Wildlife Service has designated as critical habitat when it lists it as endangered. . This is lower than the 38% rate estimated in an earlier version of the plan.
“Any destruction of critical habitat for an extremely rare species confined to such a small area is unacceptable,” said Naomi Fraga, conservation manager at the California Botanical Garden.
The Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service in cases where a project might impact a threatened or endangered species to ensure it “will not result in the destruction or adverse modification of designated critical habitat,” Donnelly said. indicates its necessity.
“Reducing habitat destruction for this rare plant from 38% to 22% would be like amputating one leg rather than amputating both,” Donnelly said. “They are still dealing a fatal blow to this precious, rare wildflower.”