By james art An Australian mining company’s lithium-boron mine in Nevada passed all environmental hurdles on Thursday, and an environmental group immediately notified the federal government that it plans to sue.
In a letter to Interior Department officials, the Center for Biological Diversity announced its intention to file a lawsuit, calling the mine an unacceptable threat to an endangered wildflower known as Tiehm’s buckwheat. The organization’s successful campaign for emergency listing under the Endangered Species Act significantly shifted the mine’s plan of operations, making more provisions for the plant.
The decision marks the first approval of a lithium mine by the Biden administration to date. The mine, which the company says will produce enough lithium to power 370,000 electric vehicles a year, will be the only one in the world to produce lithium and boron simultaneously on a large scale. It will create 500 construction jobs and 300 jobs once the mine is operational.
“This is truly a one-of-a-kind project,” Ioneer CEO Bernard Rowe told reporters at a press briefing. “It’s the unique mineralogy, this combination of lithium and boron, that really sets it apart.”
Rhyolite Ridge, as the remote mountain ridge in Esmeralda County is called, is just miles from the country’s only operating lithium mine at Albemarle-owned Silver Peak. Ioneer’s project joins Lithium America’s Thacker Pass, near the Nevada-Oregon border, as the third fully permitted lithium mine in the country — all in the Silver State.
Nevada’s Lithium Legacy
Thursday’s announcement further solidifies Nevada as a leader for so-called “critical minerals,” or those the federal government deems to be in short supply. Biden administration officials have linked certain mining projects to the push for more green energy sources, such as lithium for electric vehicle batteries.
There was also support from across the political aisle, with Republican Gov. Joe Lombardo hosting the first Nevada Lithium Summit in Reno in September. His office did not respond to a request for comment on Ioneer’s announcement.
U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., wrote to X that the Rhyolite Ridge project is a good example of how the country can shed its dependence on China, which supplies 80 percent of the world’s battery cells and accounts for about 60 percent from the global electric car market.
“The fact is that we cannot continue to rely on the Chinese Communist Party for the critical minerals we need for our military and economy,” Cortez Masto wrote. “We need to bring those jobs back home and tackle climate change. We can and must do both.”
In a statement to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Mining Association President Amanda Hilton praised Ioneer for its “commitment to responsible development” and called the approval a “significant step forward” for Nevada’s role in producing local lithium supplies.
The federal government has signaled its support for lithium development in Nevada on multiple occasions, most notably with the $700 million conditional loan the Department of Energy provided to Ioneer for the project.
“We have moved quickly to build a robust and sustainable clean energy economy that will create jobs to support families, boost local economies and help address environmental injustice,” Acting Under Secretary of the Interior said in a statement works Laura Daniel-Davies. “The Rhyolite Ridge Lithium Mine Project is essential to advancing the clean energy transition and powering the economy of the future.”
The fight over wildflowers could end up in the courtroom
But the speed that federal officials say is needed to diversify the nation’s energy portfolio and address climate change does not come without sacrifices.
A lawsuit related to the Endangered Species Act — the federal law that requires the government to protect plants and animals at risk of extinction — may be imminent.
“(The Bureau of Land Management) has consistently prioritized aspects of its multiple-use mission, particularly expedited approval of Ioneer’s exploration and mine development proposals, at the expense of Tiehm Buckwheat,” the Center for Biological Diversity attorneys wrote in their letter to federal officials.
Ioneer executives told the Review-Journal they don’t expect a lawsuit to delay construction, which is slated to begin in 2025.
As part of the environmental permit process, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a formal opinion that the mine “is not likely to threaten the continued existence” of Tiehm’s buckwheat and will not “result in the destruction or adverse modification of its critical habitat.”
Ioneer has volunteered several million dollars to protect the flower, even opening a greenhouse to move it into the wild. This effort has raised some eyebrows among botanists. Dozens of scientists signed a letter in 2020 expressing concern about the mine’s impact on the species.
Naomi Fraga, director of conservation at the California Botanical Garden, who was integral to the baseline studies that increased the endangered species list, said the Interior Department did not fully consider all available science.
Among her concerns are the increase she’s seen in invasive plants in the habitat and the potential disruption to pollination.
There is no credible evidence that translocation will work, Fraga said, which puts the species at risk.
“You’re not going to see species disappear tomorrow,” she said. “But it is certainly on its way to extinction and will see disruptions that are irreparable. The species will never recover.
The BLM has 60 days to respond to the alleged violations outlined in the letter from the Center for Biological Diversity.
Contact Alan Halali at [email protected]. Follow along @AlanHalali of X.