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On Monday, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding the approval of the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada. Tribes and conservation groups have been challenging the approval for the past two years.
A number of Tribes hold the area as sacred; in addition to being currently used for ceremonies and for plant-gathering, Thacker Pass is also believed to be the potential site of the massacre of Tribal members by U.S. soldiers in 1865. The Tribes argued that the Bureau of Land Management failed to properly consult them, and violated federal environmental laws when it approved the project. However, the appeals court found that the BLM acted "reasonably and in good faith" in its consultation with Tribes.
Conservation groups had argued that the BLM violated environmental laws when it approved the project, pointing to impacts the project will have on groundwater and on habitat for endangered species and other wildlife and plants. But the 9th Circuit found that the approval "was not arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with" environmental laws.
The decision did not address arguments that the approval of the Thacker Pass mine is inconsistent with another 9th Circuit decision that adopted a more stringent interpretation of mining companies' rights to dump mine waste on public lands adjacent to their mining claims. With this decision, ongoing construction at Thacker Pass is expected to continue and the mine will become the largest lithium mine in the U.S., and one of the largest lithium sources in the world, within the next few years.
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We all recognize the need for renewable energy, but it can’t come at the cost of making the biodiversity crisis worse.”
