Nevada lithium mine gets federal approval, faces legal challenge

The Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management last week (Oct. 24) gave a green light to a major new lithium mine on federal land, the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron mining project in southern Nevada’s Silver Peak Range in the Great Basin region between Reno and Las Vegas. The decision is the first Biden administration approval of a lithium mine. The BLM decision is likely to face a lawsuit by environmental groups.

Announcing Interior’s “final decision” on the project in Reno, Acting Deputy Interior Secretary Laura Daniel-Davis said, ““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. The Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine project is essential to advancing the clean energy transition and powering the economy of the future.”

In January 2023, the Department of Energy awarded the project’s sponsors, Australia’s Ioneer Ltd. (NASDQ:IONR), a conditional loan of up to $700 million for the Nevada project. DOE said the loan “would finance the on-site processing of lithium carbonate that could potentially support production of lithium for approximately 370,000 EVs each year.”

A month before BLM gave Ioneer the go ahead, the agency approved a final environmental impact  statement. In its press release announcing the environmental clearance for the project, BLM noted, ““This environmental analysis is the product of the hard work of experts from multiple agencies, to ensure we protect species as we provide critical minerals to the nation. We’re steadfast in our commitment to be responsible stewards of our public lands as we deliver the promise of a clean energy economy.”

The BLM press release also said, “The proposed project area encompasses the only known populations and critical habitat for Tiehm’s Buckwheat, a flower endemic to the site. The BLM’s final EIS for the project assesses and identifies significant protections for the plant, which the BLM developed in collaboration with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.”

That finding had already triggered concern from the Center for Biological Diversity, which has a long record of challenging government development projects, including BLM actions, using the federal Endangered Species Act. The group last May 3 held a zoom press conference to criticize the BLM’s draft environmental impact statement.

After the BLM final decision announcement, Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Great Basin director told the Washington Post his group will go to court to challenge the project. He noted that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2022 listed the plant as protected by the Endangered Species Act, citing mining as the greatest threat.

Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said the conservation group plans to challenge the final permit in court. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cited mining as the greatest threat to the survival of Tiehm’s buckwheat when the agency listed it under the Endangered Species Act in 2022; Donnelly said the suit will argue that the BLM violated the law in allowing the mining operation to move forward.

“There’s this real question of how our bedrock environmental laws are going to hold up under the pressure of the energy transition,” Donnelly said. “The Endangered Species Act does not have carve-outs if we really, really want the minerals that are going to drive a species extinct.”

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD, not to be confused with cannabidiol) has become a major force in the environmental movement, with some 1.7 million members, headquarters in Tucson, and offices and staff in New Mexico, Nevada, California, Oregon, Illinois, Minnesota, Alaska, Vermont, Florida, and Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1989 to challenge U.S. Forest Service practices on logging, grazing, and mining while disregarding the Endangered Species Act.

The Post article also reported that there are also environmental concerns about the mine’s consumptive use of water in a region that is historically arid and currently suffering from drought. In a conference call, Bernard Rowe, Ioneer’s managing director, told reporters that the mine will recirculate 50% of its water. He said the company has “designed the project to be very, very respectful of environmental sensitivities.”

Ioneer says that “once operational, Rhyolite Ridge is expected to be a low-cost lithium site, due to the valuable boron co-product and innovative cost saving measures embedded in our sustainably designed operations. Over the course of its lifetime, modelled on a 26-year production, Rhyolite Ridge will help power upward of 50 million electric vehicles.

“Because our operations will be on-site and our materials will not be shipped to a separate processing facility, Ioneer can more quickly and efficiently produce lithium carbonate, critical for the EV battery supply chain.”

According to Wikipedia, boron has important uses: “About half of all production consumed globally is an additive in fiberglass for insulation and structural materials. The next leading use is in polymers and ceramics in high-strength, lightweight structural and heat-resistant materials. Borosilicate glass is desired for its greater strength and thermal shock resistance than ordinary soda lime glass.”

Ioneer hopes to have the mine in operation in 2028.

–Kennedy Maize

The Quad Report

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