Judge won’t block Nevada lithium mine
A federal judge on Friday declined to block a proposed Nevada lithium mine, the second consecutive defeat for a coalition of environmental groups seeking to halt the project.
In her ruling, Judge Miranda Du of the District of Nevada, an Obama appointee, sided with the Bureau of Land Management and Canada-based company Lithium Americas on beginning construction of a new lithium mine near the border with Oregon.
A coalition of ranchers and environmental organizations, including Wildlands Defense and the Western Watersheds Project, had asked Du to stop construction of the mine while an appeal in the 9th Circuit Court is pending.
“Plaintiffs have failed to make a clear showing of entitlement to the extraordinary remedy of an injunction pending appeal,” Du wrote. In their argument, she wrote, they failed to demonstrate the appeal is likely to succeed on merit.
The plaintiffs’ “most persuasive” argument, she wrote, was that allowing the project to proceed would cause environmental harms.
“The Court again agrees with Environmental Plaintiffs, but only to a point. Specifically, the Court agrees — and understood when it issued the Merits Order several weeks ago — that the Merits Order would mean Lithium Nevada could start construction on the Project, and thus disrupt the sagebrush ecosystem within the Project area,” she wrote. “Court indeed expects that Lithium Nevada unfortunately will soon begin ripping out sage brush that will not grow back for a very long time.”
On Feb. 6, Du had ruled that BLM’s approval of the mine in Thacker Pass complied with federal law except in one part of its environmental review, ordering them to redo that section but leaving the approval in place in the meantime.
The Thacker Pass mine is the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the U.S., a prized commodity as demand for electric vehicles grows.
“Today’s ruling further underscores the fact that the permitting process for Thacker Pass was both comprehensive and proper. We’re focused on moving ahead with construction,” a spokesperson for Lithium Americas told The Hill in a statement.
Environmental plaintiffs refiled their motion in the 9th Circuit Monday in response to the ruling.
“The federal permitting process for the proposed Thacker Pass mine took just under a year, unlike the typical timeline of 3-5 years for a mine of this scale and complexity. As a result the environmental impact statement is inadequate and needs to be done correctly and legally,” John Hadder, Director of Great Basin Resource Watch, said in a statement. “It is not good for Nevadans nor for tackling climate change to permit a mine in the manner as done at Thacker Pass. Running over community concerns and ignoring significant damage to the environment is how we got into the climate situation that we are in now.”
This story was updated at 3:28 p.m.
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