Biden approves Nev. lithium project, draws legal threat

By Hannah Northey, Michael Doyle | 10/24/2024 04:21 PM EDT

Ioneer’s proposed Rhyolite Ridge lithium and boron mine and processing plant is entwined with the fate of an endangered wildflower.

A patch of Tiehm’s buckwheat is bisected by a dirt road.

In the Rhyolite Ridge, a patch of Tiehm’s buckwheat is bisected by a road built by a mining company near the proposed site of a lithium mine. M. Scott Mahaskey/POLITICO

The Biden administration Thursday signed off on a controversial plan to build one of the nation’s largest lithium mines and processing plants that would serve a coming electric vehicle boom, prompting a legal threat from environmentalists worried about the fate of an endangered wildflower.

The Bureau of Land Management’s record of decision propels forward Ioneer’s proposal for an open-pit lithium and boron mine and processing plant in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Ioneer is angling to move the Rhyolite Ridge project into construction next year, with production beginning in 2028.

“This permit gives us a license to commence construction in 2025 and begin our work in creating hundreds of good-paying rural jobs, generating millions in tax revenue for Esmeralda County, and bolstering the domestic production of critical minerals,” Ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe said.

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“I can say with absolute confidence there are few deposits in the world as impactful as Rhyolite Ridge,” Ioneer Executive Chair James Calaway added.

Ioneer’s project, slated to cost $785 million, stands to pull in a $700 million federal loan commitment for the chemical processing plant, as well as lucrative contracts with lithium-hungry EV makers and possibly millions of dollars in tax credits under the Inflation Reduction Act.

Environmentalists immediately denounced the government’s go-ahead for the big project that’s incited years of debate, litigation and regulatory maneuvering.

Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said his group, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, and the Great Basin Resource Watch immediately sent BLM and the Fish and Wildlife Service a 60-day notice that they intend to sue under the Endangered Species Act. Donnelly said the federal action signals doom for Tiehm’s buckwheat, an endangered wildflower that only grows at the site where Ioneer intends to mine.

“By greenlighting this mine, the Bureau of Land Management is abandoning its duty to protect endangered species like Tiehm’s buckwheat, and it’s making a mockery of the Endangered Species Act,” Donnelly said. “We need lithium for the energy transition, but it can’t come with a price tag of extinction.”

Donnelly warned that further litigation is “now the only way [to] stop the Rhyolite Ridge mine from causing the extinction of Tiehm’s buckwheat, harm to cultural sites and resources, and destruction of water resources.”

A Tiehm's buckwheat plant starts to bud.
A Tiehm’s buckwheat plant starts to bud in its native habitat in the Silver Peak Range in Esmeralda County, Nevada, beside Rhyolite Ridge, the site of a proposed lithium mine, on May 7. | Robyn Beck/AFP via Getty Images

The population of the plant has fluctuated wildly, but it has been estimated to be between 28,000 and 29,000 plants between 2022 and 2024.

The mine plan includes fencing approximately 719 acres of land designated as critical habitat for the Tiehm’s buckwheat. Ioneer redesigned substantial parts of its original plan to avoid direct impacts to the plant and its critical habitat.

The low-growing perennial herb has “blueish gray leaves and pale, yellow flowers that bloom from May to June and turn red with age,” according to the FWS. It favors dry, upland sites that range between about 5,900 and 6,200 feet in elevation.

The FWS has identified eight subpopulations of the plant in the Rhyolite Ridge area of the Silver Peak Range in Esmeralda County, Nevada. Altogether, these subpopulations span about 10 acres across a 3-square-mile area managed by the BLM.

The CBD submitted a petition in 2019 seeking ESA protections for the plant.

The petition specifically declared that the plant was “under immediate threat from mining exploration activity that has the potential to decimate a significant amount” of its habitat.

In July 2020, the FWS found the petition provided “substantial information” that protecting the buckwheat “may be warranted.”

The federal agency embarked on the next assessment, which was supposed to be finished within 12 months of the petition’s Oct. 7, 2019, filing.

There matters stood, with the required 12-month review still unfinished, until the CBD sued over the missed deadline.

Finally, in 2021, a Nevada-based federal judge gave the FWS a final deadline to issue its finding.

Under the legal pressure, the FWS proposed listing the plant as endangered and also proposed designating about 910 acres as critical habitat.

Rhyolite Ridge holds the largest known lithium and boron deposits in North America, the National Mining Association’s executive vice president, Katie Sweeney, noted in April 2022 comments to the FWS.

“Ioneer is proposing to develop a U.S. based source of lithium and boron at Rhyolite Ridge that can be extracted in an environmentally responsible manner, providing two materials essential to achieve a sustainable future for our planet,” Sweeney stated.

The FWS in December 2022 formally listed the plant as endangered and designated the 910 acres as critical habitat.

“Habitat loss is pushing more and more limited-range species like Tiehm’s buckwheat to the brink of extinction,” FWS Director Martha Williams said in a statement at the time, adding that “we look forward to working with our partners on this conservation effort to protect this rare plant and its habitat.”