A geothermal company has sued to strip the Dixie Valley toad’s endangered species protections, saying the federal government during the Biden administration rushed its assessment of how a project would harm the little amphibian species found only in Nevada.
Citing alleged flaws in the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “hurried process” to list the toad as endangered in 2022, Ormat Nevada contends in its lawsuit filed on Sept. 30 that the federal agency was goaded into acting by environmental activists. The resulting ESA listing was both unnecessary for the species and costly for the company, according to the lawsuit.
“The Service disregarded the best available scientific and commercial information about the technology to be deployed and the hydrology of the site, instead adopting [environmentalists’] worst-case assumptions,” the lawsuit states.
Ormat’s lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia adds that the Endangered Species Act listing of the Dixie Valley toad harmed the company, “including by impairing its significant investment of time, money, and other resources in a critically needed new renewable energy project.”
