Environmentalists challenged this week the Biden administration’s go-ahead for a big open pit lithium mine in Nevada that impinges on the habitat of the endangered Tiehm’s buckwheat.
Hot on the heels of the administration’s green light for the Rhyolite Ridge project, the Center for Biological Diversity and several allied organizations claim in the lawsuit filed Thursday that federal agencies failed to account for the “significant and irreparable impacts“ that could result from the mine proposed by Ioneer.
“This lawsuit is about much more than just preventing the extinction of Tiehm’s buckwheat,” Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The Bureau of Land Management’s authorization of the Rhyolite Ridge Mine is a flagrant violation of numerous environmental protection laws, and the integrity of these bedrock conservation laws is at stake.”
Donnelly added that “we need lithium for the crucial transition to renewable energy, but the government can’t break the law and drive species to extinction to get it.”
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25431700/STK201_SAM_ALTMAN_CVIRGINIA_A.jpg "OpenAI plans to release its next big AI model by December")
