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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/06/19/dispatch-from-the-lithium-mining-war-on-the-west-mcdermitt-creek-thacker-pass-and-beyond/">counterpunch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Dispatch from the Lithium Mining War on the West - McDermitt Creek, Thacker Pass and Beyond</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Katie Fite - June 19, 2023<br></div>
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<p>A recent financial <a href="https://www.finnewsnetwork.com.au/archives/finance_news_network415358.html?fbclid=IwAR0j9ixOtoS4iBYSuLgl7bfYhsFC3JqMLjsMhy1DEW_ArjkdqqJaEgSoPX0">Webinar</a>
features Jindalee mining company executive Lindsay Dudfield selling the
company’s plan for an immense lithium mining project that would tear
apart the heart of irreplaceable Sage-grouse habitat at McDermitt Creek
in southeast Oregon. Australian miner Jindalee has spun itself off as a
US company, just as Lithium Americas did when it formed Lithium Nevada
Corporation (LNC) to mine Thacker Pass further south in the McDermitt
caldera. This positions the miners for federal loan largesse as they
pursue mining destruction of the sagebrush sea. I wrote about the
extraordinary McDermitt Creek values at stake, and the damage and
habitat fragmentation already inflicted by 70 or so previous Jindalee
exploration drilling sites <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/02/10/the-lithium-frenzy-is-an-ecological-catastrophe-for-oregons-high-desert/">here</a>.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286417" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286417" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-cloud-plant-shrubl.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, cloud, plant, shrubland Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286417" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Distant
view of scar from a new road and just one of Jindalee’s past McDermitt
drill sites. Look at how wide open and unencumbered by hills this
country is – maximizing the distance any mining disturbance sights and
sounds will travel.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286418" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286418" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-cloud-sky-outdoor-ground.jpeg" alt="A picture containing cloud, sky, outdoor, ground Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286418" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Jindalee drill hole sump. Drilling waste water left to seep into the ground, Wildlife “exclusion” fence fallen down.</p></div>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/word-image-286415-3.png" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="263"></p><p>This
is a map of the ghastly 2023 Jindalee exploration plan to punch in 267
new drill hole and sump sites and construct 30 miles of new roads. It
would fragment an area with a very high density of nesting sagebrush
songbirds of all kinds. Birds like Sagebrush Sparrow require continuous
blocks of dense mature or old growth big sagebrush. Jindalee boasts its
consultant environmental and cultural studies have found “no
show-stoppers” and “no red flags”. Industry gets the results it wants
when it pays for mine consultant work. Federal and state agencies, after
a bit of pro forma sniping, acquiesce to what the mine comes up with.</p>
<p>No red flags? Does the company really expect us to believe they or
their consultants aren’t aware of the plight of Sage-grouse, and the
importance of the stronghold habitat they would wipe out? The 2015 BLM
Sage-grouse plan found the entire McDermitt Creek area and nearly all
caldera lands were essential for the bird’s survival. BLM determined
that a federal mineral withdrawal was necessary to protect this Focal
habitat and to ensure Sage-grouse species survival. The withdrawal never
happened, stopped first by mining and cattle industry litigation. BLM
then began a stand-alone NEPA analysis for the withdrawal. Trump
terminated that withdrawal analysis process. Then after a court ruled
his action unlawful, BLM foot-dragging has stalled the most recent
withdrawal process at the NEPA scoping stage and it appears merged with a
cumbersome major plan revision.</p>
<p>Jindalee’s new exploration proposal – a prelude to a mine – would
tragically rip apart the Basin heart. A full blown mine here would
obliterate it. Mining noise and visual disturbance emanating outward
would make the remaining sage ringing the mine site uninhabitable. The
site is surrounded by dozens of leks.</p>
<p>The impossibility of mitigating a mega-mine at McDermitt Creek just
blasted further into the stratosphere. Mounting scientific evidence
shows how seriously the sight and sound disturbance footprint of
industrial projects harms the birds. New research examined geothermal
energy development impacts from Ormat plants at Tuscarora Nevada and
McGinness Hills/Grass Valley near Austin. (I remember the Battle
Mountain BLM manager extolling Ormat’s virtues when the McGinness
project was pushed through and then later expanded to take a bigger bite
out of sage habitat). New <a href="https://sierranevadaally.org/2023/06/06/could-geothermal-be-hurting-sage-grouse-populations/">research</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320722004426">found</a>:</p>
<p><em>“… sage-grouse population numbers declined substantially in years
following the development of a geothermal energy plant … sage-grouse
abundance at leks [breeding sites] decreased within five kilometers of
the infrastructure and leks were completely abandoned at significantly
higher rates within about two kilometers. So, we looked at the
mechanisms responsible for declines in numbers and lek abandonment, and
we found adverse impacts to survival of female sage-grouse and their
nests”.</em></p>
<p>This reinforces common sense: “<em>Nests located farther from the
plant tended to experience higher rates of survival. Interestingly,
where hills were located between sage-grouse nests and infrastructure
[high topographic impedance], we found the distance effect to be less
important. Under those circumstances topography was compensating for the
lack of distance and likely serving to reduce effects of light and
sound”</em>.</p>
<p>“<em>The physical footprint of geothermal energy infrastructure is
small relative to other renewable energy … but noise and light pollution
emanating from these power plants likely cause larger adverse direct
impacts to wildlife populations than infrastructure alone”.</em></p>
<p>There aren’t big hills to block a lithium mine’s 24 hour a day sight
and sound impacts in the McDermitt bowl. The mined area would suffer
outright sage obliteration. Surrounding sagebrush would be exposed to
unimpeded straight line 24 hour a day mine operation visual impacts and
noise of all kinds.</p>
<p>Jindalee must know of the indigenous opposition and resistance to the
Thacker Pass lithium mine in the southern caldera, located in similarly
unceded Paiute-Shoshone ancestral lands. Controversy and <a href="https://www.basinandrangewatch.org/Thacker-Pass.html">lawsuits</a>
over Thacker Pass have been in the headlines for years. It’s a
pre-eminent example of an unjust transition to alternative energy and
the green-washing of air and water polluting habitat wrecking dirty hard
rock mining. Unfortunately, a District Court Judge’s ruling did not
halt the Thacker Pass mine construction. However, the lawsuits by
environmental groups, Tribes and a local rancher opposing the mine
continue. The District Court decision was appealed to the Ninth Circuit,
where a hearing is scheduled for June 26.</p>
<p>Thacker Pass mine development would destroy a Traditional Cultural
Property, where Paiute-Shoshone ancestors were massacred. This spring,
it’s been the site of the indigenous Ox Sam Women’s Camp, Newe Momokonee
Nokotun, set up in protest. Descendants of Ox Sam, a survivor of a US
cavalry massacre at Thacker Pass, helped establish it.</p>
<p>Jindalee Webinar statements also hint at efforts afoot to alter
Oregon state mining processes. After lamenting the project wasn’t in
Nevada, Jindalee said it was talking to politicians and the <a href="https://ktvz.com/news/government-politics/2022/04/01/new-state-geologist-dogami-director-named/">head</a> of the state mining Department (DOGAMI).</p>
<p>The company’s braggadocio made me blow off deadlines and go once
again to McDermitt Creek to document its great biodiversity values. I
then went from the beauty of singing sagebrush songbirds, newly hatched
Sage-grouse chicks and peaking rare plant blooms at McDermitt Creek
(photos below) and down into the Montana Mountains by Thacker Pass.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-cloud-outdoor-grass-sky-d.jpeg" alt="A picture containing cloud, outdoor, grass, sky Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><div id="gmail-attachment_286421" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286421" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-bird-perched-on-a-plant-description-automatical.jpeg" alt="A bird perched on a plant Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286421" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Sagebrush
Sparrows abound at McDermitt Creek. They’re great little birds and
often sing throughout the day. And they’re vanishing from many places. A
biologist just told me he thinks they may be extirpated in Morrow
County Oregon where he’s long inventoried bird. No larger continuous
blocks of lower elevation sage = no Sagebrush Sparrows.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286422" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286422" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-group-of-yellow-flowers-description-automatical.jpeg" alt="A group of yellow flowers Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286422" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Hymenoxys, an Oregon sensitive plant growing on clay soils.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286423" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286423" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-flower-plant-leaf.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, flower, plant, leaf Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286423" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Humboldt Mountains Milkweed, a medicinal plant, on clay soils.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286424" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286424" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-blue-bird-standing-on-a-plant-description-autom.jpeg" alt="A blue bird standing on a plant Description automatically generated with low confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286424" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Mountain Bluebird.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286425" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286425" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-cloud-outdoor-sky-landscap.jpeg" alt="A picture containing cloud, outdoor, sky, landscape Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286425" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Sky drama all spring long.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286426" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286426" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-lizard-in-the-dirt-description-automatically-ge.jpeg" alt="A lizard in the dirt Description automatically generated with low confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286426" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Short-horned Lizard – a master of invisibility.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286427" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286427" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-bird-perched-on-a-branch-description-automatica.jpeg" alt="A bird perched on a branch Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286427" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Gray Flycatcher. They nest in head high Basin big sagebrush, which is becoming as scarce as hen’s teeth.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286428" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286428" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-bird-perched-on-a-plant-description-automatical-1.jpeg" alt="A bird perched on a plant Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286428" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Lark Sparrow. They’re exuberant singers and are dining on Mormon crickets at McDermitt Creek.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286429" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286429" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-close-up-of-a-flower-description-automatically.jpeg" alt="A close up of a flower Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286429" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">An indescribable Indian paintbrush hue.</p></div>
<p>We’re supposed to sit back and let all this beauty and biodiversity be destroyed for a lithium mine? No way.</p>
<p><strong>Thacker Pass – Turmoil, Land Mutilation, Montana Mountains</strong></p>
<p>I drove south to Orovada and headed west to the turn-off from the
state highway into Pole Creek road, the main access to the Montana
Mountains. Thacker Pass lies at the southern base of these mountains. A
maroon Allied Security company truck squarely blocked the road. Chain
link fencing with No Trespassing and No Drone Zone signs was placed off
to both sides.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-truck-parked-on-a-dirt-road-description-automat.jpeg" alt="A truck parked on a dirt road Description automatically generated with medium confidence" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p>I stopped, got out and approached a security guard who appeared at the truck. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2LD-ItbPWc">refused</a>
to let me pass. After several minutes of my insistent repetition that
this was a public road, the BLM mine EIS said this road would always be
open, and that blocking use of this road indicated the EIS, the BLM and
Lithium Americas had lied, the security guard relented and said he would
call the head of security.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-text-multimedia-software-sc.png" alt="A picture containing text, multimedia software, screenshot, car Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="263"></p><p>The
boss pulled up in a white truck as a sudden rain whirlwind bore down.
His face was obscured, and identity concealed by a tan balaclava-like
hood and dark sunglasses. When he first arrived, he got out of his truck
and pointed a camera device at me. I thought WTF is this – a security
firm mercenary decked out for Operation Iraqi Freedom? Abu Ghraib in
Orovada? I again repeated repeatedly that this was a public access road,
and I was going up into the Montana Mountains to camp. He retreated to
his pickup, likely to run me and my license plates through some creepy
database. Finally, I was allowed to pass through.</p>
<p>Just up the road was the Ox Sam Protest Camp site, located on a huge
mine water pipeline gash that the lithium company had gouged into the
earth<em>. </em>The pipeline gash runs right by the sacred Sentinel (or
Nipple) Rock. The tents appeared lifeless, flaps blowing open in the
rain squall as I drove by. With better cell phone service up in the
mountains, I called Winnemucca BLM, asked to talk to a Manager,
Assistant Manager, somebody, and told the receptionist that the mine was
trying to block the public access road. She said there was no one to
talk with. I asked for a Manager’s e-mall address. She refused to give
me an address and shunted me to the general BLM mailbox where public
comments go to be ignored. Winnemucca is the BLM outpost in charge of
enforcing LNC’s compliance with EIS requirements. They’ll be sure to
jump on enforcement actions when the public brings potential mining
violations to their attention over the next 45-years.</p>
<p>Later I saw a Google alert for “Thacker Pass”, and read that the camp had been <a href="https://www.underscore.news/reporting/at-thacker-pass-extraction-and-resistance-come-to-a-head?utm_source=www.mountainwestnews.org&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=extraction-and-resistance&fbclid=IwAR1_gNvCBR_CNXyHNtlZ7y1rWUkxJHMxUmYfgMV5vArFBextUREjFAWtgHI">raided</a> after an incident. <em>Underscore News/Report for America</em> writes: “<em>On
Wednesday, police from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office and private
security for Lithium Nevada, a subsidiary of Lithium Americas, cleared
the camp and arrested one protester.</em></p>
<p>When I left the next day, the chain link fence with No Trespassing
signs was still up by the sides of the access route. The security truck
was gone, and I drove on through. A local resident pulled up. We
chatted, gazing up at the mountains that were witnessing the lithium
mine destruction unfold. He knows the country like the back of his hand.
He said you could see over 20 mountain ranges from the Montanas. Our
presence generated the interest of security guards who came by to check
us out as we stood by the state road right of way. A project worker came
and moved the chain link fence with its No Trespassing signs away – at
least for now.</p>
<p>Allied Security’s aggressive approach to security has gained notoriety. The Denver city council <a href="https://denverite.com/2020/10/26/denver-city-council-spikes-25-million-contract-with-private-security-company-allied-universal/">canceled</a> their contract after two Allied guards beat a black man so hard they caused him permanent brain damage. In May, <em>Time</em> magazine <a href="https://time.com/6278534/allied-universal-security-problems/">profiled</a> a long troubling history of Allied incidents.</p>
<p>How fitting. Lithium Americas came in claiming Thacker Pass was some
kind of great “green” mine, as cover for plain old dirty open pit mining
and a noxious lithium processing plant. Now they’ve hired a security
firm prone to violence. I don’t know what went down with the Ox Sam
camp. But I do know that having the security boss decked out in black
ops head gear is an effort to intimidate, and an indication the security
firm may have things to hide. Security personnel concealing their
identity or playing gatekeeper on a public lands access road in this way
have no place at a project on public lands. Months before the Ox Sam
camp was set up, LNC had established a manned compound with a building
and fencing and what looked like cameras right by the Pole Creek access
road. Driving up into the mountains in April to trek across the snow to
the Montana-10 lek had already felt like running a gauntlet. I wager
that anyone going in or out that public road gets recorded.</p>
<p>LNC has many mining claims staked up in the mountains in Sage-grouse
stronghold habitat including at the Montana 10 lek. This makes efforts
to limit access or intimidate people so they don’t go up there more
concerning. Back home, I consulted the Thacker Final EIS:</p>
<p>“<em>SR 293, Pole Creek Road, Crowley Creek Road and Rock Creek Road
are the main transportation routes in the Project area. Under
Alternative A, LNC would not close, block, or limit in any manner access
along these routes”. </em>FEIS at 494-495. The EIS also constrained use of these access roads for certain types of mine activities.</p>
<p>Photos below from up in the Montana Mountains looking down on spring
2023 LNC scars from drilling and bulldozing in migratory bird nesting
season. The drilling is creeping upslope. It’s hard to tell if some may
be outside the project boundary. Nevada BLM uses
in-front-of-the-bulldozer bird survey protocols that are deeply flawed
with transects spaced 100 ft. apart – a distance far too wide to detect
cryptic sagebrush birds that are experts at concealment. You practically
have to step on or by a nest to detect it. The only way to avoid
migratory bird “take” is for the mine to not destroy the bird habitat in
spring.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-grass-landscape-mo.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, grass, landscape, mountain Description automatically generated" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316">
<img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-ground-mountain-so.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, ground, mountain, soil Description automatically generated" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316">
<img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-cloud-mountain-outdoor-sky.jpeg" alt="A picture containing cloud, mountain, outdoor, sky Description automatically generated" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p>LNC’s
drill scarring is a mere prelude to the destruction that’s planned –
5,694 acres of outright destruction in a 17,933 acre project zone. The
enormity and scale of the planned mine is mind boggling – a deep open
pit, a waste rock pile, all types of infrastructure, a lithium
smelter/sulfuric acid plant on-site using huge volumes of waste sulfur
shipped into a new railroad off-loading site by the Winnemucca airport.
The latter was just announced a few months ago, to the dismay of nearby
residents who find themselves facing living by a hazardous materials
zone. Hundreds of tons of off-loaded material will be trucked to Thacker
Pass and burned every day in a plant whose air scrubber design wasn’t
even finalized before the Thacker decision was signed by BLM. What stink
and toxic pollution will this lithium processing generate? McDermitt
caldera soils contain <a href="https://www.protectthackerpass.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FAQ.pdf">uranium</a>
and mercury. Mine water use is estimated to be 1.7 billion gallons
annually. Enormous volumes of diesel fuel will be used throughout the
mine’s operation. What’s green about all this?</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286435" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286435" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-sky-cloud-snow-de.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, sky, cloud, snow Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286435" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Think of the volume of water that will be sucked through these pipes.</p></div>
<div id="gmail-attachment_286436" class="gmail-wp-caption"><p><img aria-describedby="caption-attachment-286436" src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-cloud-outdoor-grass-plant.jpeg" alt="A picture containing cloud, outdoor, grass, plant Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p id="gmail-caption-attachment-286436" class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Beautiful
dense big sagebrush full of Sage Thrashers, Brewer’s Sparrows, and
Sage-grouse sign, up in the mountains where LNC has claims galore.</p></div>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-flower-sky-plant.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, flower, sky, plant Description automatically generated" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316">
<img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/close-up-of-purple-flowers-description-automatica.jpeg" alt="Close up of purple flowers Description automatically generated with low confidence" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316"></p><p><strong>Sacrificing the Interior West for Corporate Energy Dominance While Energy Conservation Lags or Is Forgotten Altogether</strong></p>
<p>Big Green environmental groups and outdoor interests who’ve been
silent on the unfolding lithium mine destruction at Thacker Pass, or the
tragic destruction of Mojave Desert Tortoise habitat for Big Solar and
many other brewing “green” energy controversies better wake up. The
lithium boom plague that’s descended on the West is hard rock mining at
its worst. Thousands of acres at each mine site become essentially
privatized (with security guards) for 40 or 50 years. Much of the land
is reduced to waste rock rubble piles, gaping pits, infrastructure all
over the place. Local water is used up for processing and for
suppressing clouds of dust, and mine pollutants contaminate the air and
ground water.</p>
<p>US taxpayers are helping finance these colonialist lithium mines. LNC
received commitments for a $600 million dollar loan investment of US
tax dollars. General Motors, while continuing to pump out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzOsWBleEFk">gargantuan</a>
trucks and EV Hummers priced at $110,000, provided LNC with a $600
million dollar injection. In the Jindalee Webinar, executive Dudfield
assured a questioner that their company will also be “in queue” for
similar handouts. The miners are gobbling up funds for a battery
technology that may soon be outdated. China is zooming past the US with
its development of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/12/business/china-sodium-batteries.html">sodium batteries</a> and is <a href="https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/sodium-ion-jac-group-hina-battery-china/">introducing</a>
them in low-end vehicles, a sane path forward. Why aren’t these funds
going to research alternatives to lithium and safer less earth-wrecking
technologies? Why isn’t Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto directing
her attention to spurring new technologies and sustainability? Instead
she’s using “critical minerals” mantra to justify introducing a bill to
make the 1872 Mining Law <a href="https://www.cortezmasto.senate.gov/news/press-releases/cortez-masto-and-risch-introduce-legislation-to-protect-critical-mineral-production-in-the-west">even worse</a>, and a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/cortez-masto-mining-bill-nevada-cef1f5e6366130101fd6346424cb2ebb">wholesale giveaway</a> to mining companies.</p>
<p>Jindalee’s Webinar talk said the company embraced “social license and
responsibility”, then later emphasized that McDermitt Creek was “a
long, long way” from Oregon population centers like Salem and Portland.
This highlights how lithium mine pollution, cultural site desecration,
community de-stabilization and ecological damage will be out of sight
and out of mind of urban elites.</p>
<p>US government policy is now based on greatly accelerating energy
colonialism of all types within our own borders, and especially on
willy-nilly sacrifice of the public lands of the Interior West. This
allows massively subsidized corporations (often tied to a foreign
mothership) and billionaires to retain a chokehold on energy.
Conservation is paid lip service. BLM’s Tracy Stone-Manning just
announced a new proposed rule making it easier for BLM to hand over
public lands to wind and solar developers, furthering de facto public
lands privatization for half a human lifespan.</p>
<p>But people are catching on. A surprising thing recently happened in
Idaho. The entire Idaho legislature (all the Republicans and the hand
full of Democrats alike) voted in favor of a <a href="https://legislature.idaho.gov/sessioninfo/2023/legislation/hcr004/">Resolution</a>
opposing the BLM Lava Ridge Wind Farm, with its 400 turbines standing
800 feet tall sprawling across 3 counties. Lava Ridge’s plan managed to
offend or disgust everybody – from agricultural operations and home site
impacts, to Golden Eagle and rare bat killing, to destroying the stark
setting of the Minidoka Japanese Internment Camp Monument and marring
the Dark Skies and wildness of Craters of the Moon. The same
Legislators, who in a normal year would be inviting Land Grab proponents
from Utah to speak in the session, were pushing protection of public
lands from this behemoth. Lava Ridge is linked to Idaho Power’s Gateway
West “green” transmission line. That line resulted in a stampede for
wind and solar leases in south-central Idaho.</p>
<p>If you live in the West and love the outdoors, be very afraid of what
the Biden administration’s breakneck push for many more of these
“green” lines will do to public lands, and your access to areas beyond –
once projects feeding energy into the line are built and the fencing
goes up. It’s the sagebrush sea equivalent of building a road through
the Amazon.</p>
<p>While there are no huge wind farms yet on public lands in Idaho,
there are many smaller scale turbine arrays on private lands across the
Snake River Plain. It’s become quite apparent that industrial wind is
not benign. Above all else, folks <a href="https://magicvalley.com/news/local/resolution-against-lava-ridge-adopted-by-idaho-senate/article_b15d105c-cd95-11ed-8e24-fbc771ad40bb.html">realized</a> how badly Idaho was getting screwed by the Lava Ridge project and its <a href="https://blog.idahoreports.idahoptv.org/2023/03/13/house-unanimously-opposes-lava-ridge-wind-project/">export</a>
of energy to benefit coastal populations. The Legislature said No to
Lava Ridge exploitation of Idaho as an energy colony. Counties in the
Mojave Desert are now starting to resist some industrial solar
developments overrunning public lands. Remotely sited “renewable” energy
or “critical minerals” projects amount to public land privatization.
They cause profound losses of many kinds – scarring the land, sucking it
dry, extinguishing the wildlife that’s managed to persist in the face
of merciless domination since White settlement, trenching a massacre
site.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-screenshot-of-a-computer-description-automatica.png" alt="A screenshot of a computer Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="263"></p><p>I’m
outraged at the ecocidal stupidity with which this “energy transition”
is being carried out. Will we soon see Jindalee get US tax dollars to
wipe out the McDermitt Creek Sage-grouse stronghold? How ironic that
would be. Interior just announced funding for major sagebrush <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/biden-harris-administration-announces-161-million-landscape-restoration?utm_source=1500+CWP+List+Daily+Clips+and+Updates&utm_campaign=0f34502d7b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_01_04_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0f34502d7b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D">habitat restoration</a>
using Infrastructure Bill funds in High Priority sagebrush areas. It
turns out one of the sites chosen is the Montana Mountains area. Mapping
shows it includes the Thacker Pass mine area too, where nearly all the
sage is on the verge of being destroyed by LNC. Close review of maps for
Interior’s Montana “restoration” project shows it encompasses the
McDermitt Creek watershed, hence the entire area coveted by Jindalee for
massive new drilling followed by open pit mining. It would be absurd to
greenlight Jindalee’s ghastly exploration plan in primo habitat, when
the Interior Department has identified this very same <a href="https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/6966af5d6f584f8b80f102d391671a3f?utm_source=1500+CWP+List+Daily+Clips+and+Updates&utm_campaign=0f34502d7b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_06_01_04_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-0f34502d7b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D">landscape</a>
to be among the highest priority for restoration – because so much sage
has already been lost already. The caldera is also key for connectivity
between Sheldon and Owyhee Sage-grouse populations and for biodiversity
preservation.</p>
<p>How long before rejection of lithium and other “critical mineral”
mines grips communities, especially as promised jobs evaporate with
increased mine <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlestowersclark/2019/10/31/the-mining-industry-could-strike-gold-with-automation/?sh=2426d1eb466e">automation</a> and <a href="https://www.zdnet.com/article/giant-robot-trucks-are-now-mining-gold/">robot</a>
technology, and as the environment goes to hell? But hey, as LNC is
showing us, there’s always a bright future as a security guard– at least
until the lithium company gets itself a pack of Robodogs.</p>
<p><img src="https://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/a-picture-containing-outdoor-text-grass-plant.jpeg" alt="A picture containing outdoor, text, grass, plant Description automatically generated" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="421" height="316">
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<em><strong>Katie Fite</strong> is a biologist and Public Lands Director with WildLands Defense.</em>
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