This summer Lake Tahoe and her residents lived off smoke due to the Caldor Fire over the Sierra Nevada mountains. Along with the Dixie megafire us folks in Reno were covered in soot, it seems to be the wild west is the last place to get President Biden’s attention regarding the climate crisis. Nevada Senator Jacky Rosen seems to also be keeping quiet for political reasons, sure does look good when you bring mining jobs back to Nevada, but at what cost?
In January 2021, the United States Bureau of Land Management (BLM) gave Lithium Americas, a Vancouver-based multinational mining company, approval to mine lithium at Thacker Pass. Canadian developer Lithium America released their plans for the open-pit mining operation claiming that it will be carbon-neutral and serve a larger green economy for lithium. In recent decades, the light metal has become an essential element for powering smartphones, electric vehicles, and renewable energy storage. Lithium is necessary for current renewable energy technologies, although the process of mining lithium has negative environmental impacts which are necessary to weigh against the production of such technology.
Green technology has an environmental impact and claiming that this mine will be carbon-neutral is not addressing other issues that come from mining. Environmental impacts such as habitat fragmentation, increased truck traffic, increased water usage, antimony pollution, and the long-term effects which would affect local communities such as the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe. Protect Thacker Pass is an organization who are resisting the Thacker Pass lithium mining project and posted this on Instagram:
“Urgent call for support at Protect Thacker Pass. URGENT call for support at Thacker Pass! Disregarding new evidence that human remains of Paiute ancestors massacred by the U.S. Calvary in 1865 can be found in Thacker Pass, the BLM plans to issue an archeological dig permit for the Thacker Pass lithium mine project THIS WEEK. Issuing the permit and conducting the archeological dig will violate the Native American Graves Protection Act. I am asking people to come to camp immediately, and also asking people to call the BLM, Department of the Interior, and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland to demand they put a halt to this right now.”
The fast tracked mine was done through a similar policy that fast tracked electricity which is cool, but it’s not meant for an entire mining project. Price states in Let’s Not Blow up a mountain and call it green, “Despite the switch in presidential administrations, plans for the Thacker Pass lithium mine seem to be continuing unabated. While President Biden has signed a series of executive orders aimed to halt public lands extraction, last week he signed an order emphasizing the need for the domestic mining of “critical minerals” like lithium.” The irony of a moderate Democrat is when they act like they’re different, but they have their own economic interest that is killing the planet just like the previous administration. Lithium can be recycled fellas, but it’s more cost effective to dig up an entire mountain while disregarding an entire community. Thanks Biden!
Habitat fragmentation can undermine the integrity of an entire ecosystem due to urbanization, agriculture, roads, and transportation emissions. Increased truck traffic and busing traffic would occur due to the opening of the mine because of the jobs that would bring more workers to the area, but they wouldn’t necessarily live in the area. Although Lithium Nevada is working with the local tribes in its environmental impact statement it describes plans to bus operational workers in from Winnemucca which is an hour away from the mine and the population primarily white. Moreover, according to the environmental impact statement the mine will pump 1.7 billion gallons of water annually from an area where water is already over-allocated. Cattle farmers in the area have expressed concern that “a water table drop will turn [the] cattle pastures of Great Basin wild rye into a ‘barren desert’” (Price, 2021).
Does President Biden actually give a f*** about the environment? Or is it all for young voters to mobilize then disappear from our political spaces…