How much land must be sacrificed to feed our addiction to energy?

by | Oct 1, 2023 | Culture of Resistance, Dispatches from Thacker Pass, Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land, Movement Building & Support

Mountaintop removal for lithium to go into electric vehicle batteries is ecocide, just like mountaintop removal for coal mining is.

Earlier this week, I visited the site of yet another planned open pit lithium mine that is threatening the Great Basin — this time, in the state of Oregon. This site, about 15 miles north of Thacker Pass, is vital habitat for the Lahontan cutthroat trout, sage grouse, and countless other species — and it would be completely destroyed if the mine is built.

Yes, global warming is a crisis, and yes, we must stop burning fossil fuels. But this is not the way forward. This is an addict seeking another hit. The “green” energy economy destroys the planet, same as the old fossil fuel energy economy. This project is another greenwashing lie, just as we wrote about in “Bright Green Lies.” If you want a primer, read that book and watch the film version of “Bright Green Lies” and Jeff Gibb’s “Planet of the Humans.”

In honor of the late Utah Phillips, I’ve listed the names and addresses of the people who run Jindalee Corporation on a previous Substack article.

To stay up to date and get involved, please visit Protect Thacker Pass and signup for our email updates.

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Transcript

So we’re here at the site of the proposed HiTech Minerals / Jindalee Corporation lithium mine. This is the next lithium project coming to the McDermitt Caldera. We’re sitting here at the north end of the Caldera, so this big rim of mountains all the way around us, this is surrounding what is now a basin at the north end of the Caldera which collapsed; like Crater Lake is the Caldera of what was once Mount Mazama that then collapsed. Similarly, here we have this lowered down Caldera and in here is the lithium, all through the soils of this region. The mining company has already been doing some test drilling up in the hills up here, checking out how much lithium there is in the soil and gathering the data that they need to figure out if it’s economically feasible to do their project. Unfortunately I think it likely will be, although we’ll see. This project is likely at least several years behind the Thacker Pass lithium mine in terms of progress, probably more like three or four years behind, but it’s coming, and right now there’s a permitting process that they’re engaged in with the BLM office based in Vale, Oregon to try to get a permit for additional test drilling out here. They want to do test drilling for four or five years, I believe six or seven months out of the year, 24/7. And so they would stop in the winter time and in the early spring but other than that they would be drilling 24 hours a day, seven days a week out here with multiple drilling rigs operating at a time.

Right now, this area is not pristine as you can see right behind me. We’re on a road right now. This area has been grazed. There is some impact to this area, but this is still intact land. And what I was thinking of before I decided to pull out the camera and record this video is how the dominant culture has this sort of progressive escalation of exploitation. So first they’ll come into an area, and if it’s a forest they’ll cut down the trees and they’ll exploit that for what wealth they can generate; then they’ll convert it to agriculture and exploit the soil for what wealth it can generate; then if there’s greater wealth available by developing it for housing or building a town or something like that, they’ll do that. And so that’s what we’re seeing here. This area has been used for cattle grazing for many years. And now the next level of exploitation is pending as we speak.

The area that they’re surveying is about six miles east to west and about four miles north to south. It’s a very significant area out here. There’s also two other lithium companies that are prospecting for lithium in the same basin within just a few miles of where we sit, further east on the east side of the Jindalee project. So there could be three separate lithium mines operating in this location in the future. Over the last couple days we drove over the top of the Montana Mountains south from here to the top of Thacker Pass, overlooking Thacker Pass, and that whole way there’s lithium claims – mining companies have staked lithium claims for lithium up there, including Lithium Americas Corporation. So there is a very real possibility that over the coming decades this entire landscape could become an industrialized sacrifice zone, and we’re talking about an area that’s something like 25 miles north to south and 10 miles wide – a huge region.

This is incredibly important habitat. We were just down at McDermitt Creek which is vital habitat for the Lahontan cutthroat trout, a threatened fish species listed under the Endangered Species Act. This is vital habitat for Sage-Grouse. We’ve seen about eight female Sage-Grouse on the trip so far. They use this area – there are “leks” in this area where they do their breeding. Those will be abandoned if there’s too much disturbance in this area. There’s pronghorn antelope out here, mule deer, all kinds of wildlife. And up in these mountains all around us are wilderness areas. There’s something like one, two, three, four, five separate wilderness areas surrounding us right now in a big arc on the west side, the south-west, and up here to the north. Those wilderness areas have some protection, which is excellent, but that protection doesn’t mean that much if all the connectivity corridors between them, all the lands around them are industrialized, if you have all this air pollution being generated right below them that’s going directly onto the waterways and the forests that hang on to the slopes of these high mountains up here.

And of course, this is also a very culturally important area, traditionally. We’re only a few miles from the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone reservation. But, you know, the reservation system was created after colonization and prior to that there was no such thing as the Fort McDermitt tribe. There were these different bands of the local indigenous nations and those bands have been scattered and they have interrelationships. So the people whose ancestors spent time and lived on this terrain are at Burns Paiute Tribe, they’re at Fort McDermitt, they’re at Reno Sparks, they’re at the Pyramid Lake Tribe, they’re in Duck Valley. They’re all over these different reservations, these different tribes, modern tribes that we have now. And so this is a culturally very important place.

And what I’m hoping we’ll see here, what we didn’t see at Thacker Pass, is a growing resistance to this project starting early. Thacker Pass was snuck through by the Trump administration during the height of Covid. They expedited the permitting to try to avoid democracy basically, to try to avoid input from the people. And so we have a chance now with this project being more in the early stages to have more input and to have a chance to stop this thing before it even starts. They’ve already done some damage with the drilling and they can’t put that right. They’re supposed to “remediate” it. Basically their remediation consists of heaping some soil across the road and a few rocks so that hopefully nobody drives on the road that they created, and throwing out some seeds and hoping that they germinate. It’s basically a joke. So that damage has been done. There’s more drilling probably coming up soon, but I want folks to stay tuned, you know? We’ve been working to protect Thacker Pass and us and many other groups and individuals are going to be working to protect the Mcdermitt Caldera as a whole. And we’re going to need your help.

“The purpose of regulatory permitting is to organize and legalize the destruction of the planet.”

by | Sep 17, 2023 | Culture of Resistance, Dispatches from Thacker Pass, Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land, Movement Building & Support

As readers are aware, I’ve been embroiled in fighting the Thacker Pass lithium mine for the last three years. What you may not know is that the entire region around Thacker Pass, which is known as the McDermitt Caldera, was formed by the Yellowstone Hot Spot 16 million years ago and is rich in lithium because of this geology.

With lithium demand skyrocketing, this entire area — much of it wilderness-quality habitat for rare and threatened wildlife — is is threatened by a “new gold rush.” Many more mines are coming.

First among those is a project in initial stages of “exploration” proposed by the Australian mining corporation Jindalee (operating through a U.S. subsidiary, HiTech Minerals Incorporated) located in Malheur County, Oregon, about 20 miles north of Thacker Pass.

The following is a public comment I submitted to the Bureau of Land Management yesterday, which was the deadline for public input on what is called the “scoping” stage of permitting for additional drilling on the site. But in a democracy, the public comment period never ends. If you are opposed to the HiTech Minerals project, I recommend you contact the Bureau of Land Management Office in Vale, OR and Oregon legislators to explain your concerns in detail. Please send any comments you make to Protect Thacker Pass, or contact us with more ideas or to collaborate.

Please note that my comment begins with a discussion of why BLM’s authority is illigitimate.

To Whom It May Concern:

My name is Max Wilbert. I am writing because the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is considering whether or not to authorize HiTech Minerals Incorporated to conduct up to five years of exploratory geologic drilling projects on public lands in the northern McDermitt Caldera, in Malheur County, Oregon as part of early-stage feasibility studies for a major lithium mine.

These comments are based on my review of the Exploration Plans of Operations (version 3) available on the BLM website. I am a concerned individual and for the past 20 years have worked with environmental organizations to address global warming and conserve the natural environment. I am also the author of a book called Bright Green Lies that analyzes the harms caused by mining lithium, among other metals.

Before I say anything about the exploration project in detail—rest assured, I do indeed have “substantive comments”—I must contest the notion that the Bureau of Land Management has meaningful authority to issue such a permit. (NB for BLM employees: this is not meant as a personal attack on you. It’s a historical critique of the institution).

By definition, a permit is a legal document giving permission for activities that would otherwise be prohibited. These permits protect the corporation from legal liability for destructive actions that would be punishable by law if committed without a permit. The permit in question would allow HiTech employees and contractors to drill a well and up to 267 boreholes, each with an associated drilling pad. It would also authorize the construction of 30.2 miles of access roads, and destroy up to 99.2 acres of sagebrush habitat. Doing this without a permit is illegal.

Therefore, the fundamental purpose of this permitting process is to bureaucratically organize and legalize the destruction of the planet. 

Yes, I understand that mitigation is part of this process. But fundamentally, the land, water, wildlife, air, and cultural resources will be worse off if this project is carried out than they would otherwise be, and thus the point stands.

We are living a time of ecological crisis. A paper published in the prestigious journal Science on September 13, 2023 (“Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries” by Richardson et. al.) states that humans have exceeded six of Earth’s nine planetary boundaries, “suggesting that Earth is now well outside of the safe operating space for humanity.” That paper states that “Earth system modeling of different levels of the transgression of the climate and land system change boundaries illustrates that these anthropogenic impacts on Earth system must be considered in a systemic context.” The 6th mass extinction is ongoing, driven entirely by human activity such as mining. We are in a climate crisis, a pollution crisis, a water crisis, and more.

The Bureau of Land Management permitting process is not the result of a meaningful democratic process held by fully informed and empowered people. It is an antiquated, anti-democratic bureaucratic maze that de facto privileges the rights of corporations and their owners to extract wealth at the expense of other people, land, non-humans, and future generations.

Consider the power of corporate lawyers and contractors to influence this process compared to poor, mostly uneducated tribal elders from the nearby reservations for whom English is a second language.

This is not your fault. There are many good people working inside Federal Agencies. Rather, it’s the result of gradual expansions in corporate power that have undermined democracy dating back well over a century, of greater corporate legal power, of the 1872 mining law, and of national policy corrupted by greed, lobbying, and revolving doors. But we should all be aware of what is happening here.

The great corporate anthropologist Jane Anne Morris wrote that “It is not corporations but the public that is regulated by regulatory agencies. Their main functions are now to legitimize public harm, act as energy sinks for citizen activism, and protect corporations from upset citizens.” And in fact, the first U.S. regulatory body, the Interstate Commerce Commission, was set up with assent and deep involvement of the industries it regulated.

There was once a time when people had direct recourse against corporate pirates such as HiTech, Jindalee, and the people behind them: Lindsay Dudfield, Brett Marsh,

Rebecca Ball, Darren Wates, Justin Mannolini, Paul Brown, and others.

Throughout most of human history, anyone working to poison the local water supply or destroy vast swathes of land such as these people would either be banished or otherwise severely punished. In many societies, such people would have been regarded as sociopaths. Now, the illusion of a participatory process (“you submitted your public comment, didn’t you?”) and the legal fiction called a “corporation” creates an effective buffer between angry communities and these pillagers.

As Frederic Bastiat wrote in 1848, “When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men in a society, over the course of time they create for themselves a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that glorifies it.”

My understanding of BLM’s permitting process is that it is difficult to deny permits for this type of exploration. However, I know that it is not impossible; in July, BLMcanceled a prior approval for lithium exploration near the Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, citing impacts to groundwater and sensitive species. In that case, BLM’s letter stated that “Based on the information before it, BLM concludes that [the exploration project] operations will cause surface disturbance greater than casual use” on federally protected lands and water.

I posit that this exploration project will cause surface disturbance greater than casual use in the McDermitt Caldera. The harms caused by this drilling project could have ramifications for decades and even centuries. If the lithium mining project goes forward, those disturbances could extend to geologic time scales. Therefore, I urge BLM to deny this permit.

Here are my specific concerns with the EPO:

What about areas previously undisturbed? Has there been any census of how much of the project area is essentially intact, “old-growth” or mature sagebrush steppe, and how much of this land will be destroyed? Has there been any calculation of how long reclamation will take to produce a plant, fungi, and animal assemblage and function that is comparable to pre-disturbance conditions? Are we talking decades? Centuries? If this analysis has not been conducted, why not?

If Turner Creek, Payne Creek, and Mine Creek are indeed intermittent, how will underground flows into the aquifer and McDermitt Creek, and aboveground flows during the wet season, be affected by pumping in the project area? How you do you know? Is this confirmed by independent parties? What is the worst-case scenario?

On page 8, HiTech states that their water supply well “will be constructed to isolate the upper sedimentary rocks from the underlying volcanic rocks and will produce groundwater solely from the volcanic layer rocks below sedimentary rocks to protect groundwater baseflow in nearby streams. In addition, the water supply well is located at least one-quarter mile from any surface water.”

How do you know this is true? Where is the proof? Is the hydrologist working on this being paid by HiTech? If so, there is a conflict of interest here and any testimony should be discounted. How will pumping affect the hydraulic gradient? How will pumping affect radial flow throughout the project area? What is the aquifer permeability in the area? What models are used to predict streamflow reductions or lack thereof? Analytical depletion functions? Or more complex, site-specific models?

Also, where is Appendix E so we can verify this information for ourselves?

According to PSU (https://www.e-education.psu.edu/earth111/node/929), “In general, larger cones of depression result from larger pumping rates, higher permeability or lower storativity, and longer elapsed time.” How will continuous pumping for 5 months of the year (the dry months, it should be noted) affect summertime and fall minimum stream flows? What is the confidence with which these projections can be made? What will occur if the downstream surface water flows decline? How will blame be apportioned? Given the lack of other pumping projects and disturbance in the area, can HiTech be halted from further drilling in this situation?

What will be the downstream effects on the Quinn River drainage as whole from this pumping? Isn’t the Quinn River aquifer already over-allocated? Why is additional pumping being allowed in a region in drought that is already overpumped? What is the hydrologic impact to the region of using 10,000 gallons per drill rig per 24-hour workday?

Any study of hydrological impacts should include cumulative impacts on this drainage basin and downstream basins, e.g. how this EPO and future mining operations could exacerbate water scarcity due to climate change, weather patterns, historical and current overpumping, etc.

As Ka’ila Ferrell Williams stated in her letter to Oregon Governor Brown:

“McDermitt Creek and its tributaries provide important habitat for the federally threatened Lahontan cutthroat trout. For decades, state and federal agencies, local landowners and public lands users have undertaken restoration efforts to establish a metapopulation of the species in this system, which is the only location capable of supporting a resilient and diverse population in the larger management unit that spans Nevada and Oregon. In many streams, inputs of cold, clean groundwater are critical to maintaining the streamflows and cool water needed by these fish. Oregon should not authorize groundwater pumping when it lacks adequate data to understand the impacts on Lahontan cutthroat trout habitat.

Oregon is in the midst of a decades-long drought, with southeastern Oregon being particularly affected. In six of the last ten years, Oregon’s Governor has declared a drought emergency in Malheur County, underscoring the severity of water shortages in the region.

Without adequate data, it is impossible to determine whether or not HiTech’s proposed well, even temporary pumping for five years, would have no detrimental or adverse impacts to water availability or quality available in the McDermitt Creek basin.”

Additionally, roughly six miles of streams which are “special status fish habitat” run directly through the project area. What are the impacts on these streams? What monitoring will take place? How will drilling operations and overnight lighting affect invertebrates which provide food for special status fish? If these impacts have not been considered, why not?

According to Western Rivers Conservancy,

“Lahontan cutthroat—the state fish of Nevada—are a large, bright-orange species of cutthroat that were once abundant across thousands of miles of streams in the Great Basin. Today, the fish are on the brink of extinction because the pristine, cold-water habitat they depend on has been disappearing for a century, coupled with hybridization and competition from non-native fish. The primary hope for Lahontan cutthroat lies with the increasingly rare perennial streams that flow cold and clear through the dry sagebrush country of the Great Basin. Chief among these streams is McDermitt Creek, which drains the southern slopes of Oregon’s Trout Creek Mountains and crosses the state line into the Great Basin of Nevada.”

In regards to Page 23, why is the arbitrary level of “a 100-year 24-hour storm event” considered the threshold for high precipitation? Ephemeral streams may flow with far less precipitation, and operating heavy equipment could increase downstream siltation in LCT spawning areas.

The applicant plans up to 267 drill sites with depths varying between 300 and 800 feet. The applicant states that prior drill holes all encountered groundwater. How will 267 new drill holes affect groundwater and surface water flows? Will these holes cut through rock layers allow groundwater flow to drain into lower geologic layers, reducing recharge rates in McDermitt Creek and Quinn River? How will this concern be mitigated? Will these affect natural springs? How do we know?

In reference to Section 3.20, what species are being protected by the drilling timeframe? Why was this timeframe chosen? What evidence is there that this timeframe is sufficient to protect the species in question? If these species require such protection, why is this exploration project being allowed in the first place? Where do the species go during the period that drilling would take place? What evidence is there that this drilling period would protect the species in question?

On page 13, applicant states that “sumps will be fenced,” but photographic evidence from applicants previous operations (see Wildlands Defense/Katie Fite) in the project area show that fencing efforts were laughable. This corporation has shown itself not to be trustworthy. I also share Ross Taylor’s concerns about sump sizing, overflow, leaching, pollution, chemical load, impacts on fish, effects on wildlife who attempt to enter or drink, storm drainage, and so on.

On page 22, applicant states that groundwater flows for previous wells ranged from 14 gpm to 38 gpm. I share Ross Taylor’s concerns, as replicated here:

“How can groundwater be completely contained in a sump that can only handle 7,500 gallons? Do the math – if HiTech is proposing that drill sites will be operating 24/7 and the amount of groundwater encountered in previously drilled exploration holes produced 14 to 38 gallons of groundwater per minute, containment in the proposed sumps is not possible. The conservative 14 gallons/minute equates to 20,160 gallons in 24 hours and the 38 gallons/minutes equates to 54,720 gallons in 24 hours. Also, these values don’t account for the volume of drill cuttngs, return of water pumped into the bore hole, and return of drill lubrication fluid.

‘Groundwater removed from exploration boreholes during drilling is returned to a sump located on the drill pad, where water infiltrates back into the formation’. This statement suggests that returned groundwater, drill cuttings and lubrication fluid will be discharged into the surrounding environment. What are the long-term effects of this effluent on McDermit Creek, its tributaries and listed/sensitive species such as LCT? What happens to heavy metals in the effluent, like the mercury known to exist in the soils of the project area?”

Section 4.6 indicates that sumps adjacent to drilling sites are permeable and fluids contained in them will leach into groundwater. What contaminants will this fluid contain? Will these sumps be monitored by an independent third party for contaminants, spills, and overflow? What are the long term effects of this pollution?

The applicant states that drilling will continue 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 5 months a year, for up to five years. That’s a cumulative 2 years and one month of intensive industrial activity in what has until now been a largely undisturbed area. What will be the impact of this drilling noise on greater sage grouse? Research has shown this species is highly noise sensitive, and OAR 660-023-0115 identifies land use that conflicts with sage-grouse habitat as including “noise levels of at least 70 dB for sustained periods of time.

Greater sage-grouse are also highly dependent on forb availability in the summertime when chicks hatch. Breeding impacts may be reduced by timing of this project, but what about rearing success? How will this project impact rearing habitat and summer perambulations? What about mule deer? Pronghorn? Bighorn sheep? Cougar? Columbia spotted frog? Rocky Mountain elk? Bobcat? Sandhill crane? Burrowing owls? Bobcat? Migratory bird species? Golden eagles? Rodents? Lizards? Snakes? How will bright lights associated with drilling affect insect populations in the area? What about bats?

Brad Shultz stated in a 2017 presentation that “Perennial herbaceous riparian areas adjacent to level benches with good forb/bunchgrass understory offer great potential for meeting breeding and brood rearing [needs]”. Does this describe portions of the site in question? Will these sites be impacted by the exploration? If so, where, how much area, and to what extent?

These impacts will, of course, be negative. Wildlife species need wild land, not industrialized land. Given this, why does this disturbance not count as undue and unnecessary degradation?

It appears when looking at ODFW’s Sage Grouse Development Siting Tool that ODFW has designated most of the protect area as “very high mitigation,” meaning this is very important habitat for Greater sage-grouse. Additionally, the entire site is part of ODFW’s 2023 “draft revised core habitat” for sage grouse.

Further underscoring the importance of this habitat for sage grouse, this area was designated as part of the Southeast Oregon and North-Central Nevada “Sagebrush focal area.” According to BLM documents, “After a multi-year collaboration process, the BLM and U.S. Forest Service amended 98 land use plans to provide for Greater Sage-Grouse conservation in 2015. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service relied on BLM’s and the U.S. Forest Service’s 2015 planning decisions, and State-level plans, to support its finding that the Greater Sage-Grouse did not warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act. The BLM and Forest Service plans included a recommendation that the Secretary of the Interior safeguard the most important habitat for the bird, Sagebrush Focal Areas (SFAs), by withdrawing them from the Mining Law of 1872, subject to valid existing rights. The SFAs cover about 10 million acres of Federal lands in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming.”

Is this area subject to “valid existing rights” that predate the Sagebrush Focal Area plan and are thus grandfathered in? If not, why is this project continuing? Why has this area not yet been secured for federal mineral withdrawal?

And, doesn’t BLM’s “recommendation that the Secretary of the Interior safeguard the most important habitat for the bird, Sagebrush Focal Areas (SFAs), by withdrawing them from the Mining Law of 1872” mean that the agency has already determined that this habitat is too important to be destroyed?

Sage grouse populations continue to decline, despite collaborative efforts. The first objective cited in BLM’s 2015 fact sheet on the Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation Effort is to “Minimize new or additional surface disturbance.” The fact sheet notes that “The most effective way to conserve the sage-grouse is to protect existing, intact habitat.” So, why is this project being permitted in key sage grouse habitat? How can destruction of sage-grouse habitat be justified, given that the USGS has found that sage-grouse have declined by 80% since 1965 and nearly 40% since 2002, and that this decline has been particularly severe in the Great Basin? (https://www.usgs.gov/news/national-news-release/new-research-highlights-decline-greater-sage-grouse-american-west?qt-news_science_products=1)

It appears that Oregon’s sage-grouse conservation strategy is not working, based on the USGS data. Is this correct?

Is it correct to say that current sage grouse conservation measures amount to a “managed decline towards extinction”?

If mitigation is not halting species decline, then other measures should be taken. So, this project should be rejected.

Section 4.3 as a whole is very vague and needs significant clarification. Additionally, this study should include input from biologists with a range of opinions and perspectives to qualfy as workable science. This is a basic level of peer review, essential to the scientific method, that is missing completely from the analysis. For example, in addition to biologists hired by state and federal agencies and by HiTech, biologists working for environmental organizations should also be permitted. Scientists regularly make mistakes and are prone to biases and careerism, which is why a peer review process exists. How is this concern being mitigated? How do we know the science we are being presented with is complete and correct?

Section 4.5 states that there are no wetlands in the project area. Are beaver present? Were they historically? If so, has reintroduction been considered? This would create additional wetlands and widen stream channels. Beaver have been shown to improve fish habitat, cool water temperatures, reduce fire risk, store water for drought conditions, and increase biodiversity of other organisms. If beaver were to naturally return to the area, what would their impact be on this operation?

According to project maps in this application, significant portions of the project area are designated “lands with wilderness characteristics.” Additionally, the project area is surrounded to the northeast, north, northwest, west, and southwest by designated wilderness study areas. Connectivity corridors between these landscapes are incredibly important, especially as McDermitt Creek, Payne Creek, and others represent important summer water sources. With drilling happening the entire dry season, how will this project affect wildlife who reside in wilderness study areas and lands with wilderness characteristics?

What protections exist for designated “lands with wilderness characteristics”? Why is it permissible to conduct an industrial operation of this scale on those lands, if it destroys their wilderness character?

Where are the appendices? These are not included on the BLM website as of September 14th, 2023 (today) at 1:32pm Pacific Time. Without all the documents being included, how can the public be expected to understand and comment on the project? This is a significant oversight that is not explained on the BLM ePlanning website. Please explain where these documents are and why they were not shared with the public as part of this process. If they should have been shared, please share them. If that is the case, this comment period needs to be extended significantly and parties that have commented thus far must be informed of their availability. Also, new public meetings should be held in which these documents are available in print form for review by members of the public who do not have access to the internet (which is still somewhat common among Tribal communities and elderly people in this rural region).

This project will use significant amounts of diesel fuel and gasoline for generators, worker transport vehicles, heavy equipment (D-7 class bulldozers, 325C class track-mounted excavators, etc.), and drilling rigs. Estimates posit that for every 1000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent that is emitted, one person will be killed due to global warming by 2100. What is the climate death impact of this project? The climate impacts of greenhouse gases released by burning these fuels, and due to disturbing soils, biological soil crusts, and vegetation across 99.2 acres should also be factored in. This impact assessment should also include materials used in this project, such as Portland cement, concrete, gravel, pipes, and other consumables, and amortized climate impact of producing heavy equipment, 4WD vehicles, mud tanks, water storage tanks, generators, ATVs, and other non-consumables as listed on page 14-15 of the exploration plan. Calculations should also account for traffic volume as cited on page 16. According to the applicant, vegetation may be shredded using a masticator – that’s carbon release.

How will vegetation shifts due to the project disturbance footprint change fire risks for the project area itself and for surrounding wilderness quality landscapes, due to e.g. cheatgrass proliferation?

Will welding and similar fire risk activities be allowed to continue during red flag warnings and periods of extreme fire danger?

Where is Appendix D?

Page 16 states that “Newly constructed roads will be recontoured to the original topography as practicable. Drill sites, sumps, and related disturbances will be reclaimed as soon as practicable after completion of drilling operations. Final reclamation of overland travel routes, sumps, and drill sites will consist of fully recontouring disturbances to their original grade, and re-seeding in the fall season immediately following completion of exploration activities.”

This sounds completely insufficient considering that low recruitment rates of sagebrush and other desert plants, the ease with which cheatgrass and other non-native species spread, and the impacts to biological soil crusts and soil seed banks.

What seeds will be used? Will they all be native seeds, or will some be non-native? Will the seed mix reflect exactly the plants found on the site prior to bulldozing? If not, what plants will be lost? How will the loss of certain plants effect wildlife species and people, especially indigenous people? How will the shifts in plant mixture as a result of disturbance and reseeding affect carbon storage and soil stability in the long term? Will there be followup to ensure germination and survival of seeded areas? What is the seeding is not successful?

Page 16 also states that “Natural barriers such as berms or rock may be utilized post reclamation to prevent future use of areas by the public.” Is this saying that areas will be made off limits to the public due to this project? Why is public land being privatized in this way?

Where is Appendix B? Where is Appendix E? Where is Appendix C?

In regards to section 6.10, what does a “qualitiative comparison” consist of, exactly? Given that pre-disturbance values of this landscape include but are not limited to ecological functions like water filtration, scenic values, biodiversity, and carbon sequestration, how will reclamation be determined to have been successful in regards to these functions?

This region is known to have significant amounts of mercury in the sediments. What are mercury levels inside the project area? How much mercury will be liberated by road building and drilling? Where will that mercury go? What impacts will it have on human beings, animals, plants, fungi, insects, and micro-organisms?

The same question applies to uranium, arsenic, and other hazardous subsgances that may be present in the geology.

What measures will be taken to prevent the spread of cheatgrass and other aggressive non-native species?

What consequences will HiTech incur if they are responsible for spreading cheatgrass or other aggressive invasives in the project area?

My conversations with elders from the Fort McDermitt Tribe, Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, and Burns Paiute Tribe have indicated that the northern McDermitt Caldera region is exceptionally significant to Native Americans across at least those five tribes and likely at least several others as well. Given the interconnections between regional tribes which were nomadic and interrelated prior to the establishment of tribal governments, this project should not be allowed to proceed without in-depth consultation with these five tribes. This consultation should also take into account the voices of tribal elders and knowledge holders, not just tribal governments.

If this will not take place, please explain why not, justify why these tribes are not being consulted prior to any disturbance on their traditional unceded territories, and explain the legal basis of this course of action.

The cultural significance of the Project Area is reinforced by the comments submitted by Nikki Hill, who references culturally important plants and archaeological data pointing towards more than 8,000 years of human inhabitation on the project site. As Hill states in her comment, “These initial findings require the time needed to properly survey those sites and to search for other indications within the greater project area; to request input from the tribe and local experts; and to seek out ethnographic documentation of local importance and memory of this area, which is held sacred by the Paiute people of McDermitt and other tribes.”

A letter from Klamath Tribal Member Ka’ila Farrell-Smith to Senator Jeff Merkeley and Governor Brown, available online here (https://www.kailafarrellsmith.com/letter-to-gov-brown), states clearly that the area proposed for the HiTech Minerals Exploration Project is “sacred to the Northern Paiute, Bannock, and Western Shoshone tribal peoples”.

Additionally:

  • Why is a Class III pedestrian survey considered adequate at this stage of EPO permitting?
  • Why is there no mention of culturally important sites in the EPO?
  • Why has there been no consultation with interested tribes?
  • How will interested tribes be determined? In your response, please incorporate how you will improve on the flawed approach to tribal consultation undertaken at Thacker Pass that led to multiple tribes filing lawsuits against the BLM.
  • Why has there been no consultation with traditional elders?
  • What qualifies BLM and HiTech to determine and mitigate adverse effects?
  • How will the BLM respond if different tribes hold different views on the cultural importance of the area?

The EPO states that “HiTech will be responsible for ensuring that employees, contractors, or any others associated with the Project do not damage, destroy, or vandalize archaeological or historical sites.” But what if the entire project itself is damaging, destroying, or vandalizing archeological or historical sites?

BLM is already aware, to some extent, of the cultural significance of the Disaster Peak area and McDermitt Caldera. For example, on Page 382 of Thierry “A Historical Ethnography of the Fort McDermitt Paiute,” an 1867 letter from Maj. Sherburne stationed at Camp McDermitt is quoted referring to “Disaster Peak, a place that has always been noted for the haunt of Indians”.

Further, BLM is also in possession of the document “Thacker Pass/Peehee mu’huh:

A Living Monument to Numu History and Culture,” which was submitted to the agency in early 2023 by the Reno-Sparks Indian Colony and Summit Lake Paiute Tribe. This document describes how a survivor of the 1865 Thacker Pass massacre fled to the environs of Disaster Peak.

The region of Disaster Peak, McDermitt Creek, and the northern Caldera contains numerous historical sites of significance. These include the site where Col. McDermit was ambushed and killed, the site where a party of prospectors were attacked by Native Americans in March 1864, the site where party of prospectors were attacked by Native Americans in May 1865, and the sites where multiple skirmishes between settler-militia calling themselves the “Humboldt Rangers” and Native Americans took place sometime after the May 1865 attack and before June 4, 1864 (see “Origin of Place Names Nevada”1941; page 169 in Myron Angel’s “History of Nevada”; and Page 63 and 79 of Michno’s “The Deadliest Indian War in the West” for incomplete details of these last three events. Note that Michno’s details may be incorrect.), prehistoric village sites, areas of culturally important plant abundance that could indicate “gardening,” possible burial sites, travel routes, and the possibility of sacred sites relating to cultural activities in the area.

Note that Page 79 of Michno’s book indicates that multiple skirmishes and massacres in the vicinity of Disaster Peak “resulting in Captain Almond Well’s summer campaign” and contributed to the entire course of the Snake War, the deadliest Indian War west of the Mississippi. These are not minor events in American history and therefore extensive research, oral histories, and surveys must be conducted in this region before a permit to destroy and disturb the area should even be considered.

I must insist that this project complete a full EIS due to the fact that the cumulative disturbance being considered here might well compromise the cultural and ecological resources present on the site. There is an agency assumption here which is based on little to no evidence; the idea that cultural sites and biological integrity will not be unduly and unnecessarily compromised by the exploration. What evidence is there to support this thesis? What expertise is being applied to make this determination? Have the proper parties been consulted with? And, will the BLM complete a full EIS for this project? Why, or why not?

In regards to page 24: will revegetation mean that road and drill pad scars are invisible after reclamation is completed? Will plant assemblages and ages be comparable to non-disturbed areas? If not, this is not proper mitigation. Scenic values will be harmed by this project. Given that this area is surrounded by WSA’s and high ridges, this is a significant concern. How will this be dealt with?

In regards to cumulative impacts, I request that the impacts of this project be considered in ecological and cultural context at the regional, national, and global scales. The aforementioned article in Science, “Earth beyond six of nine planetary boundaries,” states that “Currently, anthropogenic perturbations of the global environment are primarily addressed as if they were separate issues, e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, or pollution. This approach, however, ignores these perturbations’ nonlinear interactions and resulting aggregate effects on the overall state of Earth system. Planetary boundaries bring a scientific understanding of anthropogenic global environmental impacts into a framework that calls for considering the state of Earth system as a whole.”

Non-linear interactions and resulting aggregate effects from mining exploration must be considered when considering whether or not to permit this project given that the planetary boundaries which are already transgressed include:

  1. Biosphere integrity (which is relevant due to the habitat destruction, degradation, and the displacement and destruction of wildlife which would be caused by this project);
  2. Land system change (which is relevant due to the conversion of 99.2 acres of biodiverse sagebrush steppe habitat into roads and drilling pads);
  3. Freshwater change (which is relevant due to water use for this project);
  4. Novel entities (various chemicals which may be present in drilling fluids, heavy machinery, plastics used on-site, herbicide sprays, etc.).
  5. Climate change, especially CO2 concentration, is also relevant to this project due to fuel use and disruption of natural carbon sequestration processes.

Further, the cumulative effects of allowing exploration must be considered given that permitting exploration greatly increases the future risks of commercial-scale mining operations in the area. The public needs to be informed about the risks posed by “going down the path” towards mine development, not just the discrete technical impacts posed by bulldozing 99.2 acres of land at this time. Exploration is a “gateway drug,” not an independent process.

If you will not include discussion, scientific modeling, and independent assessments of non-linear interactions and aggregate effects related to permitting this project, why not? How do you justify not providing the public with a complete picture of the risks involved in this project?

The proximity of the HiTech EPO, coupled with its projected size and contemporary existence to the Thacker Pass lithium mine, added to the recent announcement that the McDermitt caldera may be the most lithium-rich in the world and the fact that addition mining corporations have staked claims and are considering mining elsewhere in the caldera, requires a cumulative effects analysis of the much larger region that is encompassed by the caldera.

With more and more lithium mining coming to this region, it’s highly conceivable that a gigantic, mosaiced “national sacrifice zone” is the inevitable result, atomizing habitat, and potentially trashing regional aquifers on an obscene scale. And with the huge undifferentiated rubble piles that will lay permanent in the wake of these mines, there will mineral runoff and pollution for eons. Not to mention the cumulative air quality effects from dust, sulfuric acid plants, and so on.

Because of the potentially significant impacts of these projects across the region and the potentially significant impacts at each mine site, NEPA requires either a programmatic or generic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS or GEIS) on the McDermitt Caldera lithium mining district, and site specific EIS’s at each site that applies. A PEIS is a tiered document. NEPA’s CEQ implementing regulations recognize that in addition to site-specific projects, the types of “major Federal action” subject to NEPA analysis requirements include “Adoption of formal plans, such as official documents prepared or approved by federal agencies which guide or prescribe alternative uses of federal resources, upon which future agency actions will be based . . . and adoption of programs, such as a group of concerted actions to implement a specific policy or plan; [and] systematic and connected agency decisions allocating agency resources to implement a specific statutory program or executive directive.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.18(b)(2)-(3), which provides the conceptual underpinning for the use of PEIS’s. See also 10 C.F.R. § 1502.4(b)(“Environmental impact statements may be prepared, and are sometimes required, for broad Federal actions such as the adoption of new agency programs . . .Agencies shall prepare statements on broad actions so that they are relevant to policy and are timed to coincide with meaningful points in agency planning and decision making”).

A PEIS “provides an occasion for a more exhaustive consideration of effects and alternatives than would be practicable in a statement on an individual action. It ensures consideration of cumulative impacts that might be slighted in a case-by-case analysis. And it avoids duplicative reconsideration of basic policy questions.” CEQ Memorandum to Federal Agencies on Procedures for Environmental Impact Statements. 2 ELR 46162 (May 16, 1972).

The Supreme Court has recognized the need for national programmatic environmental analysis under NEPA where a program “is a coherent plan of national scope, and its adoption surely has significant environmental consequences.” Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 400 (1976). Programmatic direction can often help “determine the scope of future site-specific proposals.” Laub v. U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 342 F.3d 1080, 1089 (9th Cir. 2003). CEQ regulations define this practice as “tiering.” 40 C.F.R. § 1502.20 (“Whenever a broad environmental impact statement has been prepared . . . and a subsequent statement or environmental assessment is then prepared on an action included within the . . . program or policy (such as a site specific action) the subsequent statement or environmental assessment need only summarize the issues discussed in the broader statement and incorporate discussions from the broader statement by reference and shall concentrate on the issues specific to the subsequent action”).

Tiering allows an agency to meet its NEPA obligations in steps: First, the agency publishes a PEIS assessing the entire scope of a coordinated federal program. See Nevada v. Dep’t of Energy, 457 F.3d 78, 91 (D.C. Cir. 2006). The PEIS ensures that the agency assesses “the broad environmental consequences attendant upon a wide-ranging federal program.” Id. at 92. The agency later supplements that programmatic analysis with narrower EISs analyzing the incremental impacts of each specific action taken as part of a program. Id. at 91. A PEIS would examine the entire NRC policy initiative rather than performing a piecemeal analysis within the structure of a single agency action. Ass’n of Pub. Agency Customers v. Bonneville Power Administration, 126 F.3d 1158, 1184 (9th Cir.1997).

Agencies such as the NRC must “take a ‘hard look’ at their proposed actions’ environmental consequences in advance of deciding whether and how to proceed.” Sierra Club v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 803 F.3d 31, 37 (D.C. Cir. 2015). There is zero evidence in the proposed rulemaking papers that any such inquiry has been performed.

Creating a programmatic EIS for lithium mining either at the level of the McDermitt Caldera, bioregionally for the Great Basin, or nationally for the western United States is the only appropriate way to assess the cumulative effects of these interrelated projects. Please implement a programmatic EIS process to analyze the cumulative effects of these projects. If you will not initiate a programmatic EIS, please explain why you will not be taking this action.

What if the company violates their word in this plan? What consequences will they face? At what point will their permits or license to do business be revoked? What monitoring will be conducted? How much impact on sage grouse is too much?

Corporations do not really exist. They are a legal fiction, an entity created for the purpose of profit, growth, and to limit liability. Businesses are made up of people, and those people are the ones making the decisions.

The great folk singer and revolutionary Utah Philips, who I had the honor of watching perform many times in my childhood, famously said: “The Earth is not dying, it’s being killed, and the people who are killing it have names and addresses.”

So, in honor of Utah Philips, I would like to go on the record about who is behind the ongoing and planned destruction of the McDermitt Caldera: These are some of the people behind this project.

Lindsay Dudfield

  • President and CEO of HiTech Minerals and Jindalee Resources
  • Level 2, 9 Havelock Street, West Perth WA, 6005, Australia
  • LinkedIn profile

Brett Marsh

  • Vice President of Exploration and Development at Jindalee Resources
  • Mr. Marsh has an extensive background with major mining corporations linked to serious environmental and human rights abuses worldwide.
  • Mesa, Arizona
  • LinkedIn Profile

Rebecca Ball

Darren Wates

  • Corporate Lawyer and Director at Jindalee Resources
  • Greater Perth area, Australia
  • LinkedIn Profile

Justin Mannolini

  • Chairman of the Board, Jindalee Resources
  • Greater Perth Area, Australia
  • LinkedIn Profile

Paul Brown

  • Director, Jindalee Resources

I would like to propose an alternative to the proposed project, which I have discussed with community members from Oregon and Nevada. We call it the Citizens Preferred Alternative, or CPA. The CPA is currently under development and we will submit it to the public and to relevant agencies including the BLM for discussion and debate in the near future. Under the CPA, this EPO would be rejected and the BLM would work with the public and the Department of the Interior to move the McDermitt Caldera toward a Federal Mineral Withdrawal to protect Sage-grouse focal areas and Lahontan Cutthroat Trout habitat. Further, much or all of the project area would be managed for wilderness characteristics.

Ultimately, these types of EA and EIS reports amount to a catalog of atrocities: “here is all the harms this project will cause, and we’ll allow it anyway.” This is just as bad as not cataloging the harms. The cataloging only matters if it actually stops projects and protects land. Therefore, I again urge the BLM to reject this exploration plan and protect this land. HiTech’s Plan of Operations would clearly cause “undue and unnecessary degradation” to public lands.

Please add me to any public notification contact lists related to the HiTech project and other lithium exploration or mining-related activities in the McDermitt Caldera and inform me when BLM has prepared a response to the questions and concerns raised in this comment. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Max Wilbert

September 15th, 2023

Breaking News: The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is fining Max and Will $49,890.13

by | Sep 16, 2021 | Culture of Resistance, Dispatches from Thacker Pass, Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land, Movement Building & Support

After we sued the Bureau of Land Management for failing to consult with Native tribes before permitting the destruction of sacred Peehee mu’huh (Thacker Pass), BLM has found Max Wilbert and I in trespass for bathrooms that were constructed in Peehee mu’huh so that Native elders and people with disabilities could use the bathroom while praying and engaging in ceremony.

BLM is fining Max Wilbert and I $49,890.13. We need to ask whether our government takes better care of corporations or human beings and the natural world. Of course, when Lithium Nevada Corporation is permitted to destroy nearly 6000 acres in Peehee mu’huh, including digging an 1100 acre open pit, 400 feet deep, all while making millions of dollars, but Native people and their supporters can’t build an outhouse in the same exact location without being fined nearly $50,000, we must conclude that our government takes better care of corporations.

Please donate if you can: Max and Will are going to need a lot of legal help to fight this fine. Thank you!!

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Art by Travis London, Deep Green Arts.

The Lust for Money

by | Sep 4, 2021 | Culture of Resistance, Dispatches from Thacker Pass, Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land, Movement Building & Support

Earlier today, Judge Miranda Du rejected requests from the Reno-Sparks Indian Tribe, Burns Paiute Tribe, and Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu/People of Red Mountain to put an emergency halt on planned archeological digging for the Thacker Pass lithium mine.

As I watch Lithium Americas investors online celebrating Judge Miranda Du’s decision to allow the removal of sacred artifacts from Thacker Pass, I feel sick to my stomach.

“Go LAC!!” writes one investor. “Dirt shall move!” writes another. “Argentina online next year. Thacker Pass one less road block. Almost 500 million in bank. Sitting so damn pretty right now.” says a third.

Another writes of how many stocks he owns, punctuating his boast with an emoji showing a human face, eyebrows raised, panting as if in a caricature of lust with dollar signs for eyes and on the extended tongue.
Is this how the world is saved? By lust for money?

Sometime soon, bulldozers and excavators will arrive at Thacker Pass to begin “archeological digging” — a whitewashed term for the legally sanctioned looting of cultural artifacts and sacred sites. And afterwards, unless they are stopped, this whole mountain will be shattered and carted off.

The flesh of Earth, turned into profit.

I am disgusted and angry, but not surprised. This is a pattern of our culture, and history repeats itself.

In the mid-1800’s, colonization spilled over into Nevada territory. Miners, settlers, and soldiers gained footholds along rivers and where springs made life possible. With axes, the pine nut trees were felled, and like the mass-murder of the buffalo on the plains, the indigenous people’s ability to fight was cracked. With bullets, disease, and starvation, Paiute, Goshute, and Shoshone people were pushed out, corralled, and marched to reservations and boarding schools. “Kill the Indian, save the man,” they proclaimed. And now the mountains belonged to the conquerors, and they called it right. They called it manifest destiny.

Today, miners come for the land. They come for the water, 4.6 million gallons of it per day. They come for the sacred sites. The springs. The antelope. The ancestors in the soil. “We have complied with the National Historic Preservation Act, the National Environmental Policy Act, and our duty to consult with tribes,” they say. They claim the mountains belong to them, and while manifest destiny is officially out of favor, economic development is not. Besides, this is a green project, right? It is our destiny.
How is this different?

Three hundred and thirty-nine days ago, a few days before I visited Thacker Pass for the first time, I walked into a forest near the Columbia River. Finding a quiet spot in the dappled shade, I lay on my back on the dirt, and closed my eyes. My mind traveled to Thacker Pass.

First, I imagined the silence of this land, where wind and the hum of insects is often the loudest noise. I imagined ants, jackrabbits, antelope, and yes, human beings crisscrossing Thacker Pass on their ancient paths. From harmony, my vision shifted to the threat now facing the land.

“[G]reed comes,” I wrote in February, “wearing the flesh of human beings and armored in corporate law. Greed eyes the mountain and sees not the pronghorn or the burrowing owl or the ants venturing out from their colony, but only what he can take by breaking it all — by violating stone and wind and water, by transgressing of 16 million years of sacred silence. Greed sees that this mountain is full of lithium — the new white oil. Greed is a good storyteller, and he speaks of jobs and opportunities and investments, of stock options and shareholder returns, and electric cars. He speaks of saving the world.”

Now, for the first time since I have arrived here at Thacker Pass, destruction is imminent. The corporate laws that I wrote of back in February are playing their part. Bureaucracy, that indispensable tool in the arsenal of a democratic empire, has spoken. In court, administrative rules allowed the state to argue that “you had a chance to participate in the process, and you missed it.” And what is morally right, what is good for the land, what is wanted by the local indigenous people, ranchers, and farmers, becomes subordinate to what is written in administrative codes and lawbooks.

I wrote, in February, that “Right now, greed gathers his men and his machines, his drillers and borers and furnaces, his explosives and his chemicals and his politicians and his bankers. And he schemes, and he plans, and he wheels and he deals. He waits for his moment to press the plunger down, to close the circuit, to shatter the mountainside.”

That vision is close to becoming real.

And so we move deeper into the sixth mass extinction event, wallets grow fat as nature grows small.

In her recent artwork, the brilliant political cartoonist Stephanie McMillan, whose work I truly admire, asks this question: what do you do when your heart is breaking?

I pondered that question this morning. In Stephanie’s artwork, the human suffering from heartbreak curls into a ball, and answers the question by saying, “Nail it shut and wrap barbed wire around it.” But the bird beside the poor human has another answer: “Or you could let it open.”

The decision from Judge Du didn’t tell us anything new today. We all know that the courts don’t protect our living planet. We all know that the courts don’t protect indigenous peoples and lands. The courts enforce the law, and the law favors the wealthy over the people and the planet. And so Judge Du writes that while she “finds the Tribes’ arguments regarding the spiritual distress that the [looting of native artifacts and sacred sites] will cause persuasive,” she “must nonetheless reluctantly” allow the archeological dig as “the Court must operate within the framework of the applicable laws and regulations.”

Nothing has changed at Thacker Pass. For months now, the headsman’s axe has been raised. Now, it teeters on the brink of descending. We knew this time would come.

The question for us is this: will we wrap our hearts in barbed wire and nail them shut by ignoring injustice, walking away from reality, and lusting for money?

Or will we let our hearts open, and commit to protecting the land?

Protecting Peehee Muh’huh, or Thacker Pass, Means Protecting the Eastern Sierra, too

by | Sep 1, 2021 | Culture of Resistance, Dispatches from Thacker Pass, Indigenous Autonomy, Listening to the Land, Movement Building & Support

by Caelen McQuilkin

Published in the Opinion section of The Mammoth Times on August 19, 2021

Drive slightly east and then five hours north out of Lee Vining, and you’ll find yourself in Thacker Pass, a wide-open landscape of sagebrush and sloping hills, achingly beautiful in that special high desert way. Drive slightly east and then five hours north out of Lee Vining, follow the 80 most of the way, turn left once you reach the small town of Orovada, Nevada, and you might fall in love with a place you had never previously heard of.

That’s what happened to me this summer when I saw the first social media posts and advocacy surrounding Peehee mu’huh, or Thacker Pass, and the movement to protect it from the proposed development of a 5,000 acre open-pit lithium mine atop what one of the advocacy groups fighting to protect the area, Atsa koodakuh wyh Nuwu, or People of Red Mountain, knows as “a spiritually powerful place blessed by the presence of our ancestors, other spirits, and golden eagles – who we consider to be directly connected to the Creator,” according to their statement of opposition. This is due to the history of the place: a long time ago, Indigenous people in the area–the ancestors of many of the advocates fighting to protect the place today–were massacred at Thacker Pass. “To build a lithium mine over this massacre site in Peehee mu’huh would be like building a lithium mine over Pearl Harbor or Arlington National Cemetery,” the statement reads. “We would never desecrate these places and we ask that our sacred sites be afforded the same respect.”

Though the movement to protect Thacker Pass is centered around land over 300 miles away from the Eastern Sierra, it provides a model for what environmentalism in the 21st century must look like if we are to address the root causes of environmental destruction. This type of environmentalism centers around anti-racist and anti-capitalist struggles, therefore addressing several root causes of environmental destruction in the modern day: the force of colonization, and the disproportionate power held by large corporations and by the rich. The movement begs us to interrogate ourselves with larger moral questions that Daranda Hinkey, a member of the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone tribe and founder of People of Red Mountain, brought up: “What do we truly care about most?” she asked, referencing the outsized attention that purchasable items supposed to save us from the climate crisis receive, and the “greenwashing” that makes them palatable. “Do we care about the land? Do we care about the animals? Do we care about the water? Do we care about the air?”

Protecting Thacker Pass will help usher in a new era of environmentalism aimed towards racial and class justice, and therefore could in turn protect the Eastern Sierra from the similar environmental threats and racial inequities our region faces.

Historically, our region and the Thacker Pass region were linked through the movement of people. In the modern day, many Indigenous people still act on and appreciate this connection, and movements like Thacker Pass cast light upon its continued relevance. “A long time ago, we used to roam this way all the way down to Pyramid Lake, out to Lee Vining and California. There used to be roads here, a long time ago,” said Ron Guerrero, a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute tribe and supporter of the movement to protect Thacker Pass. “We weren’t separated by reservations. You know they put us on reservations, but we used to migrate with the animals. All through these lines, all the way to California, this is where we travelled through. At one time, we were all one. Bishop Paiutes, Pyramid Lake Paiutes, Fort McDermitt Paiutes, we were all one.”

The human history of this landscape shows that people have recognized the inherent connections between the land that makes up the high desert of the American West. Many still do recognize this inherent connection, and are acting on it. Myron Dewey, a filmmaker, journalist, and supporter of the movement, explained: “I’m a descendant of Yosemite. I’m currently enrolled in the Walker River Paiute tribe on my dad’s side, and I’m also Tomoke-Shoshone on my dad’s side, and from my mom’s side, I’m from the Bishop Paiute tribe,” he said. “Those Sierra mountains are our homelands. What I would like people to know, is to do the land acknowledgement on the land that you’re on, and know that the Indigenous people, even though they don’t all live in their traditional homelands, they’re still trying to protect them.”

Indeed, environmental threats like that at Thacker Pass are already present in our region. As far as lithium mining goes, a project to begin exploratory drilling for lithium in Panamint Valley was approved in 2019, according to Friends of the Inyo, and while the corporation has most recently decided to prioritize other mining projects, they may be back in the future. In addition, a recent gold mining proposal at Conglomerate Mesa, a large section of high desert landscape located at the doorstep of Death Valley National Park, and on the homelands of the Timbisha-Shoshone and Paiute-Shoshone tribal nations, poses a threat to sacred Indigenous land and critical wildlife habitat. According to Brian Hatchell, Desert Policy Associate at Friends of the Inyo, the Canadian company K2 Gold and their subsidiary Mojave Precious Metals are currently planning to begin the construction of miles of new roads and over a hundred exploratory drill holes at Conglomerate Mesa. This construction will come in anticipation of the actual mine, which will include cyanide heap-leach mine. “Numerous leaders in local tribes have opposed the gold exploration and mining by K2 Gold,” said Hatchell. “Conglomerate Mesa is a kingdom of solitude abundant in flora and fauna wonders that captures the pure essence of desert backcountry exploration. This area is simply too special for gold exploration and the open-pit cyanide heap leach gold mine that would follow.”

At Thacker Pass, the opposition to lithium mining formed in the beginning of 2021, after the corporation Lithium Nevada was able to quickly push through approval for its project, taking advantage of the recent weakening of environmental review process laws under the Trump administration. At its start, the resistance consisted of two people camped at Thacker Pass, but today, it has grown in size and impact.

Two advocacy groups–Protect Thacker Pass and Atsa koodakuh wyh Nuwu, People of Red Mountain–are working in solidarity to resist the mine by spreading awareness and education, taking legal action, building social pressure, and planning to peacefully blockade mine construction. The advocacy groups’ arguments are rooted in their belief that Thacker Pass is valuable and irreplaceable, and the impact of mining it will cause serious and irreversible damage, both to the area and through the precedent it will set for extractive practices in the West as a whole.

One such irreplaceable value of Thacker Pass is the fact that destruction of the landscape, and the wildlife it is home to (including the greater sage grouse, Lahontan cutthroat trout, pronghorn antelope, and golden eagle) will mean destruction of Indigenous culture and traditional knowledge. Hinkey explained what protecting Thacker Pass means to her: “It means I am protecting all the knowledge that all my grandmas and my grandpas, what they carry and what they tell me,” she said. “Everything that I know was not things that I just came up with. It was things that I learned. And so to me, it’s protecting that.”

People of Red Mountain’s statement in opposition to the lithium mine details why preserving cultural knowledge is so important.

“Thacker Pass is essential to the survival of our traditions. Our traditions are tied to the land,” it reads. “When our land is destroyed, our traditions are destroyed.” According to the statement, these traditions specific to Thacker Pass include picking choke cherries from the orchards there, gathering yapa, or wild potatoes, hunting groundhogs and mule deer, and gathering traditional medicines such as ibi, a chalky rock used for ulcers and internal and external bleeding, and toza root, which is considered one of the world’s best anti-viral medicines. Hinkey explained: “In the spring, there are a bunch of First Foods, and wildflowers, and the sagebrush, and a bunch of wildlife… As Native people, we are supposed to be caretakers of the land,” she said. “We’re supposed to be protectors for the people that are vulnerable. And when I say people, I mean the animal people, I mean the plant people. We still see them as that, and so we’re supposed to speak up for the ones that are vulnerable or can’t speak up for themselves.”

These arguments are so weighty they seem hard to effectively ignore, but one way advocates for the mine are promoting their development is through “greenwashing,” or presenting the illusion that they are not only environmentally responsible, but actually helping the environmental cause. Because lithium is necessary for the production of the batteries that run EV cars–technology often regarded as one of the solutions to the climate crisis–some believe that developing lithium mines such as this one will be necessary to slow climate change. “The company wants to blow up a mountain and call it green,” said Max Wilbert, one of the founders of Protect Thacker Pass. “Call it good for the planet to blow up a mountain and poison water and leave behind a wasteland and destroy all this wildlife habitat. That’s not unique here, that’s all over the world, that this sort of thing is happening.”

Many leaders at Thacker Pass mentioned greenwashing and its ties to their philosophy about environmentalism. If we can’t create an environmental movement that is geared towards addressing root causes, rather than symptoms, some said, then companies that can effectively greenwash will simply continue profiting from the same crisis that has already begun to harm the most vulnerable. Thinking about the world in terms of multiple generations to come may help rewire one’s thinking to reject greenwashing and false solutions like this one. Many advocates at Thacker Pass expressed their views through this lens.

“This is our future. It’s not only mine, it’s yours too… I’m old. It’s not for me, it’s for younger generations. It’s for you guys. That’s what my part is–I’m fighting the fight for all of us,” said Ron Guerrero, a member of the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe, who came to Thacker Pass for the first time in the spring and has since been back over ten times. Hinkey had similar thoughts. “It’s not just us in this present day having a new lithium car, having solar panels or wind turbines. It’s not us now. I think that we’re starting to realize with climate change, we have to really think to the future,” she said. “With the greenwashing, it’s like we’re destroying the land–adding to the mining, adding to the carbon emissions.”

If we want to preserve our planet for future generations, we need to listen to the voices at Thacker Pass–voices that are calling for a reevaluation of humanity’s entire relationship with the environment through a reckoning with the implications of colonization. A rekindling and centering of the Indigenous knowledge about living with and caring for the land, acting with far future generations and therefore permanent solutions in mind, thinking radically about what it will take to truly address the climate crisis and emerge better for it.

Protecting Thacker Pass means protecting the Eastern Sierra–through the inherent links of our regions, and through the symbolism of the movement that will benefit all places worth protecting. As Dewey put it: “Come and support Peehee mm’huh, Thacker Pass, through whatever donations or physical support you can give. Or just come and witness and experience, and see how the Indigenous people are still trying to protect what little is left of traditional harvesting areas, sacred sites, clean water,” he said. “We have an obligation and an opportunity to make a wrong right, and you can be part of that healing.”

If you are interested in updates about the movement, donating, joining the protest camp, or otherwise becoming involved, visit https://protectthackerpass.org. Read the entirety of People of Red Mountain’s statement at https://protectthackerpass.org/people-of-red-mountain/. Find more information about the movement to protect Conglomerate Mesa at http://protectconglomeratemesa.com/.