Surveying Tiehm’s buckwheat plants in Esmerelda County, Nevada. (Photo by Sarah Kulpa/USFWS)
Federal land managers gave their final approval Thursday for a massive lithium-boron mine in Southern Nevada, becoming the first domestic lithium project to get full regulatory approval under the Biden Administration.
Approval for the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Esmeralda County comes after a four year federal permitting and environmental review process. During that time, the project also attracted fierce opposition from conservation groups opposed to the mine’s encroachment on critical habitat reserved for the only known population of the endangered wildflower Tiehm’s buckwheat.
Within an hour of the federal decision being posted, the Center for Biological Diversity sent the U.S. federal government a 60-day notice of intent to sue under the Endangered Species Act.
“You can expect to hear more from us with further action in the coming days,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity.
Once constructed, the massive 7,000 acre project would be in operation for 23 years and remove enough lithium from Nevada’s public lands to supply nearly 370,000 electric vehicles each year.
The mine would also create a 66 acre quarry — a deep open pit characteristic of mines and where the lithium would be extracted — and directly disturb about 191 acres of critical habitat. In total the mine would result in the removal of more than 2,000 acres of nesting sites and foraging habitat for a number of species.
Despite the project area encompassing the only known populations and critical habitat of the threatened plant, the Interior Department’s Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the final mine plan would likely not jeopardize the survival of Tiehm’s buckwheat or adversely modify its critical habitat, if combined with conservation measures outlined by Ioneer.
Federal land managers said Australia-based Ioneer — the company behind the project — has developed protections for the wildflower as part of their plan, including redesigning and relocating project features, funding Tiehm’s buckwheat propagation work, and developing a formal Tiehm’s buckwheat protection plan.
“This project and the process we have undertaken demonstrates that we can pursue responsible critical mineral development here in the United States, while protecting the health of our public lands and resources,” said Acting Deputy Secretary for the Interior, Laura Daniel-Davis.
Ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe, argued the mining company made several concessions to finalize the mining plan, including relocating much of the project infrastructure from the wildflower’s critical habitat, moving waste storage away from culturally sensitive sites, and making commitments to water conservation, and dust, noise and light monitoring.
Lithium extraction requires massive amounts of water. Ioneer plans to source water from Esmeralda County’s Fish Lake Valley, an over-appropriated basin. Groundwater in Nevada is not well understood due to the complexity of the region’s aquifers, but over the past 50 years agriculture has reduced groundwater in Fish Lake Valley by up to 200 feet in some areas.
Federal land managers estimate that mining could reduce groundwater in the valley by up to 300 feet around the quarry, and cause the surrounding ground to sink by up to 10 inches, according to the project’s final environmental review.
Approval of the project is part of the Biden administration’s efforts to boost domestic production of lithium, a mineral critical for electric vehicle batteries. The Biden administration, which has committed to decarbonize the U.S. electricity grid by 2035.
Rowe said the mine’s approval is “a milestone for the company,” adding that Rhyolite Ridge “is a very special mineral deposit” that is critical to the domestic lithium production.
“There’s not another one like it in the world,” Rowe said. “There is not another mine anywhere in the world that produces both lithium and boron at any significant scale. So this is a one of a kind type deposit, and with it comes huge advantages.”
Rhyolite Ridge is the only known lithium-boron deposit in North America and one of only two known such deposits in the world.
There is currently only one lithium producing mine in the U.S., Albemarle’s Silverpeak mine in Esmeralda County. That mine produces about 5,000 tons of lithium carbonate a year, though Albemarle recently announced it hopes to double that production by 2025.
Construction for the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project could start as soon as next year, while production would begin in 2028, according to Ioneer’s scheduling estimates.
Construction of the mine will require a workforce of 500 people for four years, and a workforce of 350 people to work on quarrying and processing over 14 years. Ioneer expects the mine to generate an estimated $125 million in wages annually during the life of the mine.
The project has already attracted financing. In 2021, the mine secured partial funding from South African mining company Sibanye-Stillwater Limited, a mining and metals processing company, under a purchase agreement. Last year, Ioneer also received a conditional commitment from the U.S. Department of Energy Loan Programs Office for up to $700 million of debt financing.