Construction Begins on Lithium Mine in Nevada After Appeals Court Denies Lawsuit

Exploration drilling continues for Permitting Lithium Nevada Corp.'s Thacker Pass Project on the site between Orovada and Kings Valley, in Humboldt County, Nev., shown beyond a driller's shovels in the distance, Sept. 13, 2018. (Suzanne Featherston/The Daily Free Press via AP)

Lithium Americas Corp. announced on Thursday that it began construction of the largest lithium mine in the United States in Humboldt County, Nevada, after a court denied the latest attempt by tribes and environmental groups in their yearslong effort to block the project.

The announcement comes after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request on Wednesday to temporarily stop the project.

The lithium mine has the potential to be North America’s largest source of lithium for electric vehicle batteries, reducing the United States’ dependence on Chinese supplies for the metal.

The Bureau of Land Management approved the $2.2 billion Thacket Pass lithium project in January 2021. The mining operation would cover 5,000 acres with an open pit as deep as a football field.

Reserves at the Thacker Pass mine, expected to begin production by the end of 2026 about 200 miles northeast of Reno, would support lithium for more than 1.5 million electric vehicles per year for 40 years, the company said.

“There are no other U.S. alternatives to Thacker Pass to provide lithium at the scale, grade or timeline necessary to begin closing the gap between the lithium available and the lithium needed to achieve the U.S.’s clean energy and transportation goals,” the company’s lawyers wrote.

Environmental Impacts

Opponents of the lithium project had filed an emergency motion with the 9th Circuit on Monday after U.S. District Judge Miranda Du in Reno rejected their request on Feb. 6 to put the case on hold until the San Francisco-based appellate court could hear their appeal.

Talasi Brooks, a lawyer for the Western Watersheds Project, said after Wednesday’s ruling, “This massive open pit mine has been fast-tracked from start to finish in defiance of environmental laws, all in the name of ‘green energy,’ but its environmental impacts will be permanent and severe.”

Dozens of tribe members and other protesters beating drums and waving signs rally in front of the federal courthouse in Reno, Nev., on Jan. 5, 2023, as a court hearing began over a lawsuit seeking to block a huge lithium mine planned near the Nevada-Oregon line about 200 miles north of Reno. (Scott Sonner/AP Photo/File)

Multiple Native American tribes have tried unsuccessfully to persuade Judge Du that the development will destroy sacred cultural values tied to the nearby site of a massacre of dozens of their ancestors in 1865.

“It is a disappointment to see valuable biological, cultural, and visual resources sacrificed for a strip-mine that has been greenwashed to be good for the environment,” said Kevin Emmerich, co-founder of Basin and Range Watch.

The opponents said any lithium mined at the site wouldn’t be available to make electric vehicle batteries for at least three years.

“Although (Lithium Nevada) asserts that the need for lithium outweighs all other factors, that there may be some future benefit from using lithium does not override the rule that the public’s interest in preserving precious, unreplenishable resources must be taken into account in balancing the hardships.”

The Biden administration has made the transition to electric vehicles a cornerstone of its net-zero strategy. The administration estimates that demand for lithium and graphite for electric vehicles to grow by more than 4,000 percent by 2040.

In January, General Motors announced it would invest $650 million in Lithium Americas to develop the Thacker Pass mine.

Thacker Pass, known as Peehee Mu’huh to the Paiute Shoshone people, is less than 40 miles north of the tribal land of the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone tribe. It also comprises thousands of acres of sagebrush and is a nesting ground for the sage grouse and a migration corridor for pronghorn antelope.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.