As Ford Authority reported last week, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) officially signed off on the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron Project in Nevada, set to be spearheaded by a company called ioneer – which Ford signed a deal with back in July 2022. This seemingly marked the end of a process that was held up for a while over concerns pertaining to the environmental impact of that project, but now, it’s facing another obstacle – this time, in court.
According to a new report from Reuters, a number of environmental and Indigenous groups – including the Center for Biological Diversity – have filed a lawsuit in Las Vegas federal court, arguing that the site poses a major threat to the endangered Tiehm’s Buckwheat, a desert flower endemic to the area, which could even cause it to go extinct. This is precisely the same concern that prompted BLM and FWS to conduct a thorough analysis before signing off on the project.
Regardless, ioneer doesn’t expect this lawsuit to “meaningfully affect our proposed development timeline.” “We are confident that the BLM will prevail against this lawsuit,” said Chad Yeftich, ioneer’s vice president of corporate development and external affairs. “We intend to intervene and vigorously defend the BLM’s decision, which was based on its careful and thorough permitting process.”
If it does manage to clear this legal hurdle, the Rhyolite Ridge Lithium-Boron mining project will represent a massive breakthrough in America’s mission to create a robust domestic supply chain for raw materials used in the construction of EV batteries. The mine – which is located around 225 miles north of Las Vegas, is one of North America’s largest sources of lithium and could produce enough of that material to power roughly 370,000 all-electric vehicles annually when and if it’s completed.
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