Effort to stop lithium drilling near Ash Meadows takes new turn

Environmental groups continue to seek a court order to stop lithium drilling near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, saying they have received mixed messages about the project’s status from the federal government.

Lawyers for the Center for Biological Diversity and Amargosa Conservancy argued in a motion filed this week that even though the Bureau of Land Management said it would require a full environmental review before Rover Metals’ planned exploratory drilling could start, nothing has been made official and government attorneys would not confirm that the exploratory project was put on pause.

The groups sued the federal government this month in an attempt to force the bureau to conduct an environmental review before drilling could start. The new request for a preliminary injunction asks for a judge to hear arguments on the case before the end of July.

The BLM initially said there were no automatic triggers for such a review because of the size of the project. But officials from the agency’s Nevada office told the Las Vegas Review-Journal last week that they had informed Rover Metals of the need to submit a plan of operations and go through a full National Environmental Policy Act review before drilling could commence.

Opponents of the drilling said the issue got murky last week when lawyers for the environmental groups asked the Department of Justice, which is representing the Interior Department and BLM, to confirm those details.

“We are aware of the press statement, but BLM has not yet issued any final decision. Until it does, I cannot say with certainty what Rover’s regulatory status is or will be,” a Justice Department attorney wrote in a July 14 email to a lawyer representing the environmental groups.

A spokesman for the Justice Department’s environment and natural resources division declined to comment Wednesday.

A spokesperson for the BLM Nevada office, though, told the Review-Journal on Tuesday that the plan to require an environmental review before the drilling could start has not changed.

Rover Metals did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

“We can’t speculate about why the BLM and its attorneys appear to have different positions,” Patrick Donnelly, the Great Basin director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said Tuesday.

Rover Metals has said that the area just north of the refuge has shown high levels of lithium, a metal used in the production of lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

But the project’s opponents are worried that drilling so close to Ash Meadows, which is home to four endangered fish species, could disrupt groundwater flows in the springs inside the refuge and threaten numerous protected species.

The motion filed Monday by the environmental groups asks for the judge to schedule oral arguments for July 31.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter.