About a Flower
Tiehm's buckwheat proposed for Endangered Species Act protections, but the future is still uncertain
By now you’ve surely heard our big news - that the US Fish and Wildlife Service has recommended Tiehm’s buckwheat for protection under the Endangered Species Act. In this edition I’ll focus mostly on this news because let’s face it: I’ve got buckwheat on the brain.
Talking About Endangered Species
First I’d like to share with you all that I’ll be giving a presentation on Zoom as a part of the Center’s Saving Life on Earth campaign on June 17th at 5pm Pacific Time. I’ll be speaking about our work to defend endangered endemic species across Nevada, from the Dixie Valley toad to Tiehm’s buckwheat to the relict dace. I’ll also be fielding questions, so if you have a burning desire to put me on the spot about Tiehm’s buckwheat, this is your chance. Register here, and please attend – 5:00 pm PDT on June 17th.
About a Buckwheat
Two years ago, on June 1, 2019, I first met Tiehm’s buckwheat. It was love at first sight.
Dan Patterson, the whistleblower at Tonopah BLM who informed me about the plight of the buckwheat, had been periodically texting me urging action on the buckwheat for months. He told me I needed to look into the mineral exploration activities of this company Paradigm Minerals, which then became Ioneer, which was mucking around in a rare buckwheat’s habitat. I did a FOIA which got the response that documents could only be procured in person in Tonopah at the BLM office. Meanwhile, I was at the legislature and up to my armpits in water bills, and had to put it off for some time.
But right after legislative session ended, I headed there. I met with my collaborator Dr. Naomi Fraga and we camped out at the site. The next morning we woke up at sunrise and met Tiehm’s buckwheat, which was in full flower at the time. The sun breaking over the crest of Rhyolite Ridge and illuminating the creamy white-yellowish-red flowers of the buckwheat was enough to make anyone starry-eyed. As we ventured from subpopulation to subpopulation we got a sense for just how tiny the global range of this species was, and just how vulnerable to disturbance.
The flowers were at peak bloom. There were pollinators buzzing everywhere – mostly flies but also tiny beetles. There were many associates of Tiehm’s buckwheat also flowering at the time, including a mirabilis, two different penstemons, and two different milkvetches, among others. We were just kind of wandering through fields of blooming buckwheat and it is a really treasured memory as I met this charismatic wildflower for the first time. Here’s a few photos.
The disturbance at the site was obvious. Ioneer had pulled down a whole hillside within subpopulation 1, causing permanent change and significant erosion. They had also bladed a new road almost directly into subpopulation 5, the smallest and most vulnerable subpopulation. Their drill pads and laydown areas were major vectors for the invasive plant Halogeton glomeratus¸called saltlover, which takes over and alters the chemistry of the soil. It was clear that this plant was in acute danger from Ioneer’s mineral exploration activities. And it was clear that, due to its extremely restricted range and the nature of the threats it faced, it would be necessary to protect this species under the Endangered Species Act.
And as we trudged up that newly-bladed mining road and saw the destruction which had been wrought, I said, out loud, “We will get you listed, little buckwheat.”
A lot of stuff happened since then. Together with Dr. Fraga, we filed an Endangered Species Act petition in October of 2019. We sued over Ioneer’s exploration activities a few weeks later. We settled the exploration litigation in January 2020 which resulted in the end of exploration activities. Along with our federal petition, we also submitted an endangered species petition to the state of Nevada, and the state of Nevada started a listing process, and held hearings over the summer, when over 100 scientists urged them to protect the plant. We got a positive 90-day finding on our federal ESA petition in July 2020. We filed an SEC complaint in September 2020 against Ioneer alleging they were misleading investors. A few weeks after that was the mysterious destruction incident resulting in the loss of approximately 50% of the population. Which was followed shortly by our emergency listing lawsuit.
In January 2021, 100 scientists and 15 conservation groups wrote a letter to President Biden urging him to immediately protect Tiehm’s buckwheat under the Endangered Species Act. In March of 2021, we submitted a petition to BLM to protect the habitat for Tiehm’s buckwheat and an appropriate buffer as an Area of Critical Environmental Concern. More recently, we had a partial but significant victory in our listing litigation in April, forcing the Service to finalize their decision on endangered species protections within 30 days. The Service filed a Motion for Reconsideration of the judge’s remedy, and in a settlement we agreed to their having a May 31, 2021 deadline for issuing a 12-month finding, followed by a September 30, 2021 deadline for a proposed rule.
Which brings us to last week. It takes a couple of days for documents submitted to the Federal Register to actually get published so all of last week we were fielding inquiries – where’s the 12 month finding? – while the peanut gallery conjured up non-existent tea leaves on the delay.
But on Thursday at the customary hour of 6:01am when the Federal Register pre-publication notices are issued (and my workday begins), we got the good news… The Service had issued a 12-month finding for Tiehm’s buckwheat indicating that protection as a threatened or endangered species was warranted. Huzzah!
The 12-month finding, which can be read here in the Federal Register, contains language that is favorable to the cause of protecting the buckwheat, and which validates everything we’ve been saying for the past two years. In particular, the Service:
Finds that the mine would, combined with the destruction incident from last year, result in the loss of 70-88% of plants just from the buildout of phase 1.
Finds that a salvage operation proposed by Ioneer is “uncertain… because current research indicates that Tiehm’s buckwheat is a soil specialist, that adjacent unoccupied sites are not suitable for all early life history stages, and there has been no testing and multiyear monitoring on the feasibility of successfully transplanting the species.”
Finds that the impact of the mine on Tiehm’s buckwheat would be “permanent and irreversible.”
Finds that subpopulation 6, the one at the center of Ioneer’s open pit which they’ve said is essential to their mine proposal, is “the most resilient” of the subpopulations, and that “[l]oss of subpopulation 6, in particular, may have an immense impact on the overall resiliency and continued viability of the entire Tiehm’s buckwheat population.”
The Service leaves little doubt that they consider this plant to be endangered and that the mine would drive the species to extinction. This is further elaborated on in the Species Status Assessment, a document which outlines the scientific rationale for a listing proposal.
It was a thrilling moment for me, in this campaign that started on that cheerful June morning in 2019. And a thrilling moment for the huge team and community that has formed around Tiehm’s buckwheat. We have no fewer than five attorneys who have been consulting on our litigation strategy, and three of them who are dealing with the buckwheat on a daily basis. Plus a program director, a paralegal, and myself, that’s a legal team of 8. Our comms team has been working overtime on Tiehm’s, from print comms to digital to action alerts to social media. That’s another half dozen people on #TeamBuckwheat. Our FOIA team, our GIS team, our membership department. Everyone’s gotten in on saving Tiehm’s buckwheat.
And that doesn’t even begin. Over 100 scientists lent their names to the effort to protect Tiehm’s buckwheat. Dozens of people joined virtual public meetings last summer and expressing their support for protecting the plant. Conservation groups and botanical organizations have joined to send letter after letter demanding protection. Thousands of people have sent emails to policymakers urging protection. The popular social media botany account Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t did a video. Hell, the band Sage Against The Machine wrote a song about it. It’s pretty clear that Tiehm’s buckwheat has captured the imagination of the public in a way uncommon to a rare plant conservation issue. And the public responded - #TeamBuckwheat has been there every step of the way.
None has given so much for the sake of this little wildflower than Dr. Naomi Fraga. Every time we drove 400 miles round trip together to see the plant, she first drove 400 miles roundtrip to meet me. While she is a fierce rare plant advocate for the buckwheat, she also runs a million dollar plus conservation program at a world class botanic garden, and one could call her work to save Tiehm’s buckwheat a demented “hobby.” She has rallied the scientific community, she has conducted field monitoring and research on the species, and she has put her reputation on the line in defense of this little wildflower. Her work has so inspired the plant conservation community that she was recently awarded the Star Award from the Center for Plant Conservation. You can watch the video they made honoring her here. Even today as I write this, she is out there at Rhyolite Ridge working to save the buckwheat. A remarkable effort with remarkable result.
So the buckwheat has been proposed for protections. So what? Next up is a proposed rule, which the Service is obligated to issue by September 30, 2021 per our agreement. The proposed rule would outline the terms of the protections that the Act would provide Tiehm’s buckwheat. It will be open for public comment before the Service issues a final rule, which must happen within one year of the issuance of the proposed rule. So, assuming there are no Endangered Species Act shenanigans, the buckwheat will be listed no later than September 30, 2022.
But what of the mine? Is this the end? Well no. BLM put their NEPA process for the mine on hold earlier this year, and the current status of that is unknown. The Service made it clear that if the mine was permitted as proposed, and the plant was listed, they would not go along with the project. So it seems impossible to imagine that Rhyolite Ridge mine goes forward as currently planned. At best, Ioneer needs to go back to the drawing boards and come up with a new plan for the mine that avoids the buckwheat.
Meanwhile the buckwheat urgently needs conservation measures put in place including (especially) fencing to keep out off-highway vehicles and cattle. We also need invasive species removal to control the Halogeton infestation. And research should occur into propagation and restoration to enhance existing populations and restore plant numbers.
At this point, Ioneer needs to pack up their bags and head back to Australia. Leave us alone to clean up their mess and rehabilitate this plant back to wholeness. Long live Tiehm’s buckwheat – may they flower forever.
Here’s a press roundup:
Associated Press, Nevada Current, the Australian Market Herald, the Financial Times of London, Gizmodo, Our Daily Planet, IFL Science, a hit piece in Forbes, and a bad-faith argument editorial in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Speaking Of Lithium
We can have a renewable energy transition but we can’t do it while driving species extinct. I had a chance to pontificate on this a bit in Daniel Rothberg’s weekly Indy Environment newsletter this week. We need a plan for how we are going to produce enough lithium for the renewable energy transition. Right now, the state of Nevada and BLM and DOE are just leaving it up to the market – create incentives and let the same shady environmental villains from the mining industry who’ve destroyed our planet go ahead and mine away. But that’s resulting in endless litigation and significant controversy.
A better approach would be to have a plan, which allocates which technologies and which places are most optimal for lithium production while minimizing environmental impact. Such a plan requires environmental impacts analysis and community engagement, but it would help ensure that our renewable energy transition both happens efficiently and does not exacerbate environmental injustice or the extinction crisis.
Quick Hits
Of all the words that have been put on paper about Thacker Pass Mine, perhaps the most compelling and most important are those issued in this statement by the People of Red Mountain – the Fort McDermitt Paiute-Shoshone Tribe tribal descendents – who are making their case for why the mine will impact their traditional homeland and cultural and spiritual heritage. People of Red Mountain Statement of Opposition to Lithium Nevada Corp’s Proposed Thacker Pass Open Pit Lithium Mine in the Sierra Nevada Ally.
Meanwhile, the legal story at Thacker Pass continues to unfold. The litigants recently filed a motion for preliminary injunction to stop imminent ground disturbing activities from happening. This led to a settlement with Lithium Americas to prevent those activities, or any ground disturbance, from occurring for at least another month while they wait for the case to be ruled on.
Thank god for wildlife activists who will always remind us that yes, we still have genuine Davey Crockett-style trappers in this state, and yes, trapping is torture.
Brian Beffort, director of Nevada’s Toiyabe Chapter of the Sierra Club, wrote a strong op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun, arguing that new sprawl in the Clark County lands bill runs counter to politicians’ stated climate goals.
Our Senators reintroduced the Lander County lands bill, in which the federal government gives away and strips protection from more land than it protects, but certain environmental groups support it anyway. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Patagonia environmental program director and huge supporter of Nevada environmental causes Meghan Wolf wrote an interesting piece in The Nevada Independent, making the link between advocacy for environmental causes and access to the ballot box.
Great Basin Water Network executive director Kyle Roerink is preaching the gospel of tearing up turf across the intermountain West, with pieces in the Sierra Nevada Ally suggesting that Reno is next; and in the Deseret News urging Utahns to rip up their lawns.
The legislature approved the bill to protect the Swamp Cedars, an important win for indigenous communities and biodiversity enthusiasts. That didn’t stop Senator Ira Hansen from a racist outburst in which he denied an act of genocide to the faces of the descendants of the survivors. Despicable.
NASA is withdrawing over 20,000 acres of public land in the middle of the playa at the bottom of Railroad Valley, for “satellite calibration activities.” The word on the street is they need an area that’s perfectly flat, so they wanted to withdraw it to ensure no industrial development (read: oil and gas or lithium) occurs there. Apparently they will not be doing any ground disturbance, it’s just an area for their instruments. Go ahead, Rocket Men. As long as it keeps the oil drillers out.
May 21st marked an auspicious anniversary – it had been one year since the Southern Nevada Water Authority board of directors voted to terminate the permitting for the Las Vegas water grab pipeline, and “indefinitely defer” the project. Great Basin Water Network executive director Kyle Roerink has a reflection on the anniversary.
Barrick posted some record earnings or some such, as reported in the Elko Daily. They also claim they are starting up permitting for phase 2 of the Long Canyon Mine. Readers will recall controversy about dewatering and the potential extinction of local fish species caused this expansion proposal to be shelved last year.
The Yellow Pine solar project on the Clark County side of the Pahrump Valley is moving forward – biologists were out there clearing out desert tortoises in May. Can you imagine going to school for 7 years to be a professional biologist, and your job is to walk around the desert with a shovel digging up endangered tortoises so they can be dumped somewhere else to turn their home into an energy production facility? Sounds like a shitty job to me.
That’s all the news that’s fit, or at least all the news that fits. As always, please send feedback, suggestions, tips, complaints, denouncements, settlement offers, or unsolicited advice to pdonnelly@biologicaldiversity.org.
Keep on down that long and dusty trail,
-Patrick