Sage and Sand: Hanging On By Our Fingernails
Numerous new mines, energy projects, transmission lines, and large-scale planning efforts all simultaneously permitting. What's a public lands advocate to do?
Greetings, friends. It’s been a long while. Some illness got me down for a bit, and then a few urgent writing deadlines which took the place of whatever time in my life I have to write this missive. Plus the wonderful bloom we’re having ate up a few weeks. Time is at a premium, especially in the spring in the desert.
I write about it below but I’ll highlight here how honored I was to be featured in The New Yorker in a Talk of the Town article about our exploits on Lake Manly. Writer Meg Bernhard was generous in her treatment of your local friendly crusty desert activist, and well, it’s just quite a thing. And now, without further adieu…
The Great Basin & northern Mojave Desert resource extraction boom is accelerating with far-reaching consequences for biodiversity and communities. Mining for lithium, gold, rare earths, hell even absorbent clays; oil and gas; solar, geothermal, and wind energy; pinyon-juniper removal (for biofuels?); hare-brained pumped storage projects; nuclear waste dumps; and large-scale planning efforts meant to accelerate all of the above.
And caught in the middle is the most arid region in the country, one of the most biodiverse regions in the country, one of the least understood and least appreciated regions in the country, one that most Americans are perfectly content to put on the chopping block. Also caught in the middle is my beloved home.
The number of concurrent projects moving toward permitting and development simultaneously is dizzying. Just this month we’ve got open NEPA comment periods on: the Western Solar Plan DPEIS, greater sage-grouse LUPAs (round 3!), GridLiance Pahrump transmission line, Ash Meadows zeolite mine, North Bullfrog gold mine, Rhyolite Ridge lithium mine, Rough Hat Clark Solar DEIS, Greenlink North transmission line, Spring Valley gold mine, Robertson gold mine; and that’s just in my little area of focus. We are also waiting on environmental documents for: Greenlink West, Rover Critical Minerals’ Ash Meadows project, Golden Currant solar (now known as the Purple Sage Energy Center. Fuckers.), and Bonanza Solar in Inyo County. Also waiting on 10,000 acres of the Amargosa being stuck in a geothermal energy lease sale later this year. And again, that’s just in my little corner of the world. A world, I might add, which has increasingly shrunk in size as the number of projects balloons right here in the beautiful and remarkably biodiverse Amargosa River Basin.
Multiply that extraction bonanza by the whole Western United States, and you’ve got the entire public lands environmental movement basically just hanging on by our fingernails, trying desperately to engage on projects, trying desperately to save these lands and species, while also trying to walk this delicate balance of not actively subverting the carbon-free energy transition. All while the climate cognoscenti and DC policy makers view us as either right-wing trolls, dimwitted NIMBYs, or outright climate deniers.
Why, just this morning at 5:30am a collaborator called me freaking out because they have an order of magnitude more projects on their plate than they have hours in the day. We feel this intense urgency to respond because we’re watching what we love disappear before our eyes. What’s a biodiversity activist to do?
Bear down. Muster resources. Build alliances. Get away from that damn desk and into the field. Document. Survey. Bring in the hydrologists. Bring in the botanists and ichthyologists. Bring in the lawyers. Share it with the world. Shout it from the rooftops. Turn off the damn Twitter. Turn off the damn TikTok. And for god’s sake, prioritize. We can’t do everything. We can’t even do the fraction of everything that we think we should be able to do. We can only push ourselves and others so hard. We are going to lose some places. We may lose some species. But we will save others. If we work hard enough and we give enough and we offer of ourselves in a humble, transparent, honest way, we still have a shot. If we set our targets appropriately and give it everything we’ve got, all is not lost.
Evening is nigh in the Great Basin. The fighters have their six-guns and are pacing apart. We are entering the long, dark night of the soul for this achingly beautiful and richly biodiverse place. All we can do is the best we can do. Bear down, and let’s go.
We’re All Heroes… in Retrospect
I enjoyed attending a celebration this weekend at beautiful Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, commemorating the 40th anniversary of its designation as a wildlife refuge in 1984. The story of Ash Meadows truly is remarkable. The Devils Hole pupfish, listed as endangered in 1967, was threatened with extinction due to groundwater pumping. Thanks to a determined group of fish enthusiasts, a landmark Supreme Court case, Cappaert, provided a legal basis for protecting the groundwater that sustained the fish. Meanwhile a developer proposed building a whole ass city right there outside of Pahrump, which they intended to call Calvada Lakes. Intrepid US Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Don Sada began one by one getting species listed under the Endangered Species Act. This eventually provided an impetus for the developer to sell out to The Nature Conservancy, who transferred the property to the US Fish and Wildlife Service in 1984.
Now the Refuge is home to 26 endemic species, 12 of which are protected under the Endangered Species Act. It has undergone really extensive restoration projects since it was initially designated. It was inscribed by the United Nations as a RAMSAR Wetland of International Importance in 1984. It is truly one of the crown jewels of the National Wildlife Refuge System.
This event as Ash Meadows was fun, lots of war stories shared, some old timers made an appearance, some muckity-mucks from FWS and some congressional staffers who had to haul out to Nye County on behalf of their bosses. But one thing that struck me is the difference in context between 40 years ago and today.
The speakers at this event were celebrating the litigation and Endangered Species Act listings that saved Ash Meadows. The Cappaert case was spoken about in reverent tones. One speaker said, “Every time Don Sada got another species listed under the Endangered Species Act, the developer’s purchase price went down.” It was sort of shocking to hear this kind of talk from the podium because in many cases it is these same folks and same organizations who actively oppose our current litigation and ESA activism. Sure, litigation and bare-knuckle advocacy sound great decades later in retrospect; but what would really be valuable would be supporting such activities today, right now! Given that I’m up to my eyeballs in litigation and ESA advocacy, and on the receiving end of the disapproval and criticism that comes from some parties for engaging that way, perhaps I was a little hyper attuned to this dynamic. But the juxtaposition between people’s reaction to faded memories versus their engagement in the current reality was jarring.
One other thought occurred to me and that’s who gets remembered and who does the remembering. We heard from scientists, we heard from advocates, but who we didn’t hear from was litigators. Like, who litigated Cappaert? The case was mentioned, but nobody mentioned the attorneys’ names. I felt a little sad about that. Somewhere, 50 years ago, some probably young attorneys were cranking away in the middle of the night on briefs, ignoring their domestic responsibilities, failing to take their daily exercise, neglecting basic self-care because they were so focused on the case they were working on. And yet 50 years after Cappaert, it’s the politicos, some of whom are also attorneys to be fair, reminiscing while the litigators remain hidden in the mists of time.
I hope I never do the same. Our attorneys, and in the case of our work at Ash Meadows, Scott Lake of the Center and Roger Flynn from Western Mining Action Project, work so hard, and while they don’t do it for the glory, they certainly deserve our acknowledgement and thanks. Being a litigator is really difficult, high pressure, thankless work. But without them, Rover Metals would already be drilling holes right next to endangered species habitat at Ash Meadows. Hopefully 40 years from now, when we celebrate the anniversary of our vanquishing Rover and their mining cronies from the area around Ash Meadows, we’ll be sure that nobody forgets the names of the attorneys who were essential in making it happen.
Death Valley Takes the Limelight
One of the interesting parts about living in the Death Valley region, working on environmental issues, and being a big loudmouth on Twitter is that people tend to call you when they want to know about things in Death Valley. I’ll never forget the first time one of my photographs was in the newspaper, when I took photos of the very earliest part of the 2016 superbloom down at Ashford Mill in Death Valley, and Henry Brean put them in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. And when subsequent deluges in August 2023 and February 2024 suddenly re-created Lake Manly on the floor of Death Valley and it became the number on kayaking destination in the Western United States for a couple of weeks? I was “something of a Lake Manly docent” according to the Wall Street Journal.
Two articles came out last week featuring explorations of Death Valley with me and my compatriots. A nice change of pace from the normal doom and gloom.
First, Reis Thebault and Alice Li from the Washington Post and Las Vegas freelance photographer Bridget Bennett came out for a wildflower tour earlier this month with Naomi Fraga of the California Botanic Garden and I. We toured around the Amargosa, looking at huge fields of desert gold (aka desert sunflowers aka Gerea) near Tecopa Peak and out by China Ranch, and then we went down to Dumont Dunes and beyond looking at extensive fields of purple sand verbena interspersed with birdcage primrose, desert lilies, sun cups, and prickly poppies. After a stunning sunset overlooking the whole scene on a hill covered in verbena, we bounced down the lonely two track in my truck in the dark.
Reis’ story, Alice’s video, and Bridget’s photographs really capture the vibe of the afternoon. It was fun and stunningly beautiful, but there’s this undertone of menace because we know that part of what we’re seeing is the climate crisis in action. The desert is covered in these unusually large flowers right now – flowers which germinated after Hurricane Hillary last autumn, bloomed in November, overwintered due to our cold but not hard freezing winter, and then got rejuvenated by the atmospheric river in February and are now juiced up like no spring annuals you’ve ever seen. Coming hot on the heels of the worst drought in recorded history, and there’s something about climate whiplash that feels deeply unsettling.
But of course these blooms were preceded by the epic rainstorms from Hurricane Hilary and the atmospheric river, and that takes us back to Lake Manly. A few days ago, an article by writer Meg Bernhard came out in The New Yorker, telling the story of an early morning boat expedition out on Lake Manly. They even had a cartoon in it of yours truly. To say I’m honored and a little stunned to find myself in the dang New Yorker is an understatement! I’m just a dude who likes to explore the desert and sometimes share it with other people. A “docent” if you will. But Meg’s piece dives a little deeper than the spectacle and looks at some of the motivations. It was in the Talk of the Town section so it’s got a lighthearted vibe. Some of my friends like Laura and Dex appear too.
Read more: Washington Post, The New Yorker
Rhyolite Ridge Is the Weirdest Mine Ever Permitted
The Rhodes Scholars at the Bureau of Land Management botched the rollout of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the Rhyolite Ridge Mine so badly last week that their attempt to control the narrative and limit public scrutiny lead to headlines like, “BLM Won’t Say What’s In Plan to Protect Wildflower at Lithium Mine Site.” Embarrassing.
First, they surprised everyone on a quiet Friday morning in April with an announcement – they’re releasing the Rhyolite Ridge Mine Draft EIS. Oh joy. And yet, when we went to their website, there was no Draft EIS to be found. Also, when Draft EISs are issued, they are supposed to be accompanied by a Notice of Availability in the Federal Register. I get my Fed. Reg. pre-publication notifications at 5:47am Pacific Time every single weekday as I have for seven years. What gives?
Then, we hear that they won’t be releasing the Draft EIS for another week. As a result of that SNAFU, the 45-day comment deadline date they gave in the press release turned out to be a week off. So they had to issue a corrected press release with the correct comment deadline for 45 days after the following Friday. So here we are, prepping for a Friday release when all of a sudden I get a 6am Pacific Time text on Tuesday from a journalist with a link to the DEIS on ePlanning. After that absurd scene last Friday, BLM surreptitiously uploaded the DEIS to ePlanning and didn’t tell anybody. Finally, the Fed. Reg. NOA came out on Friday, as they said.
Clearly BLM is trying to control the narrative here, to perpetuate the false impression that by building an open-pit mine and sulfuric acid processing plant surrounding the habitat of a rare wildflower that they’re conserving the species.
Now as for the DEIS itself… Ioneer has put forward a new alternative plan for the mine, one that “only” directly destroys 22% of Tiehm’s buckwheat’s critical habitat. This down from 38% in the original proposed action. However the open-pit mine and access roads would still come within 44 feet of these endangered wildflowers. The mining operations would emit huge amounts of dust that would dramatically affect Tiehm’s buckwheat’s physiology. The sulfuric acid processing plant would emit a “sulfuric acid mist,” which sounds delightful. Pollinators would be disrupted. Invasive species vectors dramatically increased. Human disturbance of all kinds would degrade the habitat into oblivion. Now I don’t know about you but that sure does sound like adverse modification of critical habitat to me.
They have a whole BS “buckwheat protection plan,” of course. Back in the early days when I did a public records request of a Nevada state agency tasked with reviewing this plan, one of the reviewers (a biologist) said, “This isn’t a protection plan at all. At best this is a mitigation plan.” I love finding stuff like that with FOIA. The buckwheat plan includes various mitigation measures including establishing off-site populations in places they don’t belong. Ioneer also included a whole bunch of science they funded trying to debunk the earlier science they funded about Tiehm’s buckwheat which found it to be a unique soil specialist and rich component of its ecosystem.
We have 45 days (June 3rd) to get our acts together, consult with the experts, rally the public, and write technical comments on the DEIS. The lawyers, the biologists, the cultural resource specialists, the activists. It’s on us now. You know I’ll be keeping you posted. The battle for the fate of Tiehm’s buckwheat rages on.
Read more: 8 News Now, Las Vegas Sun, Elko Daily, Las Vegas Review-Journal
On Wolves and the Wildlife Commission
Believe it or not, the first wolf sighted in Nevada in decades was reported the first week I started my job with the Center in 2017. It was an auspicious omen for the work that was to come and the mark the Center would make in the Silver State.
Well, it took more 7 years, but we finally got some more wolves. A group of three wolves was sighted in northern Elko County, likely who had wandered over the border from Idaho. It’s entirely possible that they were following the moose that have recently colonized Nevada. Northern Elko County is pretty mesic habitat, with lots of pinyon-juniper woodland and legit forest at the higher elevations in Jarbidge.
The Center makes wolf conservation one of our top priorities. They are a symbol of the wildness of the West, and their restoration and conservation is an emblem of what makes this country great (still). When something like this wolf sighting happens, we use it as an opportunity to remind the public of how much we all cherish wolves, and how necessary the Endangered Species Act is for their survival. And our own. My Center colleague, wolf advocate and expert Amaroq Weiss, talked to damn near every newspaper in Nevada about it, and you can read some of the stories linked below.
One interesting thing we dug up in all this was the Nevada Department of Wildlife’s endangered species policy. It’s a classic piece of rightwing states-rights sagebrush-rebellion claptrap. It’s completely meaningless of course but it belies the absurdity of the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners and their completely political approach to managing the state’s animal biodiversity.
The document in question is Board of Wildlife Commissioners Policy #27. It’s entitled “Protection of Nevada Wildlife Resources” but what they really mean is “Protection of State Management Authority.” To wit: “the Commission will work with the Department to obtain and maintain state management authority of those species that reside within Nevada… [and] ensure that the social and biological concerns unique to Nevada are considered as part of any wildlife management activity for those species under federal management authority.” This is basically putting a target on the back of the Endangered Species Act and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and denying the federal supremacy clause of the US Constitution.
But then they hit it home with Point 9: “…the Commission supports management of wolves if they are determined to be negatively impacting other wildlife species, and may oppose a population of wolves.”
Now as a reminder, the gray wolf is protected under the Endangered Species Act in Nevada. Nobody make cause “take” of a gray wolf without a permit from the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The state of Nevada can’t order wolves shot because they eat deer. It doesn’t work that way. So the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners is basically threatening a sagebrush rebellion if wolves establish themselves here.
This policy is mostly political posturing but as I’ve said repeatedly, the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners is a disgrace and should be disbanded. With 7 out of 9 seats on the commission dedicated to people who kill wildlife, hunters have a stranglehold on wildlife management in the state.
That’s why last legislative session in 2023, we put forward a bill with allies to study reforming the Wildlife Commission, to change its composition to more accurately reflect the demographics, geographies, and wildlife interests of Nevadans. The bill passed through both houses but was vetoed by Governor Lombardo.
So we’re giving it another shot. Along with Laura Martin from PLAN, we presented to the Joint Standing Interim Legislative Committee on Natural Resources a few weeks ago about inequities in the composition of the Wildlife Commission and the Commission on Minerals. Here’s our slides. Our allies Great Basin Resource Watch and the Western Shoshone Defense Project presented on the composition of the Commission on Minerals, while allies from Wildlife For All and others presented further on the Wildlife Commission. You can watch the presentations here, Laura and I start at the 12:58:00 timestamp.
The meeting turned pretty spicy, you can read about some of that below. Will the interim committee give this issue a BDR so we can hash it out in legislative session 2025? We shall see. But until we reform this commission, there’s trouble for wolves and all the other creatures that may need the protection of the Endangered Species Act in Nevada. We’ll keep fighting. Stay tuned.
Read more on wolves: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Current, 8 News Now KLAS
Read more on the legislative hearing: Las Vegas Review-Journal, Nevada Current
Maybe We Should Manage the Ones We Have First?
The Center sued BLM Nevada last month for failure to prepare legally mandated management plans for Gold Butte and Basin & Range National Monuments. These monuments, designated by former President Barack Obama, protect important ecosystems, imperiled species, and irreplaceable cultural sites that define the character of wild Nevada. The proclamations for these monuments, issued by the President to designate them, specifically mandate BLM to prepare monument plans in order to protect the values for which the monuments were designated.
BLM has failed to prepare those management plans. It’s been 9 years since Basin & Range was designated, 7 years since Gold Butte was designated, and BLM is still managing them as if they’re not monuments at all. They made an attempt to begin a Basin & Range management plan a couple of years ago before unceremoniously abandoning it. Scoping began in 2016 and they never really got any further than that.
Gold Butte was no better, and in many ways worse, with BLM initiating what they called an “implementation plan” for management activities in the monument. When pressed on why they were doing an implementation plan and not a management plan, BLM said because they already had the management direction they need from the existing resource management plan, so why would they need a new one? This is sort of a stunning statement from BLM, implying that National Monument designation is meaningless and requires no special management direction. Regardless, the sham implementation plan was also unceremoniously dropped last autumn.
Meanwhile, visitation has increased dramatically in these places since they were designated monuments, while visitor services have not kept pace. Human waste is proliferating because BLM has failed to install toilets. I’ve seen piles of human feces and toilet paper right outside the famous Fallen Man cultural site. OHVs are running off route; cattle grazing where they shouldn’t; springs degraded, habitat harmed. In some ways these are monuments in name only. Hence our lawsuit. BLM needs to live up to the obligations of the monuments they are entrusted with caring for. We hope a judge will agree with us.
Read more: Courthouse News, Las Vegas Review-Journal, E&E News
Keep on down that long dusty road,
-Patrick
Northern NV is getting hit as well. The small town of Gerlach is threatened with geothermal development with leases that cover the entire community. The town sits on the resource with great potential for permanent adverse impacts to life & property. Lithium mine claims have been issued on the south Black Rock playa starting just a few thousand feet from my home. This too posses significant threats to life & property. The claims should have never been issued in the first place. I wrote the black rock NCA RMP (2004) with a mineral decision that states the south playa was to be withdrawn from the 1872 mining law. BLM has had 20 years to implement that decision.
And there may be potential for solar development to the west and south edge of town to complement mining to the east and a geothermal power plant on the north side of town.
Patrick, I’m a NEPA lawyer, lots of experience with BLM in Oregon. Not a litigator, I do admin stuff — comments and appeals. I can pitch in, as an extra set of eyes on something, or I can do a NEPA analysis on some project no one is going to have time to get to, etc. I’m on “burnout sabbatical” right now so I have a little extra time. I’ll shoot you a message so you have my email if you want to reach out.