Sage and Sand: Sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub species

The greed mongers are circling their wagons to let mining companies drive species extinct at the altar of the almighty dollar. But are they their own worst enemies?

Mar 06, 2024

Greetings, and welcome to another edition of Sage & Sand. It’s a grab bag this time, so get some coffee and get ready to click through for more detail on the rapid-fire set of issues from across the Great Basin and beyond.

But first, a retraction. I did some math in my last newsletter, which is always dangerous. In fact, this is the second time I’ve done math in a newsletter, and both times it ended very poorly. So I hereby retract my entire section on Colorado River water rights finances. And I will refrain from further mathematical explorations in the future.

Onward…

A sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub species

The state of Nevada’s chief environmental regulator has stated on the record that “we can’t stop” species from going extinct because some species “just don’t want to survive,” describing Nevada’s remarkable biological diversity as “just a mutation that would run its course and go out.”

In any other state, this might be a scandal. But it’s just another day in the Nevada Inc./Nevada Way Resource Extraction Industrial Complex, where the regulated and the regulators are basically one and the same, and anything that gets in the way of turning a buck off of public lands is an obstacle which must be shoved out of the way.

Nevada Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Director James Settelmeyer uttered these dastardly words in an appearance on Sam Shad’s show Nevada Newsmakers. He didn’t just randomly start condemning endangered species to death, though. No, he was goaded on by Mr. Shad and his bizarre obsession with Tiehm’s buckwheat.

Nearly every guest who comes on his program, no matter how tangentially tied to the issues of lithium or the environment, Mr. Shad will grill them on whether protecting “a plant that no one’s ever heard of” is worth sacrificing economic development. He’s constantly referring to me as “certain people.” He’s had his “good friend” Ioneer executive Bernard Rowe on as a guest a half dozen times or so, giving Mr. Rowe a platform for his lies and obfuscations. So naturally, knowing he had a receptive guest, Mr. Shad brought up Tiehm’s buckwheat… again.

Director Settelmeyer took the bait, with gusto. The first passage in the transcript below is so strange and barely coherent that it’s worth talking about. He veers off from Tiehm’s buckwheat and takes us on an epic journey from the state’s Sagebrush Ecosystem Council to transmission lines to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act finally concluding by saying, “the raven is the national bird of Mexico.” (It isn’t.) It’s a rant so deliciously incoherent and ill-informed that it is absolutely Trumpian in nature.

Things only got better from there. Mr. Shad, unsatisfied that Director Settelmeyer hadn’t gone for Tiehm’s buckwheat’s jugular, or mine, went again, burnishing his credentials from his extensive academic training in evolutionary biology. “Does evolution ever come into this? Not everything that existed the day the Earth was formed still exists today, including man, you know we’ve changed multiple times.”

This is when Director Settelmeyer really shines. “There are certain species that over time just can't survive in certain areas… We can try to do our best to prevent that, but we can't stop it. We can't stop mother nature. We can't stop that from happening in certain instances.” (Note: by law, it is Director Settelmeyer’s legal duty to stop that from happening.) “We are still trying to actually preserve species that fundamentally will go extinct whether we do anything or not… this poor animal's major nemesis is life, it just doesn't want to survive.”

The Director and Mr. Shad are obviously talking about Tiehm’s buckwheat here even if they don’t mention it. After the disastrous destruction incident in 2020, and the sham public relations stunt when our federal wildlife and land management agencies shamefully lied through their teeth about voracious rodents attacking a rare species in a phenomenon never before recorded by science, the narrative was put forward that Tiehm’s buckwheat is going to go extinct anyway, that the rodents will take it all out naturally. I’ve heard this repeated by Ioneer investors online over and over again.

Another barely coherent exchange follows about the Moapa dace, with Mr. Shad condemning the millions of dollars spent conserving the endangered fish. Director Settelmeyer proposes salvaging the dace and sticking them in an artificial pond for breeding. He also misnames the state fish, the Lahontan cutthroat trout as the “Lahontan national cutthroat trout.”

Then Director Settelmeyer ends things with a bang, drawing on his own extensive background in evolutionary biology. “I think another aspect of that is that the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub species. So you look at a particular plant and it's thriving and doing well. Well then an offshoot is found and everybody wants to protect that. Well would that offshoot have survived or was it just a mutation that would run its course and go out, versus or is this a whole new subspecies that we need to protect?”

Ironic that a person from a species that is actively destroying the planet and rendering the climate so severely disrupted that it will ultimately destroying human civilization if we don’t change would say that this precious wildflower wants to go extinct. Photo: Naomi Fraga

While this is of course a reference to Tiehm’s buckwheat, it’s a little strange given that Tiehm’s is a full species and no credible source has attempted to discredit the taxonomy of the plant. Ioneer commissioned some research out of the University of Alabama, which they’ve used to cast doubt on Tiehm’s buckwheat’s taxonomic status. But the best they could come up with is a shoddy master’s thesis that was never peer reviewed. No credible botanists think Tiehm’s buckwheat isn’t a full species that we’re aware of.

Anyway, this may seem like a tempest in a teapot to you. So what, some yahoo Republican state official in a big, square-ish Western state said some mildly inflammatory stuff about an esoteric controversy over a lithium mine and probably only a few people even had any idea what they were talking about. And perhaps you’re right. On the other hand, we’ve been alleging for over 5 years now that a nefarious combination of federal and state officials are colluding with industry and bending the rules and outright breaking the law to allow Ioneer to develop a destructive lithium mine in a clearly inappropriate place which will send a rare species to extinction.

So to have the state’s top environmental regulator – this is the man who will decide whether or not Rhyolite Ridge moves forward – denying science, declaring he will let species go extinct and that we can’t even stop it from happening if we wanted to… Well it’s frankly shocking, and indicative that the legal process around this mine has been completely bastardized by politics.

We aren’t getting a fair shot here, Tiehm’s buckwheat isn’t getting a fair shot here. And Director Settelmeyer may have actually condemned himself by giving us ammunition to go after him with later.

No species “wants” to go extinct. And it is the law of both the federal government and the state of Nevada that we don’t just allow species to go extinct. That we take active efforts to prevent extinction. If Director Settelmeyer won’t follow the law, then we will have our lawyers drink an extra pot of coffee and pound out a lawsuit as soon as he breaks it and sacrifices Tiehm’s buckwheat on the altar of mining.

As for Mr. Shad, his little obsession amuses me. I love getting under the skin of the resource pillagers, the worshippers of money, those who assert their supremacy over the natural world. And I’m clearly very far under Mr. Shad’s skin. So, keep complaining about Tiehm’s buckwheat, Mr. Shad. You’re not moving the needle on inch on the issue, but it does provide me with great amusement and newsletter fodder.

More: Nevada Newsmakers video; transcript of relevant part

Too Many Mines, Not Enough Hours in the Day

The mining boom isn’t just in Nevada, it isn’t just in the western US, it’s global. As our supply chains continue to expand their tentacles across the planet, they are continually butting up against indigenous people and the values they hold dear and the landscapes they hold sacred. A framework for mining in areas important to indigenous communities is the idea of Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC). This framework is meant to empower communities to have agency over resource extraction projects proposed in their homelands. FPIC is a particularly potent concept in countries with large indigenous populations, like in South America, which are particularly hard hit by resource extraction. The concept gets muddied in the United States, inasmuch as we really have no legal or regulatory framework for FPIC. Current consultation procedures under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act are woefully inadequate. Rather than free, prior and informed consent, it mostly consists of sending Tribes a letter which they may or may not get, and maybe having a meeting. Consent is not a legal concept under US law. So the deck is stacked against indigenous communities in the US from the start. Andrew Kaminsky has a recent article looking at how FPIC might be an essential part of the renewable energy transition which is worth a read.

There’s a particularly dystopian recent op-ed in the Elko Daily from mining shill Liz Arnold, which focuses on “maximizing our state’s capacity to extract” lithium by using “innovative new tools” like… artificial intelligence (AI). She then goes on to make a very ironic argument. Half the appeal of all these new mines that are trumpeted by mining companies and their boosters in state government are jobs, jobs, jobs. And yet, the move is to automate as much of mining as possible, eliminating jobs. Rhyolite Ridge ore will be hauled by autonomous haul vehicles. Ms. Arnold says “the ability to attract employees is challenging,” and that AI technologies can “alleviate severe workforce shortages.” Presumably she means by automating significant aspects of mining operations, continuing to shunt the amount of actual human Nevadan workers they need. This will in effect shunt the economic benefit of these mines away from rural communities and toward shareholders of the companies who run the AI and automation, like Caterpillar. An army of autonomous machines tearing apart our beloved desert. Dystopia now.

Read more: Triple Pundit on FPIC; Mining and AI together at last in the Elko Daily

A City the Size of Milwaukee in Las Vegas’s Backyard

I appeared on KNPR State of Nevada a couple of weeks ago to discuss the proposed Southern Nevada Supplemental Airport, also known colloquially as the Ivanpah Airport. This proposed second airport for Las Vegas would be sited on and adjacent to the dry lake bed near Primm. Isn’t it strange to build an airport 30 miles away from Las Vegas? Won’t that result in a huge increase in traffic, carbon emissions, and overall malaise? Why yes, yes it will.

One of our chief concerns about the proposed airport is the white-margined penstemon, a rare wildflower which we petitioned for Endangered Species Act protections in 2023 due to a variety of factors including the airport. Development of the airport and the inevitable town that would spring up around it would blow out a huge part of the penstemon’s Clark County population, impacting genetic diversity, connectivity, and overall population levels. Additionally, the areas the airport is proposed to be built outside of the playa are all important desert tortoise habitat. Tortoise habitat in the Ivanpah Valley has already been extremely impacted by development, including numerous solar projects. Ivanpah Valley is, or was, thought to be a critical migration corridor for desert tortoise. Instead it, along with Jean Valley to the north, are slated to be a whole new city.

I say along with Jean Valley because one cannot disentangle the Clark County lands bill from the proposed airport. The lands bill would connect development to the airport, creating an area of about 60,000 acres of new development south of the Las Vegas Valley, extending all the way to the California state line. That is a city the size of Milwaukee, plopped down in the desert in an area with no water. Insanity.

All of that said, there isn’t a whole lot we can do about the airport, really. An act of Congress in 2000 transferred 6,000 acres of land to the Clark County Department of Aviation – another 17,000 is available to them once the 6,000 gets built. We can sue all we want but we can’t undo an act of Congress. Now, that doesn’t mean we can’t fight tooth and nail to protect the white-margined penstemon. And we will. But it’s unlikely that conservationists can straight up stop the airport. Instead we will probably be arguing about mitigation and siting, and hoping that economic conditions change such that this airport is no longer feasible. The train left the station on the airport 25 years ago, and we’re left holding the bag today.

Read and listen: KNPR State of Nevada

A Consequential Letter that I Wrote In About 20 Minutes

I mentioned a couple of newsletters ago that I submitted a letter to the Nevada Interim Legislative Committee on Natural Resources, requesting that they investigate the issue of lithium mining in Nevada and put forward a BDR funding a study on where lithium could be produced while minimizing impacts to the environment and communities. What I didn’t expect was the letter to attract so much attention. We’ve gotten write-ups in a half dozen news outlets, and I’ve gotten lots of support from around the state. We’ve gotten indication from the Committee that I’ll have an opportunity to present on my proposal later in the interim.

I think people are starting to see the gravity of the lithium situation in Nevada and want to respond. The Ash Meadows controversy last summer was a catalyzing moment for this movement, where all of a sudden a landscape that people had heard of, had visited, had loved was under attack. This wasn’t just some random wildflower somewhere or a remote dispute in some sagebrush desert far away from the experience of everyday Nevadans. This was Ash Meadows! That controversy set the stage for my planning proposal.

So we’ll see how far we can take this thing. I am optimistic for some movement though not optimistic that we’ll accomplish all of our goals. Baby steps. I really recommend reading the Elko Daily article about this. They gave me an open platform to pitch my proposal and I feel represented me accurately.

Around the Wide World of Lithium

People in southeastern Arizona are pissed off about lithium too. Max Power Mining Corp. has proposed a lithium brine project at Wilcox Playa, a large playa in the Sulphur Springs Valley that is a stopover for wading birds including sandhill cranes. The valley is also in critical groundwater overdraft, with wells declining precipitously, so people are understandably concerned about their own water supplies. They’ve formed “People For the Playa” and are getting ready to fight back.
Speaking of the tentacles of the lithium industry spreading far and wide, United Lithium Corp. is still hustling a project near Gunnison, Colorado. They have claims near the historic mining area of Ohio City, up-valley from Gunnison to the east. These claims are targeting spodumene, a lithium bearing mineral resident in pegmatite bedrock. I’m mostly unfamiliar with pegmatite, because all the lithium in the Great Basin is hosted in either brine or clay sediment. Keep an eye on this one – everyone loves the Colorado Rockies.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen traveled to Chile to tout free trade agreements while attempting to give moral support to their burgeoning lithium industry. Biden is certainly trying to cover his bases on lithium, and given that the roll out of new mines in the Great Basin is going extremely slowly, mired in litigation, turning our resource colonialist eyes to South America only makes sense. Indigenous people there have been trying to tell the world that existing lithium production is impacting their communities and environment. Not a concern of the Biden administration, apparently.
Closer to home, early Ash Meadows defender Barbara Kelley wrote an op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun urging protection for this important landscape. Ms. Kelley was one of the people who pushed for the creation of the national wildlife refuge in the ‘70s and ‘80s, and now she is rising to its defense once again. Expect to hear more voices in coming weeks urging the protection of our beloved refuge.
Meanwhile, over in Utah, lawmakers passed legislation restricting the ability of mineral producers at Great Salt Lake from taking up more water than allotted. As farmers are conserving water upstream, there was concern that it would simply end up in mineral evaporation ponds when it got to the Lake. This is important not just for the Lake but also because some of these mineral producers have been toying with the idea of adding a lithium extraction process to their mix. As this bill rolled out, however, one of the companies, Compass Minerals, announced they would abandon their move for lithium, citing regulatory uncertainty. This was likely intended as a lever to kill the legislation, but it failed to do so. All of this is well and good, but as Great Basin Water Network’s Chandler Rosenberg points out in High Country News, “we can’t let [this] distract us from the fact that [state leaders] are not getting water to the lake.” Until they do, it’s all window dressing.

Tempering Expectations From the Biggest Water Ruling In Recent History

Nevada State Engineer Adam Sullivan recently spoke to the Legislative Interim Natural Resources Committee about the potential consequences of the Sullivan v. Lincoln County ruling at the Nevada Supreme Court. This ruling, which I wrote about previously, is highly consequential, and as I’ve said, will affect functionally every significant decision the State Engineer makes going forward. Most surface water in Nevada starts life as groundwater or has a very significant nexus with groundwater, meaning that the Sullivan ruling will provide a significant lever through which the State Engineer can address overappropriation of water resources.

That said, Mr. Sullivan is currently in a mode of tempering expectations. The consequences of Sullivan will be felt over years and decades, not immediately. For starters, it’s tremendously expensive to do the science which was required to create the Lower White River Flow System, which was at issue in Sullivan. Additionally, there are lengthy and involved bureaucratic and public engagement procedures which must be followed. Don’t expect to see basin boundaries redrawn all over the state, Mr. Sullivan said. This will be slow, methodical, and above all – extremely site-specific and context dependent. That said, and folks will remember we hashed these issues out in the legislature in 2023, “The ambiguity in law that led to AB 387 has now been clarified by the supreme court decision.” So we’re feeling pretty damn good about it, and I know that Mr. Sullivan is too.

Read more: Nevada Current on Mr. Sullivan’s appearance at the legislative committee.

No Mo’ (apa), No Less

While most of the press around the recent Nevada Supreme Court decision on water has revolved around Coyote Springs and its impending demise, the actual star of the show is the diminutive Moapa dace. The dace is protected under the Endangered Species Act and thus was the driving factor in the efforts to protect the Muddy River from pumping in the LWRFS. People down in Overton may not be fond of federally listed endangered species, but it just might be what saved their water. As former Pyramid Lake Paiute Chairman Norm Harry famously said, “What’s good for the fish is good for the people.” Anyway, annual survey results have been released, and we find the Moapa dace holding steady. Their numbers are actually remarkably similar the past few years NUMBEROSOKFOSKDKOSFKOD. What we want to see is an upward trend, of course, but such a thing is unlikely without more water in the system. SNWA and FWS and other are investing millions in invasive species management and habitat restoration, but fundamentally the limiting factor on aquatic endemic abundance is water quantity. But anyway, the numbers are doing fine, not declining, so we can rest easy that the Moapa dace will be with us for a few more years anyway.

That Icon of the Great Basin – Cheatgrass

Western Watersheds Project, those relentless anti-grazing zealots who I love so much, just released an impressive monograph about cheatgrass which is sure to turn up in a NEPA comment near you very soon. In it, they demonstrate that disturbance from commercial activities, primarily cattle grazing, is the chief factor driving further cheatgrass invasion. By contrast, healthy ecosystems managed for uses other than livestock grazing tend to be resilient to cheatgrass invasion, they found. Even in fire settings, where cheatgrass-invaded landscapes will burn to a crisp and repopulate with cheatgrass rapidly, relatively undisturbed public lands prove resilient to fire and do not readily get invaded. This document is an important contribution to the literature on the condition of the Great Basin ecosystem and will be very useful for advocates moving forward.

Sage and Sand

Sage and Sand: Sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub species

The greed mongers are circling their wagons to let mining companies drive species extinct at the altar of the almighty dollar. But are they their own worst enemies?

Discussion about this post