“Let’s Not Blow Up a Mountain and Call It Green”

Anti-mine protests and lawsuits pick up the pace at Nevada’s Thacker Pass, the site of the largest known lithium deposit in the United States.

by AUSTIN PRICE, March 4, 2021 for Earth Island Journal

In January, the day the BLM approved the mine, environmentalists Max Wilbert and Will Falk drove to Thacker Pass and pitched a tent in the snow at the proposed open-pit site. They unfurled banners saying “Protect Thacker Pass” and “Anti-Mine Protest,” created a website, and started writing op-eds and open letters to the BLM. Six weeks after arriving, Wilbert, Falk, and a shuffling roster of protesters remain at Thacker Pass, claiming that they will stand between this vital ecosystem and developers whenever Lithium Americas’ employees show up at the site.

“The sagebrush doesn’t have the option to pick up its roots and move out of the way [of this mine]. The wildlife doesn’t have that option. The water doesn’t have that option,” says Wilbert. “It’s not controversial to say, Let’s not poison water. Let’s not blow up a mountain and call it green.”

Read the whole article at Earth Island Journal.