The Nevada Department of Environmental Protection hosted an informational meeting about the public participation process coming up for two state air and water permits that Lithium Nevada still needs for their proposed Thacker Pass open pit mine. An NDEP employee told us he doesn’t remember NDEP denying an air or water permit in his 25 years of experience. This is completely common around the country and means we have to talk about how to stop the mine if government regulatory agencies won’t.
Regulatory agencies permit harm. That’s their job.
Great summary Will. 5mins into the call it was obvious NDEP was simply performing a bureaucratic function of checking boxes. Whether the mine was a *good idea* or not wasn’t a question they were asking, much less answering. That begs the question though…who *does* make the decision of whether a natural landscape gets destroyed so a mine…lithium or otherwise…can be built? Is it the Nevada state legislature? Congress? Dept. or Interior/BLM? Who…ultimately… decides it’s a good idea to blow-up mountains?
Mike: It was already decided a long time ago, in the constitution of the United States which treats nature as property, and the commerce clause of the constitution, which elevates the needs of commerce above all else. These decisions have only been strengthened through the years via the courts. The 1872 Mining Law (codified by Congress) gives broad discretion over the use of public land resources to the private sector. It allows corporations to explore for minerals and establish mining rights on federal lands without authorization from ANY government agency. This is known as “free access” and it is a cornerstone of the 1872 Mining Law. If a site contains a deposit that can be profitably marketed, the corporation has the right to mine “regardless of any alternative use, potential use, or non-use value of the land.” An annual $100 holding fee is all that is required to retain this right to mine. As Will describes in this video, NDEP and other regulatory agencies’ only function is to make sure those corporations check all the boxes required by other laws like the Clean Air Act and the Endangered Species Act. As we’ve seen, these laws do not prevent harm; they simply require that a corporation obtain a permit by jumping through a few hoops before they cause harm.
So to answer your question: the decision about blowing up mountains was made a very long time ago, and because of current US law, there is almost nothing legal we can do to stop mining. This leaves us with two options:
1) change the law — a long, slow process that some people are working on.
2) direct action.