NPR: Tribes object. But a federal ruling approves construction of the largest lithium mine

This July 17, 2023 article written by Kirk Siegler entitled “Tribes object. But a federal ruling approves construction of the largest lithium mine” appeared on NPR’s website. 

The following was taken from the NRP article:

A U.S. Appeals court has denied a legal effort to block construction of what could be the largest lithium mine in North America, located on remote federal land near the Nevada-Oregon border.

West coast Paiute tribes and environmentalists tried for two years to block or delay Lithium Nevada’s Thacker Pass mine from being constructed. One of the arguments was that even though the land is considered sacred to some native people (and might be the site of at least two ancient massacres), the mine was fast tracked without proper consultations with Indian Country.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the U.S. government did not violate federal environmental laws when it approved the mine. The judges stated “only after the mine was approved by federal land managers did it become known that some tribes consider the land sacred.”