Activists Occupy Site of Proposed Lithium Mine in Nevada

Activists Occupy Site of Proposed Lithium Mine in Nevada

Activists Occupy Site of Proposed Lithium Mine in Nevada

By Kollibri terre Sonnenblume, originally published by Macska Moksha Press Reproduced here with permission, thank you.


On Friday, January 15th, two activists drove eight hours from Eugene, Oregon, to a remote corner of public land in Nevada, where they pitched a tent in below-freezing temperatures and unfurled a banner declaring:

“Protect Thacker Pass.”

You’ll be forgiven if you’ve never heard of the placeit’s seriously in the booniesbut these activists, Will Falk and Max Wilbert, hope to make it into a household name.  One of the activists is Will Falk, a writer and lawyer who helped bring a suit to US District Court seeking personhood for the Colorado River in 2017. He describes himself as a “biophilic essayist” and he certainly lyrical in describing the area where they set up:

“Thacker Pass is a quintessential representation of the Great Basin’s specific beauty. Millions of years ago a vast lake stretched across this land. Now, oceans of sagebrush wash over her. If you let the region’s characteristic stillness settle into your imagination, you’ll see how the sagebrush flows and swells like the ancient lake that was once here. On the north and south ends of the Pass, mountains run parallel to each other. The mountains feature outcroppings of volcanic rock left by the active volcano that was here even before the ancient lake. The mountains cradle you with the valley’s dips and curves up to the ever-changing, never-ending Great Basin sky. During the day, the sun shines down full-strength creating shape-shifting shadows on the mountain faces. At night, the stars and moon shine with such intensity and clarity that you can almost hear the light as it pours to the ground.”

I’ve spent enough time in the Great Basin to attest to its beauty myself: the dramatic ranges, the expansive flats, the gnarled trees, the stiff-stemmed wildflowers, and the lean, sinewy jack rabbits; they are all expressions of endurance in a landscape imbued with the echoes of the ancient. How long ago it must have been, when waves lapped the foothills, yet the shapes they left are unmistakable. The sense is palpable of being elevated, inland, and isolated from the oceanthe waterways here don’t run to the sea, hence the name “basin.”

Austere as it all is, humans have lived in the area for many thousands of years, digging roots, gathering seeds & berries, harvesting pinenuts and hunting game.

These traditions, though assaulted, survive.

To the Europeans seeking fertile valleys to farm or dense forest to cut, the Great Basin offered little to nothing, so most of the folks from “back east” just passed through. But ranching and mining cursed the region since the invasion began, and its grasses were razed and its rocks ripped open. Still, many areas, especially up the slopes, were spared the hammering that befell the tallgrass praries of the Midwest and the old growth forests of the West, which were extirpated to the degree of 95% or more. In fact, some of the last best wildlife habitat in the lower 48 still hangs on in the Great Basin, ragged though it might be around the edges.

Yet it seems the time has come when these “wastelands,” as so many erroneously consider them, will be put on the chopping block for a new kind of exploitation: “green” energy development. Massive solar arrays and huge wind farms have been taking the lead in this latest wave of exploitation, and now mining is being imposed. Not coal for fuel or gold for wealth but lithium for electric car batteries.

The Proposal

Thacker Pass is the site of a proposed lithium mine that would impact nearly 5700 acresclose to nine square milesand which would include a giant open pit mine over two square miles in size, a sulfuric acid processing plant, and piles of tailings. The operation would use 850 million gallons of water annually and 26,000 gallons of diesel fuel per day. The ecological damage in this delicate, slow-to-heal landscape would be permanent, at least on the human scale. At risk are a number of animal and plant species including the threatened Greater Sage Grouse, Pygmy Rabbits, the Lahontan Cutthroat Trout, a critically imperiled endemic snail species known as the Kings River Pyrg, old growth Big Sagebrush and Crosby’s Buckwheat, to name just those that are locally significant. Also present in the area are Golden Eagles, Pronghorn Antelope, and Bighorn Sheep.

A cultural heritage also exists in this area. In describing the north-south corridor immediately to the east of Thacker Pass, wildtender Nikki Hill says:

“This pass in Nevada is a bridge of great importance. My auntie, Finisia Medrano, would speak of how this was the way one would travel by horse or foot from the wild gardens of Eastern Oregon to continue into Nevada and still be supported, finding food and water for the journey. She would speak of how there was no other real good way to make this crossing, due to a lack of resources in the surrounding landscape. If this is the case for a human, it is the case for all the non human people traversing this area as well. There is so much fragmentation, in landscape, mentality and relations, all stemming from a displaced sense of belonging. How will we know our way back to places, both in spirit and in touch, without threads of continuity to weave together?”

It’s industry vs. ecology once again, and there’s nothing “sustainable” about it for the thousands of creatures who will lose their lives or homes if the mine is allowed to happen.

The reason that Will Falk and his fellow activist Max Wilbert rushed to the site on January 15th was because that’s the day the Bureau of Land Management issued it’s “record of decision,” which greenlighted this horrific project. The BLM considered four alternatives and admitted that it did not choose the “environmentally preferable” onewhich was no minebecause it would not have satisfied the “purpose and need”which was obviously the mine itself. I point this out to illustrate that US land management decisions are primarily made in favor of development not preservation. Typically, what environmental regulations do exist are weak, poorly enforced, and increasingly watered down. Hence, Falk and Wilbert’s decision to take direct action.

This is not the most comfortable time of year to be camped out in northern Nevada, so I admire them for making this choice. Overnight lows are in the teens and twenties at this time of year, and daily highs in the thirties and forties. Snow is possible. But it’s the truth that showing up is often the only way to make a difference.

They sent out a press release on Monday, January 18th, announcing their encampment. Said Falk:

“Environmentalists might be confused about why we want to interfere with the production of electric car batteries.”

Here, Falk is speaking to the fact that over the last twenty years, the focus of mainstream environmentalism has narrowed in on carbon pollution as a central concern, too often to the exclusion of issues like industrial development, technological consumption and other forms of pollution. Specifically, the topic of automobile use has been reduced to a question of emissions when, in reality, cars and car culture are problematic for many other reasons:

  • Car-related deaths in the US are typically around 40,000 per year, and far more people are injured, sometimes maimed for life.
  • Cars kill countless animals annually in both urban and rural settings. Whether the vehicle is gas-powered or battery-powered doesn’t make a difference to the poor squirrel, cat, coyote, skunk or deer who is taken out.
  • Roads themselves demand a tremendous amount of resources for their construction and upkeep. If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of carbon in the world.
  • In rural areas, roads fragment habitat, preventing natural pattern of foraging, hunting and migration.
  • Car tires contain toxic substances that are harmful to wildlife, and as the Guardian recently reported, Salmon in the Pacific Northwest are being killed by a chemical being washed into rivers and streams by the rain.
  • City life is made far less hospitable by the quantity, speed, and dominating presence of cars. Streets and parking lots can take up 50% of a US city. Much of that would be better be used for other purposes like pedestrian plazas, green spaces and urban agriculture.
  • Then there are the cultural aspects of car culture. The car-based suburbs struck a terrible blow to localized communities in the US, breaking up close-knit urban neighborhoods and replacing them with atomized subdivisions, in which each household (now reduced to its “nuclear” form, without extended family) was isolated with a propaganda machine. The “conveniences” imposed on us then ended up having a far higher price tag than advertised, and the resulting consumer culture is now swallowing up the world. From a mental health stand point, the alienation the suburbs inflicted on our society still tortures us to this day.
  • More subtle, but very real, is the way our perception is shaped by observing the world from inside a metal box at great speed. From a vantage of insulation and separation, other objectsincluding peopleare reduced to mere obstacles. The dehumanization that is imprinted this way doesn’t immediately end when we get out of the vehicle.

Replacing gas stations with charging stations is not going to address any of this. Though the globalized system of extraction that supports all of this is itself running out of fuel, I fear that electric vehicles will only draw out the agony.

Some will argue that electric cars are beneficial regardless of all of the above, because they do reduce emissions while driving, and doesn’t that make them worth it? That’s unclear. The entire calculus must include the damage incurred by lithium mining, and by all the other extractive activities needed specifically for electric cars. The air might indeed be fresher in the city, but at the cost of habitat destruction, pollution and human suffering in another placein somebody else’s home.

In a statement issued by the Western Watersheds Project about the BLM approving the Thacker Pass lithium mine, Kelly Fuller, their Energy and Mining Campaign Director warned:

“The biodiversity crisis is every bit as dire as the climate crisis, and sacrificing biodiversity in the name of climate change makes no scientific or moral sense. Over the last 50 years, Earth has lost nearly two thirds of its wildlife. Habitat loss is the major cause. Humans can’t keep destroying important wildlife habitat and still avoid ecosystem collapse.”

Human rights issues are also in the mix. Lest we forget, the US-backed right-wing coup in Bolivia in late 2019 was motivated in part by desire to control the lithium deposits in the Andean highlands, a place of otherworldly beauty. (See “Coups-for-Green-Energy added to Wars-For-Oil.”) Though the Bolivian people have since taken back their government, they experienced violence and suffering in the meantime. Unfortunately, the socialist party returned to power also favors mining the lithium. Their model is Venezuela, where oil profits were used to fund social programs. So, US leftists should take note that overthrowing capitalists does not automatically translate into “green” policy.

As Falk said: “It’s wrong to destroy a mountain for any reason – whether the reason is fossil fuels or lithium.”

The real answer, of course, is fewer cars.

Plenty of activists, academics and planners have been talking about how to do that for years, and there’s plenty of solutions to pick from. What’s been lacking so far is the political will and the vibrant movement needed to force that will.

Nikki Hill further commented:

“The answer to the climate crisis is not ramping up new, more, green energy. This ‘green’ is just a word coloring the vision of insatiable growth, peddled by green greed. The green we need so desperately is the one that fills our hearts with connected wonder with the rest of the living world. And that requires slowing the fuck down.”

Indeed. And as of Friday, January 15th, two activists are camped out in Thacker Pass, Nevada, to slow downand hopefully stopthat insatiable growth.


To follow or support the campaign, visit the Protect Thacker Pass website at protectthackerpass.org or follow them on Facebook or Instagram.

This article draws on a podcast interview I did with Will Falk on January 18th. Listen to it here.

 

Lithium Wars: The New Gold Rush

Lithium Wars: The New Gold Rush

In these brief series, Max Wilbert explores the #ThackerPass Litium Deposit in Humboldt Count, Nevada which will serve as a lithium clay mining development project  proposed by the Nevada government and federal agencies. This project will compromise the flora, fauna and streams of the area just for the sake of “clean” energy and profit.


By Max Wilbert

This is the first video dispatch from my trip to the area of two proposed lithium mines in Nevada. I’m working to build awareness of the threats these projects pose and resistance to them. I’ll have more to share next week.

This video comes from the top of a ridge directly to the east of the proposed Rhyolite Ridge open-pit lithium mine in Southern Nevada. After arriving by moonlight the night before, I scrambled up this rocky ridge in the dawn light to get an overview of the landscape. Everything that you see here is under threat for electric car batteries.

This is habitat for Tiehm’s buckwheat, cholla cactus, sagebrush, rabbitbrush, prairie falcon, desert bighorn sheep, pronghorn antelope, jackrabbit, ring-tailed cat, and literally hundreds of other species.

Is it worth destroying their home and their lives for electric cars?

This is the traditional territory of the Walker River Paiute, the Agai-Dicutta Numa, and other bands of the Northern Paiute.

What killed 14,000 critically endangered buckwheat plants at the site of a proposed lithium mine to supply critical minerals for the so-called “green” electric vehicle industry?

This video reports from Rhyolite Ridge in western Nevada, traditional territory of the Walker River Paiute, the Agai-Dicutta Numa, and other bands of the Northern Paiute.

Was it rodents, or was it vandalism? Climate catastrophe or eco-terrorism?

Benjamin R. Grady, the President of the Eriogonum Society, said in a letter that “As distasteful as it is to consider, intentional human action may have caused the demise of thousands of E. tiehmii individuals over the course of two months from July to September 2020. Having studied this genus since 2007, I have visited hundreds of different Eriogonum populations across the American West. Never once have I seen this type of directed small mammal attack at any of those sites. To me, the widespread damage to just E. tiehmii plants was remarkable. The timing of this attack is also suspicious. The threat of a large-scale lithium mine has recently thrust E. tiehmii into the spotlight. This species has been monitored since the early 1990’s and this type of widespread damage has not been documented. While on site on the 23rd of September, I did not notice any scat, with the exception of a few scattered lagomorph pellets. I carefully examined uprooted plants and no actual herbivory was noticed. The green to graying leaves were unchewed and intact. Eriogonum species likely offer little reward of water or nutrients at this time of year.”

Either way, this video is a crime-scene investigation from the middle of the proposed open-pit lithium mine at Rhyolite Ridge, in western Nevada on traditional territory of the Walker River Paiute, the Agai-Dicutta Numa, and other bands of the Northern Paiute.

We don’t know what happened to these plants, but it is clear that they deserve protection. Ioneer’s plan to build an open-pit lithium mine at this site must be resisted.

Reporting from #ThackerPass #Nevada – site of a massive proposed lithium mine. Nevada government and federal agencies have fast-tracked the sacrifice of this mountainside in favor of a $1.3 billion dollar mine that could produce tens of billions in profits. Meanwhile, local streams will be polluted, Lahontan cutthroat trout spawning grounds will be smothered under radioactive sediment, Pronghorn antelope migration routes blocked, Greater sage-grouse habitat blasted to nothing, local people will have to deal with acid rain, ancient cultural sites will be desecrated, and this quiet wilderness will be turned into an industrialized zone — unless the project is stopped.


To learn more about the Thacker pass, check out this article and this website. Watch more of Max’s videos here.

The Impacts Of Thacker Pass Mine

The Impacts Of Thacker Pass Mine

In October, DGR conducted an on-the-ground fact finding mission to the sites of two proposed lithium mines in Nevada. In this article, we look at the facts regarding the plans Lithium Nevada company has for mining and processing lithium (mainly destined for making electric car batteries) in northern Nevada, at Thacker Pass.

The company, now with shares owned by a Chinese mining company, claim their open-pit strip-mine will be a “green mine.” Much of this material comes from Thacker Pass. Special thanks to Aimee Wild for collating this material.


Why Lithium?

Lithium is the lightest metal on the periodic table of the elements. It is cost effective. It is an excellent conductor. Lithium batteries power cell phones, laptops and now cars. The batteries are rechargeable and last longer than other batteries. Lithium is also used in heat-resistant glass, ceramics, aircraft metals, lubrication grease, air treatment systems and some pharmaceuticals.

Interest in the mining of lithium as an important commodity is soaring. Lithium is located in the earth’s crust, oceans, mineral springs and igneous rocks. To be able to extract it economically an area, concentrated lithium is needed, hence the interest in the Nevada site.  Thousands and thousands of tons of lithium are extracted, processed, transported and utilized every year.

Thacker Pass Mine

Thacker Pass Mine is owned by Lithium Americas. They have a mining project in South America (The Cauchari-Olaroz Project) which is currently under construction, and of course in Nevada, the proposed Thacker Pass mine. Ganfeng (a chinese based mining company) is one of the largest shareholders of Lithium America. This increases the potential for mining and  processing to be shipped overseas.

Local communities have struggled to get to the bottom of the plans for the mines. The brochures are complicated and convoluted. What is clear is that the local people have been chosen as a guinea pig. Most Lithium mines in South America involve pumping saltwater brine on barren salt flats where the lithium slowly floats to the top, is skimmed off, and is then purified for use in batteries.

​In Australia they use spodumene ore, which is higher quality than the product Lithium Nevada plans to use. There are concerns linked to  how the poorer quality lithium will be processed and the transport of chemicals into the processing areas. There are concerns regarding the transportation of refinery waste by rail cars, and shipping.  The plans include transporting waste sulfur, by truck to the mine site, where it will be burned and converted to enormous quantities of Sulfuric Acid on a daily basis. Processing (burning) elemental sulfur, creates sulfur dioxide, sulfur trioxide and ultimately sulfuric acid—all of which are toxic and harmful to life.

Radioactive Waste?

There are concerns that the processing of lithium could ‘accidentally’ expose naturally-occurring uranium. Of course there have been promised by the company to ensure that any radioactive waste will be contained by a “liner.” This seems wholly inadequate when considering there is a water source nearby, and  processing plants can have accidental fires or explosion. We know from global disasters (Fukoshima and Chernobyl) that the impact environmental disasters involving radioactive waste can devastate human and non-human communities. Transporting chemicals to or from processing plants increase the risk of accidents, and the smell of sulphur in nearby neighborhoods is likely to be overwhelming at times.

Clarity Needed On The Impact Of Thacker Pass Mine

Opposition to these plans are likely to strengthen when the public understand the plans and the potential impact, and when the information is not shrouded in convoluted documents. In short, the mines almost certainly will be destructive to water fowl, to any life in the rivers and lakes nearby, and impact on the water table.

The air quality is likely to reduce, and the storage and transportation of toxic chemicals increases non-intentional leakage/accidents. If understood correctly the plans to dispose of some waste include a tailing pond, which could contain a) toxic solids, b) harmful discharges c) could impact air quality, and d) could leach into ground water. The mining and processing of lithium is destructive to people, non-human life, the land, the water and the air.

Is It Carbon Neutral?

Burning sulfur does not create carbon, so in that respect the facts are correct. However, as with all green capitalist extraction plans this is a small percentage of the whole picture. The whole picture (or the fact based plans) are obscured with overly complex plans and emperors-new-clothes type scenarios. The process of burning sulfur creates harmful (toxic) chemicals and removes oxygen from the atmosphere.

A conservative estimate is that the processing plant will require over 10,000 gallons of diesel per day to run. In additional to this is the fuel needed to transport the sulfur from the refinery (yes; it comes from an oil refinery) to the mine site. You also have the fuel needed to transport the workers and the electricity needed to keep the plant functioning.

There are concerns that the lithium from this project could be shipped to China for processing in the future. Lithium Americas has been loaned substantial amounts of money from Ganfeng and Bangchak. The Chinese Mining company already own shares in Lithium Nevada and could intentionally own more rights if the loan is not paid back.

So, carbon neutral—no. Friendly to the environment—no. There is not much difference between mountaintop removal coal mining and mountaintop removal lithium mining. Both are exceptionally destructive.


You can read more about lithium mines here: www.portectthackerpass.org. Join our newsletter for more info on lithium mining and greenwashing.

More Than 17,000 Rare Nevada Wildflowers Destroyed

More Than 17,000 Rare Nevada Wildflowers Destroyed

In this article published on September 16, 2020 by the Center for Biologocal Diversity, they draw attention to a premeditated act of violence against a rare species of wildflower. The act may be linked to a proposal for an open-pit lithium mine to supply the battery industry.


More Than 17,000 Rare Nevada Wildflowers Destroyed

Tiehm’s Buckwheat, Under Review for Federal Protection, Loses up to 40% of Population

LAS VEGAS— Conservationists discovered over the weekend that someone had dug up and destroyed more than 17,000 Tiehm’s buckwheat plants, a rare Nevada wildflower the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this summer may warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act.

As much as 40% of the flower’s global population, which exists on just 21 acres in western Nevada, may have been destroyed.

This is an absolute tragedy,” said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Tiehm’s buckwheat is one of the beautiful gems of Nevada’s biodiversity and some monster destroyed thousands of these irreplaceable flowering plants.”

A routine visit to the site by Center staff revealed substantial impacts to all six subpopulations of the flower, with some subpopulations nearly wiped out. Plants were dug up or mangled with shovels, with taproots cut and most of the dead buckwheats hauled off-site.

Tiehm’s buckwheat has been the subject of recent controversy.

An Australian mining company, Ioneer Corp., has proposed an open-pit lithium mine that would destroy the vast majority of Tiehm’s buckwheat’s habitat. This spring Ioneer Corp.’s biological consulting firm placed a “missing” poster for the buckwheat at the general store in the nearby town of Dyer, offering a $5,000 reward to anyone who locates a new population of the rare flower.

After a whistleblower revealed mismanagement of the species by the Bureau of Land Management, the Center submitted an emergency petition to protect the plant under the Endangered Species Act in 2019. In response the Fish and Wildlife Service said in July the plant’s protection “may be warranted” and initiated a year-long review.

After the initial discovery of the incident, a field survey conducted by Donnelly and Dr. Naomi Fraga, director of conservation at the California Botanic Garden, revealed approximately 40% mortality to the species across all subpopulations, due to removal or destruction.

“This appears to have been a premeditated, somewhat organized, large-scale operation aimed at wiping out one of the rarest plants on Earth, one that was already in the pipeline for protection,” said Donnelly.

“It’s despicable and heartless.”

In a letter sent on Tuesday to the Bureau, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Nevada Division of Forestry and Ioneer Corp., Fraga and Donnelly made a series of recommendations to the agencies including: fencing the site, 24-hour security, immediate stabilization and rehabilitation of affected plants, and immediate termination of any monetary rewards, including Ioneer’s, for finding Tiehm’s buckwheat.

Plants can recover from extreme trauma such as that inflicted upon Tiehm’s buckwheat if given protection and potential assistance through plant care, propagation and transplanting. The letter urges the agencies to immediately commence a protection and restoration program.

“I was absolutely devastated when I discovered this annihilation of these beautiful little wildflowers,” said Donnelly. “But we’re not going to let this stop our fight against extinction. We’ll fight for every single buckwheat.”


You can find the original article, contact details and further advice and information on how you can support here:

https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/more-17000-rare-nevada-wildflowers-destroyed-2020-09-16

Contact:  Patrick Donnelly, (702) 483-0449, pdonnelly@biologicaldiversity.org

Featured image: Tiehm’s Buckwheat by Jim Morefield at https://flickr.com/photos/127605180@N04/15068315794. CC BY SA 2.0.

Civilization on the March

Civilization on the March

A series of headlines from around the world, compiled by Max Wilbert and Mark Behrend. Featured image by Max Wilbert.

2019 Was the 2nd Hottest Year on Record

Global average temperature reached the 2nd highest annual level ever recorded, according to preliminary data for 2019. While the data is not yet finalized, it’s almost certain 2019 will go down as the 2nd hottest ever. The hottest five years on record have been the last five years, and we are in the final days of the hottest decade in the record.

https://twitter.com/ClimateOfGavin/status/1206608106819661826

70,000 Children Have Been Detained at the U.S. Border in 2019

As climate crisis and ecological collapse drives ever more migration, abuse at the southern border of the U.S. is escalating. One recent report finds that nearly 70,000 children have been detained in 2019:

The story lays out in excrutiating detail the emotional pain of victims of President Donald Trump’s child separation policy, focusing on, among others, a Honduran father whose three-year-old daughter can no longer look at him or connect with him after being separated at the U.S. border and abused in foster care.

“I think about this trauma staying with her too, because the trauma has remained with me and still hasn’t faded,” the father told AP.

The 3-year-old Honduran girl was taken from her father when immigration officials caught them near the border in Texas in March 2019 and sent her to government-funded foster care. The father had no idea where his daughter was for three panicked weeks. It was another month before a caregiver put her on the phone but the girl, who turned four in government custody, refused to speak, screaming in anger.

“She said that I had left her alone and she was crying,” said her father during an interview with the AP and Frontline at their home in Honduras. “‘I don’t love you Daddy, you left me alone,'” she told him.

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/12/causing-profound-trauma-trump-administration-detained-record-breaking-70000-children

Koalas Declared “Functionally Extinct” After Fires Destroy 80% of Remaining Habitat

Experts believe the long-term outlook for the species is bleak, after centuries of habitat destruction, overhunting, and culling.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2019/11/23/koalas-functionally-extinct-after-australia-bushfires-destroy-80-of-their-habitat/#4dfb62fc7bad

Light Pollution is Key ‘Bringer of Insect Apocalypse’

Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.

Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects’ lives, the researchers said, from luring moths to their deaths around bulbs, to spotlighting insect prey for rats and toads, to obscuring the mating signals of fireflies.

“We strongly believe artificial light at night – in combination with habitat loss, chemical pollution, invasive species, and climate change – is driving insect declines,” the scientists concluded after assessing more than 150 studies. “We posit here that artificial light at night is another important – but often overlooked – bringer of the insect apocalypse.”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/22/light-pollution-insect-apocalypse

Sea Ice Update:

Arctic sea ice extent for November 2019 ended up at second lowest in the 41-year satellite record. Regionally, extent remains well below average in the Chukchi Sea, Hudson Bay, and Davis Strait.

October daily sea ice extent went from third lowest in the satellite record at the beginning of the month to lowest on record starting on October 13 through October 30. Daily extent finished second lowest, just above 2016, at month’s end. Average sea ice extent for the month was the lowest on record. While freeze-up has been rapid along the coastal seas of Siberia, extensive open water remains in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas, resulting in unusually high air temperatures in the region. Extent also remains low in Baffin Bay.

https://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/

Gemeni Solar Project Threatens Important Habitat in Nevada

The US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) recently released a document identifying the severe impacts that would be inflicted on the Mojave desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) from the Gemini Solar Project, located in southern Nevada. The agency, tasked with recovering rare species headed for extinction, wrote a Biological Opinion for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the agency in charge of permitting the 7,100 acre Gemini Solar Project which will be located on public lands near Valley of Fire State Park, as part of its consultation process. BLM is reviewing an Environmental Impact Statement for the project.

Although the document claims that mitigation measures will make up for the impacts, the FWS claims that the Gemini Solar Project could kill or injure as many as 1,825 federally threatened desert tortoises in its 30-year operational lifespan. While the Biological Opinion assures us that the project would be heavily mitigated, it still raises dire concerns about these impacts.

The Mojave desert tortoise had declined so drastically decades ago that in 1990 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the species as federally threatened. In the year 2000 the FWS began systematically surveying desert tortoise population numbers across its range using the latest scientific methods. What they saw was continuing declines of tortoise numbers, and even population crashes. Based on these surveys the Desert Tortoise Council has recently recommended up-listing the status of the Mojave desert tortoise from a threatened status to a higher endangered status–which means an emergency to stave off extinction.

The vegetation would be mowed using 23,000 pound Heavy Duty mulchers. Because not all individual tortoises will be detected by biologists or project staff, the agency is concerned that death and injury of desert tortoises could result from excavation activities such as clearing of vegetation, and entrapment in trenches and pipes during construction. Tortoises could be crushed by heavy vehicles. The FWS claims tortoise burrows would be avoided during all this constriction and maintenance activity with equipment and vehicles over years, but we have seen tortoise home burrows crushed and caved in by such activities on other development projects.

After solar project construction is complete and hundreds of tortoises are dug up and raided out of their burrows, the agencies are proposing to then release them back on to this disturbed habitat. The presence of re-occupied desert tortoises on the solar site, with vehicle traffic, may result in injuries or death during routine maintenance of facilities such as vegetation trimming. Tortoises outside of the fenced solar site may also be injured or killed due to truck traffic along the transmission lines and associated access roads.

Capture and translocation (moving) of desert tortoises may result in death and injury from stress or disease transmission associated with handling tortoises, stress associated with moving individuals outside of their established home range, stress associated with artificially increasing the density of tortoises in an area and thereby increasing competition for resources, and disease transmission between and among translocated and resident desert tortoises.

Translocation has the potential to increase the prevalence of diseases, such as Upper Respiratory Tract Disease (URTD), a major mortality factor for desert tortoises. Stresses associated with handling and movement could exacerbate this risk in translocated individuals that carry diseases. Equally, desert tortoises in quarantine pens could increase their exposure and vulnerability to stress, dehydration, and inadequate food resources.

The Gemini Solar Project represents an unacceptably large threat to tortoise populations, connectivity, and high-quality habitat in the northeastern Mojave Desert. FWS appears to us to be minimizing the threat of this project and recommending mitigation measures that will fail to halt tortoise mortality and further cumulative habitat degradation.

http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/

Australia Bushfires Rage

3900 square miles of Australia (an area more than 3 times the size of Yosemite National Park) were burned during a single week of November.  – New York Post, 11/26/2019

Rice Farming is Major Source of Methane Emissions

Rice farming, long believed responsible for 2.5% of carbon emissions, is now believed to emit up to twice as much — due to new farming methods that only burn the fields intermittently, rather than annually. Leaving the fields in standing water has been found to stimulate bacterial growth that adds the equivalent of 1200 coal-fired power plants in carbon emissions.  – Independent (online news magazine), 09/10/2018

The Plastic Pollution Explosion

A deer found dead in rural Thailand recently had 18 pounds of plastic in its stomach.  – CNN, 11/26/2019

Consumer Culture Metastasizing Across the Globe

France says that Black Friday is the worst ever American import, topping Halloween and McDonald’s. The one-day shopping frenzy is said to produce the equivalent of a truckload of textiles being dumped every second, across France.  – France 24, 11/30/2019

E-Waste is Growing Fast

Electronic waste worldwide is expected to exceed 50 million tons annually by 2020. Before it becomes e-waste, producing a single computer and monitor requires 1.5 tons of water, 48 lbs. of chemicals, and 530 lbs. of fossil fuels.  – “The Balance SMB (balancesmb.com), 10/15/2019

Amazon Deforestation Accelerating Under Bolsonaro

Amazon deforestation in 2019 (so far) is estimated at more than 1130 square miles, an area equal to 97% of Yosemite.  – CNN, 11/14/2019

Another estimate puts Amazon deforestation at 3700 square miles thus far this year.

Sea of Okhotsk Warming Rapidly

Parts of the Sea of Okhotsk, between Siberia and Japan, are now 3° C. warmer than in pre-industrial times. Oxygen levels in the sea are down, and the Okhotsk salmon population has declined 70%, just since 2004. With colder areas of the planet reacting fastest to climate change, scientists fear that what is happening around Okhotsk is a warning for seas and sea life globally.  – Washington Post, 11/12/2019

Air Pollution in India

Forty percent of school children in four of India’s largest cities have lung capacity described as “poor” or “bad,” following breathing tests. Air quality in Indian cities is consistently rated among the worst in the world.  – India Times.com, 05/05/2015

Niger is Desertifying Rapidly

In Niger, an area of grasslands equal to 110,000 football fields is lost every year to desertification and erosion. Nomadic herdsmen, who have followed this lifestyle for centuries, blame climate change. Some report losing half of their herds in recent years, and say they are now being driven into cities to look for work.  – France 24, 12/05/2019

30-40% of Food is Wasted for “Cosmetic Reasons”

Thirty to forty percent of American farm produce never makes it to market, due to inefficient distribution, and to discarding for cosmetic reasons.  – France 24, 11/30/2019

Alaska Temperatures Caused Salmon to Have Heart Attacks

Record high temperatures across portions of Alaska caused thousands of salmon to have heart attacks and die last summer.