Federal agency: Nevada flower near mine should be protected
An extremely rare wildflower that grows only in Nevada’s high desert where an Australian mining company wants to dig for lithium should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday.
It also ups the ante in an early test of the Biden administration’s ability to make good on promises to protect public lands and their native species while at the same time pursuing an ambitious clean energy agenda that includes bolstering production of lithium needed for electric car batteries.Environmentalists say the delicate, 6-inch tall wildflower with yellow blooms is on the brink of extinction with fewer than 30,000 individual plants remaining.
Under the court order, the service now has until Sept. 30 to submit a formal rule proposing protection of the plant as a threatened or endangered species. A 60-day public comment period will follow. Ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe said Thursdays that they expected the warranted finding and share the Fish and Wildlife Service’s “commitment to protect and preserve Tiehm’s buckwheat in its habitat.”
The service said a 2019 survey estimated the plant’s global population totaled 43,921 — all at the mine site. But it said in Thursday’s finding that an unprecedented rodent attack during severe drought last summer damaged or destroyed more than half the plants. Other threats to the plant include road-building, off-road travel, livestock grazing and climate change, the service said.
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