This Nevada fish is the 1st species slated for protection in new Trump term
A lithium mine could contribute to the extinction of a fish species in southwestern Nevada, the federal government acknowledged Tuesday in a document recommending its protection.
The Fish Lake Valley tui chub is the first species to get a positive recommendation for Endangered Species Act listing under the second Trump administration.
“Water use for lithium mining will likely exacerbate the already over-allocated Fish Lake Valley groundwater basin that supplies water for tui chub habitat,” the proposal said, pointing to geothermal energy development and farming as additional water stressors in the region.
The species is endemic to a system of springs in Esmeralda County, the least populated county in Nevada where fewer than 1,000 people live. All but one of those springs have dried up because of agricultural pumping, and environmental advocacy group Center for Biological Diversity estimates that the remaining spring has receded by more than 50 percent.
“The Fish Lake Valley tui chub is barely clinging to existence,” said Patrick Donnelly, the center’s Great Basin director, in a statement. “Nevada has already lost so many native fish species. We can’t afford any more extinction.”
In the first months of the new administration, Trump officials have floated redefining whether habitat degradation can be legally considered “harm” — something environmentalists have decried as an attempt to weaken the Endangered Species Act in favor of industry interests such as logging and oil drilling.
The act, signed into law in 1973 by Republican President Richard Nixon, is the basis for how the federal government directs its efforts to rehabilitate species on the path to extinction. Some species have been delisted over the years because numbers were restored, such as the American bald eagle and the American alligator.
A lithium liability
Ioneer, an Australian company, is building a lithium-boron mine at Rhyolite Ridge that now even the federal government has said could stand to further strain already limited water resources.
The mine is expected to produce enough lithium to power 370,000 electric vehicles every year. Regulators gave it a final green light in October, though environmentalists launched a legal challenge to the mine’s environmental review soon after.
Ioneer Managing Director Bernard Rowe said in a statement Tuesday that its models show that the mine will have “no net effect on the water balance” in the Fish Lake Valley area. The mine’s facility will recycle half of the water it uses, he said.
Rowe pointed to the company’s commitment to securing water rights locally from farmers rather than requesting new water rights from the state. That way, the company is only using water that would have been used for agriculture anyway, Rowe said.
“Few mining companies have done more than Ioneer to respond to environmental sensitivities,” Rowe said. “We are proud of that fact, and it has resulted in a better, more resilient project.”
Donnelly’s organization was the first to criticize the mine’s impact on natural resources.
The center successfully petitioned the federal government to list an endemic wildflower as endangered in 2022 because of the threat of the mine. After Ioneer adjusted the boundaries of the mine, the Fish and Wildlife Service issued a biological opinion that the mine was “not likely to jeopardize the continued existence” of the species.
“The Rhyolite Ridge Mine could be called the Extinction Mine because it’s sending one species after another onto the Endangered Species list,” Donnelly said. “The Fish Lake Valley tui chub is staring down the barrel of extinction, and only the Endangered Species Act can save it now.”
Starting Wednesday, the Fish and Wildlife Service will accept written comments on the proposal, and the agency will later finalize it.
Contact Alan Halaly at [email protected]. Follow @AlanHalaly on X.
