People are Mobilizing to Save Thacker Pass.

By CRUS Founding Director Paul Cienfuegos, April 2021.

The site of a proposed massive open pit lithium mine in a vast expanse of Nevada is called Thacker Pass. It is both stark and gorgeous and not far from the Oregon border. In mid-April, I drove 20 miles down a county highway, west of the tiny village of Orovada, Nevada to the Protect Thacker Pass camp. We are surrounded by high mountains still covered in snow. The land is mature sagebrush country, a classic southwest US landscape. To the untrained urban person’s eye, it appears mostly lifeless. But in fact, this desert ecosystem contains pronghorn antelope, burrowing owls, sage grouse, sliver-haired bats, bald eagles, horned lizards, prairie falcons, springsnails, pygmy rabbits, deer, loggerhead shrikes, and much more.

A large Canadian corporation, Lithium Americas Corp, and its local subsidiary Lithium Nevada Corp are proposing this massive (miles-long and hundreds of feet deep) open-pit mine. If allowed to be built, it would release into the industrial world’s hungry maw 25% of all of the known lithium so-called “reserves” globally, which would be essential for any significant future shift towards an all-electric-cars society. (Lithium Americas Corp is also currently developing a gigantic lithium mine in Argentina (co-owned with a Chinese corporation).

There is bipartisan support in DC for the US to become much more “energy self-sufficient.” (Btw, this term is an oxymoron; the only way for an industrial society to be “energy self-sufficient” would require destroying all life on Earth.) To the Republicans, this means opening up oil reserves in the Arctic and literally anywhere else we can reach. To the Democrats, this means massive new ecologically devastating mines – ideally in the US – to procure all of the essential minerals (lithium, cobalt, etc) that would make possible a massive electrification of our economy, away from fossil fuels as rapidly as possible. Contrary to mainstream liberal and environmental belief systems, neither of these visions is sustainable for what little remains of a living Mother Earth. (See my thoughts on the new book Bright Green Lies).

Within an hour of arriving in this breathtaking wild landscape, I was sitting around a roaring campfire in 40 mph (!) icy winds that were shooting in all directions. At the fire were the two founding visionary organizers of this land protection campaign, Max Wilbert and Will Falk, plus a journalist, a local Paiute Native spiritual elder, and about 10 others.

By the time this informal gathering at the fire had ended, it was almost dark and still blowing icy cold. Even with my rainfly covering my tent, the strong winds delivered massive quantities of fine desert dust through the scree, coating everything inside the tent, including my lungs! So instead, I did the best I could and wrapped myself in my sleeping bag and slept in my fully reclined car seat, while the wind pummeled and rocked my little car all night.

The corporation anticipates receiving its final two permits sometime in June, at which point they plan to start building the necessary access roads that have already been surveyed near the encampment. With the mine being dug by summer.

Lithium Nevada Corp needs just two final permits from the state agency that always grants these permits – the Nevada Division of (so-called) Environmental Protection.

As with so many other planned corporate atrocities that have all become business as usual in this all-business-is-good-business US of A nightmare culture that we inhabit, the locals here in the two closest ranch-dominating valleys in Humboldt County, NV, are overwhelmingly opposed to this mine. But collectively, are culturally not able (or willing) to stand up publicly against the mine. They perceive themselves as powerless, and thus they see their situation as hopeless. Which is remarkable, given that many of them are privileged property owners with 1,000 acre+ ranches and substantial water rights. I call this “learned powerlessness.”

What is so tragic about all of this is that this most privileged group of local white residents are the ONLY ones who are not publicly opposing this mine, while everyone else – the deeply impoverished Native communities, the state’s environmental justice groups, the nonviolent direct action camp made up almost entirely of non-Nevada residents – are all working closely together to stop this damn mine! It was such a great lesson and reality check for me regarding class and race privilege and powerlessness.

All of us who are involved in the Community Rights movement have an institutional analysis as to why this is! We The People literally are locked out of all relevant societal decision-making. Large corporations are now the primary constituents of our US Senate and Congressional representatives. Corporations have more constitutionally protected property rights and free speech rights and judicial rights and privacy rights than do The People. The rural residents of Humboldt County, NV, are right to assume that merely going to the scheduled meetings or filing their objections in the open comment period will not be enough to make a difference. But stepping outside of those conventional tactics can be very powerful indeed.

Our society is rife with a population consumed by hopelessness, powerlessness, and seething anger and fear. It’s no wonder Trump flags continue to fly all over rural America. Trump and Bernie supporters are the faces of the outsiders, the alienated. And likely, these two groups form the majority of US voters! If only we could co-organize around corporate control issues. That would be a force to be reckoned with. And frankly, I know of no other movements besides Community Rights that offer a welcoming place to both of these distinct groups.

One afternoon, I walked from camp about 1-1/2 miles down informal dirt roads in the desert to a large test pit in the ground which Lithium Nevada Corp has dug to better understand the exact composition of what’s beneath the desert floor. The pit is about 60 by 40 feet across and maybe 20 feet deep. It was truly eerie standing at the pit’s edge, and trying to fathom the size of the monstrous hole that is coming if we can’t stop it, hundreds of feet deep, and encompassing the entire high desert wilderness of Thacker Pass.

After three nights camping in icy-wind-swept high desert beauty on what is officially BLM land, but is actually stolen Paiute and Shoshone ancestral land with significant Native artifact sites peppering the area, I moved to the closest motel more than an hour’s drive away in Winnemucca. There, I had both cell service and Internet access and could do some solid work for the campaign.

Winnemucca, NV, is a town of 7,000 residents and five casinos. It’s the seat of Humboldt County and the only incorporated town in the county. The locals tell me that most everyone in town has a family member that works at a nearby gold or other mine. This is very much Trump country. Raw materials are extracted, shipped to other places, and never seen again. Not just Humboldt County, but much of the state of Nevada features this depleting  model of so-called “economic development.”

One of the things that I was immediately surprised and impressed by is that it still has a real newspaper with real journalists – the “Humboldt Sun.” It’s the county’s only paper. The weekly is full of honest coverage about the proposed lithium mine. It turns out that the president of Lithium Nevada Corp actually phoned the editor just a few months ago and demanded more favorable news coverage about the mine. The editor was outraged that they would be pressured in this way, and told off the company prez, who then backed off. You rarely hear this sort of local newspaper story anymore, as there are so few real local papers left in the US, especially in rural places that are entirely dependent on one specific industry for their economic survival.

Lithium Nevada Corp (LNC) is a shell company with very few employees, and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas Corp (LAC), which is based in Canada and has majority China stockholders. So basically Lithium Nevada Corp is a Chinese-owned corporation! China cornered the market on lithium battery technology many years ago, and now has massive lithium mines all over the planet. And the governor of Nevada has recently proclaimed that he wants his state to become the lithium mining capital of the world!

Among other things, I researched whether a CR ordinance would be possible here to ban the lithium mine. Short answer: Nope! Longer answer: The county’s population is overwhelmingly pro-mining as it’s about the only game in town. The nearest town to the mine is Orovada, which is overwhelmingly anti-lithium-mine, but it’s unincorporated so it doesn’t have a local government or access to a local ballot initiative that can vote “no” on the mine.

Perhaps the most hopeful and exciting thing that happened that I got to witness at the camp was two full days of visits by members of the Paiute Nation from the nearby Fort McDermitt reservation. Plus several Shoshone people from a second reservation a bit farther away. About 50 people held a ceremony around a roaring campfire for hours, and we at the action camp were welcomed into their circle full of singing and dancing. A two-hour political conversation commenced with tribal members and camp residents in deep dialogue about next steps. All very impressive.

An action group has formed from members of the rez at Fort McDermitt. They call themselves the People of Red Mountain. HERE is their quite incredible statement about why this mine MUST be stopped.

Around noon the next day, again about 50 folks arrived, set up a big meal, and waited for 13 young Paiute men and women who ran in a 50-mile relay from their reservation to the camp. Very moving to witness!

On my final evening near Thacker Pass, I attended the monthly TPCC meeting in the Orovada community hall. Present were about 25 members of TPCC, two leaders of the mine company, two of the five county commissioners, the county’s public works director, three members of the action camp, and the two principal owners of the trucking company that will be hauling the mega tons of necessary sulfur to the mine to be turned into sulfuric acid onsite. Most of these players made presentations and answered TPCC members’ questions.

Lithium Nevada Corp’s leader is a man named Tim Crowley, whose full-time work is running a public relations company out of Reno, and who was previously the President of the Nevada Mining Association. As Chomsky pointed out decades ago, “public relations” is the western world’s term for “propaganda.” And I got to witness Tim’s propaganda skills first-hand that evening.

I questioned Crowley. I asked him if the corporation would stop the mine if the local community was clearly opposed. He said a lot of words, which boiled down to ‘no.’ Check out the transcript of our brief conversation HERE.

I found the meeting utterly depressing. Here in this room were 40 or 50 people, almost all of whom were anti-mine. They showed up, but almost no non-Native local folks were organizing together to make sure it never got built.

Since returning home, I have continued as best as I can to stay in contact with the local white ranchers community, to see whether any of them can be moved an inch at a time towards a No Mine stance.

Lithium Nevada Corp needs just two final permits from the state agency that always grants these permits – the Nevada Division of (so-called) Environmental Protection. So at this point, the only two ways that this mine will be stopped are:

1) Massive organized opposition by the Paiute and Shoshone communities reaching out to other Native communities across the region, and to the new Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the first ever Indigenous person to hold this position, and/or

2) Wave after wave of nonviolent direct action by Native and non-Native people together. Perhaps Thacker Pass will become the next Standing Rock?

I fully intend to return in July and make myself available to become one more body in a wall of people refusing access to the corporation through nonviolent civil disobedience. We are going to need many hundreds of people willing to get arrested if we’re going to be successful in stopping this ecologically catastrophic strip mine.

Please spread the word far and wide, and as quickly as possible!

 

Here’s a list of what YOU could do TODAY:

 

  • WANT TO DO MORE?
  • 1. JOIN US at Thacker Pass! Boots on the ground are the most important element for the success of this campaign. Make sure you contact us before coming. More info at https://protectthackerpass.org.
  • 2. SPREAD THE WORD. Join the social media brigade. Write, do photography, poetry, music, whatever is your skillset. Pitch this story to your favorite podcast or radio station. Write an op-ed. Talk to your friends and community members. Help us spread the word about these issues. Use the hashtags at the bottom of this post.
  • 3. FUNDRAISING. The campaign needs funds on an ongoing basis for supplies, travel, and legal needs.
  • 4. PRESSURE CAMPAIGNS. We need people to coordinate ongoing pressure campaigns against permitting agencies, banks, local and regional politicians, BLM/DOI, and other targets. We can provide training and coordination, but we need a team to do the legwork.
  • 5. SUPPLIES: camp needs ongoing supplies. Contact us for details.
  • 6. BRAINSTORM. Maybe you want to form an affinity group for a specific purpose, or you know someone important. Maybe you’re a lawyer, or have a unique skill. Maybe you have a crazy idea that might help the campaign. Tell us about it!

 

#ProtectThackerPass  #WaterIsLife  #KeepItInTheGround  #BrightGreenLies

#Greenwashing  #LithiumAmericas  #Mining  #Lithium  #ElectricVehicles

 

Paul Cienfuegos, CRUS Founding Director

 

P.S. The timing for my first visit to Thacker Pass shared an incredible synchronicity with the publication of a new book – Bright Green Lies – by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith, and Thacker Pass camp co-founder Max Wilbert. Read more HERE.

Photo Credit: ProtectThackerPass.org