The McDermitt Caldera, a sacred place of historical importance to Paiute, Shoshone, and Bannock tribes, where many medicines grow and where multiple massacres took place, one of which perpetrated by US cavalry soldiers on September 12, 1865, also known as Thacker Pass, is now an active lithium mine site operated by Lithium America, despite multiple lawsuits and resistance by the indigenous communities and ranchers in proximity who will experience increased water scarcity.  As well as air and water contamination, and destruction of sacred sites, medicines, and the diverse ecological habitat, strip mining would involve pumping out the groundwater that feeds the only thirteen (13) springs of the rare aquatic snail King’s River Pyrg’s (pyrgulopsis imperialis) habitat, and without adequate spring flows, the snail would become extinct. Duck Valley Shoshone - Paiute Tribe and Fort McDermitt Paiute - Shoshone Tribe are directly impacted by this mine, and additional proposed lithium mining projects throughout the McDermitt Caldera, including LiveEnergy Minerals Corporation, Chariot Corporation, Aurora Energy Metals, FMS Lithium, and Jindalee, which threaten to turn these sacred lands into a multi state mining district.

Mining has directly affected our water quality and availability since the beginning of colonialism throughout Turtle Island, and cancer rates in our communities continue to increase. Our indigenous communities in the Great Basin and McDermitt Caldera experience intense pressure from the fast-tracked mining and industrial development to support “green energy,” and are threatened by ecologically and sociologically destructive resource extraction processes, most notably, lithium mining, in areas in proximity to or within communities, reservations and land trusts, and sacred sites. Heavy metals extraction poisons our lands, air, and water. Sacred sites for ceremony, where our ancestors are buried, where our medicines grow, and where our lifecycles are anchored, are destroyed. Man camps associated with mining sites increase the number of our women, children, men, two spirits, and elders who are murdered, assaulted, or missing. Local infrastructure, power lines, roads, and water, are negatively affected by the increased burden; residents are negatively affected by increased taxes, increased rents, and increased costs of living. Increased vehicular traffic with trucking of processing chemicals such as sulphuric acid causes increased air and noise pollution, risk of chemical spills, increased damage to road infrastructure and residents’ vehicles, and puts our communities at increased risk for serious and often fatal vehicle accidents on roads not designed to accommodate industrial traffic.