S3E16: Ash Meadows Faces New Mining Threat

UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT

0:00:00 - (Chris Clarke): This podcast is made possible by financial support from our listeners. If you're not supporting us yet, check out 90milesfromneedles.com/Donate or text the word needles to 53-555.

0:00:24 - (Joe): Think the deserts are barren wastelands? Think again. It's time for 90 miles from needles, the Desert Protection podcast.

0:00:44 - (Chris Clarke): Thank you, Joe, and welcome to yet another episode of 90 Miles from the Desert Protection podcast. I'm your host, Chris Clarke. Today we are talking about Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the Amargosa Basin. This is a place that's very near and dear to my heart. Last year we had an update about a company that wanted to do lithium mining exploration right on the doorstep of ash meadows National Wildlife Refuge, which threatened to upend the hydrological character of the place, possibly endangering a bunch of species that are already endangered and live nowhere else in the world.

0:01:21 - (Chris Clarke): That issue has not gone away. The Amargosa Conservancy, which I am very pleased to serve as a member of its board of directors and partner groups, including the center for Biological Diversity and the Nature Conservancy, won a temporary victory in which the Bureau of Land Management basically sent the company, Rover Metals, back to the drawing board and said, you need to go through a better process for environmental analysis of what your project could do to ash Meadows.

0:01:49 - (Chris Clarke): That company has now responded in a really egregious way, and I asked Mason Voehl, the executive director of the Amargosa Conservancy, to come talk to us about what's happening in ash meadows and how we can all help. But first, if you've been listening to the show for a while, you know that it's people like you that make it possible for us to do this right now. This is all supported by your donations, listeners just like you giving five or ten or $20 a month, sometimes more than that, sometimes just a dollar. If you want to join the group of people that has been making these episodes of 90 miles from needles possible, you can go to 90 milesfromneedles.com

0:02:29 - (Chris Clarke): slash donate, and there you will find a couple easy ways to give us some money to cover our expenses. You can also text the word needles to 53-555, and in reply you'll get a link to our donation page where you can pay with whatever you've got set up on your phone. Honestly, Google pay your Apple card, whatever that might be. We are so grateful to our listeners that support us. And if you're a listener who hasn't supported us yet, we're still grateful to you for listening and for sharing love, spreading news of the podcast around, putting links on social media, all that kind of stuff.

0:03:04 - (Chris Clarke): But if you wanted to join the ranks of the people that send us a little bit of money each month, we would appreciate that as well. We have expenses we've got to cover, and this podcast doesn't run for free. 90 milesfromneedles.com donate really appreciate you tuning in. Let's talk to Mason. Mason Vale from Mammergosa Conservancy, thank you so much for joining us at 90 miles from needles.

0:03:42 - (Mason Voehl): Thanks for having me back again, Chris.

0:03:45 - (Chris Clarke): So we had you on about a year ago, and you were talking about an attempt by the company Rover metals to do some exploratory drilling at ash meadows that would have potentially, well, ruined the whole place by interrupting groundwater flows and potentially draining wetlands that have endangered species in and around them. Why don't we start with just how that resolved and move into what's happened in the last week?

0:04:10 - (Mason Voehl): Honestly, it's kind of surreal because we're coming up, like right on in a year. It was the first time we had learned of this project, and honestly, little did I know how much it would really shape the future of what the last twelve months has held. It was a situation in which we were always keeping an eye out for projects that are filed with our local BLM offices. This one came in, and a canadian mining company called Rover Metals at the time wanted to conduct drilling of 30 boreholes right on the doorstep of ash meadows National Wildlife Refuge.

0:04:40 - (Mason Voehl): And it was just, it hit us like a bolt of lightning. It was one of these projects. You go, wow. The potential impacts of drilling gone wrong could be catastrophic in a region, in an ecosystem that is just extraordinarily sensitive and one that, of course, is established on flowing groundwater. And so it was a huge wake up call for, certainly for the Amber ghost conservancy, but I'd say, really for the whole valley. Everyone just all of a sudden realized ash meadows was not nearly as safe as we thought it was.

0:05:04 - (Mason Voehl): So we mobilized. We did everything we could just to make sure the communities were aware of this project. We were astounded to see the support pour out from every corner of the desert. For this one, we had 24 nonprofits join signed letters. The Timbisha Shoshone tribe actually handed a letter to Secretary Deb Haaland's staff that was pivotal. We had a very lightning speed hydrological analysis conducted, really showing what the potential impacts of this project could be on the springs if something were to go wrong, if we were to poke a hole in the aquifer. And something strange happens which has happened in the amrgos already, all of that plus litigation. We actually joined center for Biological Diversity on a lawsuit as a kind of a last ditch effort to see if the courts would intervene and prohibit this project from moving forward as scheduled, because at minimum, we would have wanted to see the Fish and Wildlife service at the refuge consult on such a project, given the potential impact on the refuge.

0:06:00 - (Mason Voehl): But we just felt like the whole thing needed to be treated with a lot more care and the public deserved their chance to provide input. And so that was what we fought for. I was a manic, three, three months, maybe a little bit less. And the BLM ultimately did the right thing. They rescinded their approval of that project, requiring the company to go through an actual plan of operations, much more sophisticated planning document, giving us the chance to get a clear, clear idea of what they're proposing to do, and really meaningfully that that requires environmental review. So the public was going to have a chance to be notified and provide comment. So that was what we fought for in July.

0:06:37 - (Mason Voehl): We took a big breath, but we didn't rest for long because honestly, Chris, I mean, just, I think you were there for this. We all sat around going, what do we do about this? Because this is the first company to come in and try to develop claims in, in this area. But we looked around and saw that we, there is a huge swathe of claims in the Amargosa desert. In fact, we've learned since then, just surrounding the refuge, we have 3400 mining claims.

0:07:01 - (Mason Voehl): So this was a small number of those. And so with dealing with this groundwater dependent ecosystem. And of course, also considering the impacts this could have had on the communities of Amargosa Valley, certainly downstream and Shoshone and Takopa, and importantly, the reservation, the Timbu Shoshone village in Furnace Creek, all of these places drive their groundwater from the same system. And so we knew we had to do something.

0:07:26 - (Mason Voehl): And we took a few months to really put pen to paper, workshop ideas. You have all these different tools. We certainly need some kind of land use or status change. And where we landed was, yes, we think long term, we need some kind of permanent, durable conservation protection for the refuge in light of the fact that its groundwater is not yet secure. But as an interim action, we felt like we need a pause button, like we just need to hit the pump the brakes a little bit, because we don't want to keep fighting these individual projects like this that are so disruptive to people's lives, disruptive to the agencies who are trying to manage these lands.

0:08:03 - (Mason Voehl): And so where we arrived was the need for a mineral withdrawal, which is a deceptive term. What a mineral withdrawal is is actually removing a defined area of public lands from new mining claims. And that was just going to pump the brakes, give us a chance as a community to really talk meaningfully about the future of this region. And so that's what we've been fighting for for the last twelve months.

0:08:23 - (Chris Clarke): So for those of our listeners who aren't really familiar with what Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge is, what's the context here? What's at stake if the refuge is damaged?

0:08:34 - (Mason Voehl): Yeah. Ash Meadows is this ecological wonderland in the Mojave Desert. It's situated on the shoulders of Death Valley National park. The region shares a lot of the same characteristics. It's known for extreme heat, extremely low annual precipitation. But what makes ash meadows extraordinary is it's a desert wetland. It is this island of lush vegetation. It's filled with over 30 springs, seeps, ephemeral streams. So you have open bodies of water in one of the hottest and driest places on the planet.

0:09:06 - (Mason Voehl): And all of that is only possible because of the Amargosa river. It's only possible because of this flowing groundwater coming from drainages far afield, from where it actually expresses itself. And what we get in exchange is exceptionally high biodiversity values. This has been called the Galapagos of the desert, and it's a good name for it because it has that same kind of characteristic of. Just because of its isolation. Being isolated for millennia now from other wetlands or areas of similar habitat characteristics. We have species that have evolved in very niche habitats. And so we have, at last count, at least 26 endemic species that live in the refuge.

0:09:45 - (Mason Voehl): Those are species not found anywhere else in the world. They only live in ash meadows. The most famous one, if people think about ash meadows, is probably the devil's hole pupfish, which actually lives technically in Death Valley, but inside the refuge, one quick little clarification.

0:10:00 - (Chris Clarke): The devil's hole pupfish lives in a disjunct part of Death Valley National Park, Death Valley itself, the actual valley, is actually a ways to the west. But the park was expanded some decades back to include a few acres around devils hole, sort of a disjunct enclave within ash meadows.

0:10:21 - (Mason Voehl): And so ash meadows is an internationally renowned biodiversity hotspot. Its actually a Ramsar wetland of international importance. It was actually the fourth wetland in the US to get that status. It is known world around as being this critical oasis in the desert. And it's also a place of significant cultural heritage value. It was a meeting place of the regional tribes, the Timbu Shashouni, the southern Paiute, Chemehueve.

0:10:46 - (Mason Voehl): It was a place, I'm told, that they would hold ceremonies. There were weddings. It was a highly spiritual and sacred place and remains so today. And so it has been extraordinary to see a place like this with so rich in these values. And there's such an amazing conservation story to be told here, too. We're actually celebrating the 40th anniversary of ash meadows being protected as a wildlife refuge.

0:11:09 - (Mason Voehl): And the story of how that came to be is one of the greatest in the desert. I think it's kind of a new chapter of that story of ongoing fights to make this little ecological marvel persist into the future.

0:11:22 - (Chris Clarke): That's a pretty good grounding of where we've been over the last year, but there's been a new development in the last week or so.

0:11:28 - (Mason Voehl): Yeah. Frankly, this is. I'm still wrapping my head around this. So about a week ago, a week and a half ago now, I received a call from the chair of the Amargosa Valley town board. Her name is Carolyn Allen. She has been a strong advocate and proponent of enhanced protections for ash meadows. She has a lot of affection for the refuge. But also, as I mentioned, you know, the Amargosa Valley community derives its groundwater from basically the same source. And so the future of the community is really on the line here.

0:11:56 - (Mason Voehl): So she called me because she had received a number of phone calls from residents who woke up, looked across the street from their homes and noticed new mining claim stakes literally within a few hundred feet of their homes. And so they called Carolyn to notify her of that. And they actually checked the claim notices attached to those stakes. And wouldn't you know it, it's actually the same company trying to develop claims near Ash Meadows: Rover Critical Minerals.

0:12:19 - (Mason Voehl): This was unexpected. We went out and quickly tried to get a sense of just the scale and scope of this new claim area. And best we can tell, I don't think we found all the claim stakes, but there may be as many as 400 new stakes claimed. And that's covering an area of about another 8000 acres of public land. And it's. Without showing pictures, it's almost impossible to convey how close this is to people's homes, literally across the street.

0:12:43 - (Mason Voehl): We have one near the Longstreet Inn Casino. If people know the area, there's a stake close enough to where you can read license plates numbers from that stake in the parking lot. And so it feels like a really egregious escalation of what's been a very contentious and very public fight with this particular mining company. The community is livid. They feel like their concerns have not been factored in whatsoever into the mining company's plans.

0:13:07 - (Mason Voehl): And the mining company has made, really no attempt to outreach to the community, discuss what their intentions are, discuss how this is going to benefit the community here who depend on this groundwater for their survival and have very little economic opportunity. A lot of that actually supported by ash Meadows and Death Valley National park. Just sustaining a flow of tourists through these towns so that it was.

0:13:30 - (Mason Voehl): Honestly, I'm still wrapping my head around it. We're trying to get behind the psychology of the mining company, of who would do this. And we fear that this is exactly why we've been advocating for this mineral withdrawal so ardently the last six months. This is what we're trying to prevent, is companies coming in and taking these kind of highly speculative actions of just scooping up as much public land as they possibly can, either with the intention of exploring on it, or again, heaven forbid, like they could try to develop an open pit mine next to these communities. And on top of a known flow path where we know groundwater is flowing east to west through this particular section, it flows into Death Valley National park, sustaining wells, springs that groundwater is depended upon by the Timbisha Shoshone at their village of Furnace Creek.

0:14:14 - (Mason Voehl): The implications here are far ranging. And it's deeply frustrating to us that we feel. We've made it very clear that this region is just not really appropriate for this kind of activity. And that seems to have fallen on deaf ears. So that's the latest. And honestly, we're still trying to get a sense of what this means moving forward.

0:14:30 - (Chris Clarke): Yeah, it strikes me that there are really two possibilities here. And one is that there are a couple of people within rover that are secretly on our side and trying to boost support for mineral withdrawal by just acting like giant jackasses. And the other possibility is just that they're giant jackasses.

0:14:47 - (Mason Voehl): Oh, I mean, absolutely. You know, honestly, if anything, it is. It is confirming all of our worst fears. And I guess, weirdly, thankfully, also there's been scientific analysis conducted for this region. The nature conservancy has funded a really significant hydrological study to really scientifically support the need for this action. This is not just something we want. This is something that the science demonstrates needs to happen if we're going to durably conserve the values we have at ash meadows and Death Valley National park.

0:15:17 - (Mason Voehl): And so the results of that study have come out. And these results read like a horror show to people like me that work in the desert and work in groundwater. We see impacts that last centuries, with long term recovery spanning almost 100 sq mi of an area that could be impacted by a single mine being permitted. And so again, in a weird way, it's been reassuring to see the science confirm our fears. It's been reassuring to see the mining company act in the way that we told everyone they might. I think the need for this action is clear as day, and we're hoping we can get this thing in motion as fast as possible to curtail any further speculation like this from occurring.

0:15:54 - (Chris Clarke): So what kind of response have you gotten from locals? I mean, Nevada is a famously mining friendly place. It's pretty much the one driver of economic development for the state. I mean, ranching and tourism is starting to come up, but it's really been hard to oppose mines in rural communities and in Nevada in general for more than a century. What's the overall reaction to the possibility of a mining withdrawal around ash meadows? Are you getting support from locals and from electeds?

0:16:23 - (Mason Voehl): Yeah, Chris, it's been extraordinary, to be honest. When this project was first proposed last year, we felt the need to come before the local communities in Nye county. The town of Amargosa Valley, the town of Beatty, of course, the Nye county commission, because we felt like we at least wanted them to be totally informed of what was happening, that they weren't going to have the chance otherwise. We didn't expect much of a reaction of support. But I've just been totally floored, by the way, in which these communities have really gotten behind this movement, this need for enhanced protections. Nye county is very transparently, ardently supportive of mining. It is one of the biggest economic drivers in the county. Of course, it's one of the bigger economic drivers in Nevada.

0:17:05 - (Mason Voehl): And what the local governments, especially the Nye county commission, have come out and said publicly is that while they support mining, there just got to be places where it doesn't make sense. And they feel ash meadows and the Amber Gosa Valley is. Is one of them. Out of concerns for both the refuge, concerns for long term groundwater security. There's a actually a really eloquent op ed written by NyE county Commissioner Bruce Jabbour, in which he basically says, I don't want any more ghost towns in my county. I've got enough of those already. And that's what the stakes feel like here, is there's only a certain amount of pressure that this valley can withstand.

0:17:40 - (Mason Voehl): And we're already seeing long term signs of imbalance of use, and groundwater recharge was heartbreaking. These communities are already seeing their domestic wells run dry because water is being pumped out faster than it's being replenished. And so to see this kind of new pressure added in the form of this mine, or potential multiple mines, it's been extraordinary to see the community really take a stand against this one and really work hand in hand with our organization, but also with tribal communities.

0:18:08 - (Mason Voehl): And now we're increasingly working with our Nevada congressional delegation who have stepped in, and they seem like they are willing to do what it takes to see if the community's needs are met in this case.

0:18:19 - (Chris Clarke): So these are mining claims, and until they're developed into mines, they won't be using any water. And the aquifer there is already oversubscribed. Who's pumping water out of the ground in the Amargosa right now?

0:18:32 - (Mason Voehl): Our organization has for a long time been concerned about the chronic kind of imbalance of use and recharge in the Amargosa system, and a lot of that being focused on the Nevada side of the basin. 50, 60 years ago, the Nevada state engineer was permitting up to 60,000 acre feet of pumping in a basin that we now know optimistically gets 24,000 acre feet or so of recharge. The math just doesn't add up there. And so it's been a long road to see that that use brought into a better balance. But there are a couple of operations in Amargosa Valley, a large scale dairy operation being one of them, that is the single largest user of Amargosa river water.

0:19:10 - (Mason Voehl): We're seeing residents of Amargosa Valley who live nearby experience acute impacts to their domestic wells, with folks saying that they turned on the shower and they're seeing sand come out, and so they have to take on the expense of drilling their wells deeper, going from 150ft to 300ft to. Some folks have gone as deep as 500ft just in anticipation of needing it, because groundwater is falling at a precipitous rate.

0:19:35 - (Mason Voehl): And the county has really woken up to this reality. It's been, I think, extraordinary, too, to see them really wake up to the fact that, like, changes are going to have to happen to bring kind of the long term security here into view of these communities. So there's a long road to go here, and that's where this mineral withdrawal, all we're trying to do is prevent throwing more gasoline on the fire, but we still have a ton of work to do to put that fire out. And that's going to require really robust collaboration across the basin, involving nonprofits, state and federal agencies, the local communities and a host of researchers. But we've got work to do after this to see to it that this value persists. But the most eminent need is just making sure we don't make the situation a lot worse than it already is.

0:20:19 - (Chris Clarke): How can listeners help?

0:20:21 - (Mason Voehl): This whole fight over the last year has unfolded at a breakneck pace, and believe me, we're feeling it. And so we're doing our best to put out communications as fast as we can, especially just with this new exploration area being claimed. This is a major escalation and I think, I expect we're going to learn a lot more in the coming weeks and months. And we hope to provide listeners who really care about the desert, care about Ash Meadows and the Amargosa as many opportunities as possible to provide input and raise their voice on this. The best thing you can do, honestly, is subscribe to our newsletter or follow us on social media.

0:20:53 - (Mason Voehl): We do everything we can to keep, keep everything as up to date as possible. We still have a petition available online on our website. If you go to www.amberghostconservancy.org saveash Meadows and I'm sure Chris will put it in the show notes. There's a petition there where you can signal your support for this mineral withdrawal action, calling on the Department of the Interior and Congress to work together and to get this thing in motion. Because the longer we wait, the longer we leave this region highly vulnerable. So that's an action you can take. And it matters if you have it takes less than a minute to fill out. That would be extraordinary.

0:21:26 - (Mason Voehl): And Chris is a full disclosure, a board member of mine. We're a tiny organization. It's me and a board of ten people. We might be at eleven people now, I think, with the recent aboard member edition, but it has taken a huge lift. We've thrown basically every spare minute and resource we have into this fight. And so if you want to see this work continue, support the Amber Ghost Conservancy and our partners in this fight. I promise you, we're using every penny we have to make sure we develop all the resources we need, the hydrological research, just doing the outreach. So it really goes a long ways. And this is kind of a critical moment for us. So the more you can support us, the better we deeply appreciate it.

0:22:04 - (Chris Clarke): Mason, this has been a great conversation. Do you have any closing thoughts?

0:22:07 - (Mason Voehl): It just is amazing. This has been such a crazy fight. The level of threat has always felt very high. I know a lot of us in this coalition are running a little bit ragged, to be honest. But it's also, I think if you told me last year when we first came across this project, based on where we were at, that this is where we'd be now of working in this really amazing space with the communities, with our tribal partners, with a whole host of people from really all over the country that are now paying attention to ash Meadows.

0:22:35 - (Mason Voehl): It's pretty awesome. And so I just think there's a victory that's already been had here, which is that we've gotten the words Amargosa and ash Meadows into some homes, into the halls of the Capitol building in a way that maybe they haven't before. And so I think that's a victory. I just want to thank everybody who's helped us do that because that reach is really important for us in this moment, and we'll be continuing moving forward as we address other issues and opportunities in the Amargosa. So thanks, everyone, for supporting us on this and stay tuned for what I think is going to be a really interesting couple of months.

0:23:04 - (Chris Clarke): And as Mason said, we will have all the relevant links and screenshots of the maps of where the claims are that Amargosa Conservancy has found. It's pretty daunting to see just how thick they are on the ground. But Mason, thanks again for everything you're doing up there and for joining us today.

0:23:21 - (Mason Voehl): Yeah, thanks again for having me, Chris.

0:23:31 - (Chris Clarke): And that brings to a close yet another episode of 90 Miles from the Desert Protection podcast. I want to thank you for tuning in, giving us a listen. Check out our show notes for all of the links that Masonville, the Amargosa Conservancy talked about, as we usually do at this point in the podcast. I want to thank some first time donors, Rebecca Ward, Lorraine Witzel, and Laurie Costello. Thank you so much, all three of you, for helping us meet our bills and put this podcast out.

0:24:00 - (Chris Clarke): I also want to thank Joe Jeffrey, our voiceover guy, Martine Mancha, for putting together that wonderful podcast artwork that is hopefully non autobiographical on my part. Our theme song, moody western, is by Brightside Studio and other music that you hear in this podcast we get from envato.com. If you're interested in a different way to listen to episodes like this one in which you might not need to remember to go look for us, you can check out our YouTube channel.

0:24:32 - (Chris Clarke): Just search for 90 miles from needles on YouTube and you'll find all of our episodes there. At some point we'll be branching into video production. Maybe not this year. Certainly next year additional content will be showing up there. It is getting hot in the desert right now, folks. My beautiful spouse Lara and I escaped to a sky island nearby to do a little bit of hiking. It was really nice to be in that 65 degree weather, but it was also really nice at the end of the day to come back to the desert and enjoy the lesser nighthawks flying around and then the bats making their appearance as the sun went further down, reducing our insect population ever so slightly.

0:25:16 - (Chris Clarke): This summer is going to be a scorcher, folks. Please take care of yourselves. Remember, turn around when half your water is gone on your hike. Turn around sooner than that. If you've been hiking downhill away from your car and you had to hike uphill to get back, we cannot afford to lose any desert defenders right now. The desert needs you. Thanks for listening and we will see you at the next watering hole.

0:25:43 - (Chris Clarke): Bye now.

0:27:51 - (Joe): 90 miles from needles is a production of the Desert Advocacy media network.