PHOENIX — Members of an Arizona tribe are trying to convince a federal judge to extend a temporary ban on exploratory drilling for a lithium project near land they have used for centuries for religious and cultural ceremonies.
Hualapai tribal leaders and others are scheduled to testify Tuesday in U.S. District Court before a judge who last month issued a temporary restraining order preventing them from working at a site halfway between Phoenix and Las Vegas. Protesters are expected to gather outside the courthouse for the hearing.
The case is one of the latest legal battles between Native American tribes and environmentalists against President Joe Biden’s administration. green energy projects encroaching on culturally important areas.
The tribe wants the judge to issue a preliminary injunction extending the ban on the activities pending a lawsuit over allegations that the federal Bureau of Land Management failed to adequately analyze the potential impacts to the sacred springs, which the Hualapai people call Ha’Kamwe (meaning hot spring).
The springs have served as a place of healing and prayer for generations, the tribe has stated in court documents.
Attorneys for Arizona Lithium Ltd. have argued that the tribe’s claims are speculative and that both the federal government and the mining company have presented evidence that lithium exploration “is in a significant public interest as the nation seeks to address climate change.”
Arizona Lithium plans to drill 131 sites across nearly a square mile (2.6 square kilometers) to obtain samples. The work will help them determine whether there is enough ore to build a mine and extract the critical mineral needed to produce batteries for electric vehicles, among other things.
The largest U.S. lithium mine currently under construction survived legal challenges last year in neighboring Nevada, near the Oregon border. Conservationists and tribes argued that Thacker Pass Project would destroy sacred grounds where more than two dozen Indians were slaughtered by U.S. troops in 1865.
Federal land managers are also expected to release a draft environmental review of a lithium mine planned by Australian company Ioneer Ltd. between Reno and Las Vegas. No tribes have gone to court over that project, but the Center for Biological Diversity has threatened to revive legal challenges based on Threats to an endangered desert flower.
In the case of the Hualapai, the tribe has stated that noise, dust, vibration from truck traffic, and visual impacts from the planned project will alter the distinctive and culturally significant environment and may render it unsuitable for cultural and ceremonial purposes.
“Ha’Kamwe’ and the Big Sandy area are uniquely valuable features that are essential to the culture of the tribe. There is no substitute or alternative to Ha’Kamwe’ and the Big Sandy area for the Hualapai people,” attorneys said in a court document filed last week.
The tribe and attorneys from the environmental group Earthjustice and the Colorado-based Western Mining Action Project also argue that the approval of the test drilling violated the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act.
Government lawyers say the tribe must provide sufficient evidence to show there is a significant likelihood of irreparable harm.
“In contrast, an injunction would delay the exploration necessary to determine whether the lithium resources in the Project Area can and should be mined, and would not be in the public interest,” their filing said.
Among the backers of Arizona Lithium’s project is the Navajo Transitional Energy Company, which in 2022 announced plans to join the Australian company and work as a contractor on the project. NTEC said at the time that it would be an opportunity to “expand its role in advancing the clean energy economy.”
The Hualapai Tribe argued in its own filing that federal land managers’ claim that an injunction would slow domestic lithium exploration as the U.S. seeks to transition to renewable energy sources carries little weight, since the project’s renewable energy benefits are speculative since no mining proposals have yet been made.
The tribe also alleges that the federal government’s mandatory consultation with Hualapai was undermined because land managers failed to record the resources in the area that could be affected.