Australia-based Ioneer's proposed lithium mine in Nevada, called Rhyolite Ridge, continues to face opposition from environmental and Indigenous rights groups.

Environmental and Indigenous rights groups on April 8 appealed a federal court ruling that upheld approvals for the Rhyolite Ridge mine, with the groups asking the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to overturn the decision.

“Numerous studies have determined that the proposed mine would drive the rare wildflower Tiehm’s buckwheat to extinction,” says Centre for Biological Diversity.

“The federal government’s approvals for this mine were flawed from the start. We’re hopeful the appeals court will step in to block this mine before irreversible damage is done,” said the centre’s Great Basin director Patrick Donnelly.

He mentioned that the company has been advocating for the protection of Tiehm’s buckwheat for eight years already.

The developer of Rhyolite Ridge, Ioneer corporate development and external affairs VP Chad Yeftich, said the company has worked closely with the State, federal and tribal representatives, as well as the Fish Lake Valley community to responsibly develop the mine.

“We are confident that the District Court decision will be affirmed on appeal. We stand by the rigorous, years-long review that underpins our approved federal permit. Rhyolite Ridge will create hundreds of new jobs and reduce reliance on foreign materials and processing.

“We look forward to providing a secure domestic source of two critical minerals and bringing this strategic asset online,” Yeftich stated.

The mine plan calls for a 1 000-foot-deep openpit, surrounded by two square miles of waste rock dumps and a sulfuric acid processing plant.

According to Donnelly, hundreds of daily truck trips would transform a pristine area — which is home to bighorn sheep, golden eagles and hundreds of plant species — into an industrial zone.

“The mine would severely and irreversibly harm or destroy sites sacred to the Western Shoshone people. Cave Spring, less than a mile from the proposed pit, has been described by the Western Shoshone Defense Project as a site of intergenerational transmission of cultural and spiritual knowledge. It is among dozens of nearby springs that could go dry as the mine pumps hundreds of millions of gallons of groundwater each year,” Donnelly stated.

The Bureau of Land Management approved the Rhyolite Ridge project in October 2024, with the US Fish and Wildlife Service having concluded that the project would pose no risk to Tiehm’s buckwheat.

The groups appealing on April 8 filed a lawsuit within one week of the mine’s approval.

In addition to pushing Tiehm’s buckwheat toward extinction, the mine would degrade groundwater quality and consume billions of gallons of clean water annually, Donnelly noted, adding that groundwater pumping for the project would lower aquifer levels in nearby Fish Lake Valley, which supports a diverse wetland ecosystem.

Great Basin Resource Watch executive director John Hadder commented that large mines such as the proposed Rhyolite Ridge mine are very damaging and effectively obliterate existing habitat. 

“We must be careful and judicious when permitting these projects. Biodiversity lies at the heart of the natural ecosystems on which humans depend. Especially given the current global biodiversity loss crisis, it is dangerous to allow the Rhyolite Ridge to proceed. As a society, we risk shooting ourselves in the foot by accepting this avoidable loss of precious biodiversity.”