-
- Hey, there it is, the landscape,
your show about America's parks and public lands.
I'm Erin Weiss with the Center for Western Priorities,
waiting for our inevitable march snowstorm
to roll in here in Denver.
- And I'm Kate Retinger in Salt Lake City,
where I think it's gonna be sunny for the rest of the week.
Nice. This week on the pod, we're talking to three members
of the reporting team
behind an incredible investigation into
how lithium mining could affect the West's water supply.
But before we get to that, let's do the news.
Last week, the Bureau of Land Management
and Forest Service dropped the long awaited draft management
plan for the Bears Ears National Monument.
Now, every new monument gets a management plan, so
that's not in and of itself very newsworthy.
But the thing that makes this so exciting is
that it's the first management plan developed in
collaboration with tribal nations.
The BLM and Forest Service published a handful
of potential plans for the monument per regular practice,
and identified the plan that includes the most tribal input
as their preferred plan.
That's great news since the agency's preferred plan is
usually the one that ends up going into effect.
The preferred plan released last week includes a number
of tweaks to allow activities
inside the monument's boundaries,
like a complete ban on recreational shooting
and some grazing closures and limits on off-roading.
In order to protect archeological resources, around 90%
of the monument will remain open to grazing,
and around two thirds would remain
open to off-road vehicles.
Under the draft plan,
it also places an emphasis on indigenous knowledge
and practices for vegetation management, such
as cultural burning and wood gathering.
A 90 day comment period kicked off on Friday, March 8th.
We'll drop a link to the comment form along with resources
to learn more about that plan in the show notes,
and we'll try to line up an interview
with some folks involved in drafting the
plan in the coming month.
- In other news, lithium prices are falling along
with all other EV metals.
Now that's mainly due to a slowdown in demand
for electric vehicles in China and in the us.
That's of course, caused in part by high interest rates,
also the somewhat slow rollout
of a charging network across the country.
In the meantime, China has been pumping out lithium
and lithium containing batteries.
So the supply side of the equation is dragging down prices.
In other words, this is a classic mining boom
and bust cycle globally only.
The boom was more of just a loud popping noise as far
as mining in the US goes.
Now ultimately, lithium demand will eventually go up,
but it's hard to say when I, I'm seeing some companies
and economic studies, uh, suggesting
that supply is gonna outpace demand until 2030 or beyond.
And that's something to keep in mind as you listen
to this interview about lithium and water.
And the companies that are insisting their minds won't
damage Western aquifers.
We have seen this story play out
for 150 years across the west.
The minute a mining boom goes bust, mining companies pack up
and go, and everyone else is left to clean up the damage.
- We're excited to have two reporters
and an editor from the Howard Center
for Investigative Journalism at Arizona State University's.
Walter Cronkite School of Journalism here today.
They're part of a large team of editors, photographers,
and reporters who worked on a groundbreaking investigation
into the groundwater threats posed
by lithium mining in the West.
Their reporting found
that lithium mining could suck up billions of gallons
of water in some of the driest states in the US
and that the federal government has no way to stop this.
First up, we've got Emma Peterson, a graduate
of the Cronkite School, who led the team's reporting on the
Thacker Pass Mine and Tailings.
Emma, thanks for being here. Thank
- You for having me. .
- Next up, we've got Morgan Casey, also a graduate
of the Cronkite School,
who's reporting spread across multiple states
principally in the West.
- Hey, thanks for having me.
- And finally, we've got Lauren Olo,
a professor at the Cronkite School
who helped edit the story.
Lauren, thanks for being here.
- Hi, thank you so much for having us.
- All right, Lauren, let's start with you.
Why did the team decide
to look into lithium mining in the west?
- Yeah, sure. So we started looking into lithium mining, um,
because, you know, we had seen a lot
of spot stories looking at, um, a mine project
that had been proposed in northern Nevada,
which is actually a mine that, um, Emma, uh, spent a lot
of time digging into.
So that project is called Thacker Pass,
and there had been a series of lawsuits against the mine,
um, against the company behind the mine, uh, lithium Nevada,
which is owned by Lithium America's Corporation.
And that had been in the news quite a bit.
So we were curious about that.
We saw that there was also a lot of federal funding around,
um, mining projects like the Lithium mine
and some of the spot reporting we had seen also suggested
that the backer pass mine was being fast tracked
through the regulatory process with the federal government.
So we, so basically seeing that sort of series
of different spots stories said to us, all right,
there's something going on here
that's worth digging deeper into.
And so that's what we did.
We started with Thacker Thacker Pass,
but it soon became pretty evident
that this wasn't the only lithium mining project underway.
Um, and so then we expanded our search
and discovered that there were actually dozens of projects,
uh, that were in various stages of, um, proposal planning,
um, getting, you know, sort of, uh, uh,
environmental disclosures written.
Um, there, some of them were mines
that were federal projects.
Some of them were projects on state and private land.
Uh, but there were many, many coming
and it seemed like the sort of regulatory environment around
that, at least for one mine raised a lot of questions.
So just so it was fertile ground and we dove in
and fortunately we had a team of very strong,
very passionate reporters in the Howard Center this semester
that we, we decided to delve into this topic who really ran
with it and made that reporting their own.
- Morgan, walk us through some of the basics here.
Number one, why are we seeing this lithium boom right now?
And then why is it so water intensive?
People may hear about mining
and you think you're, you're just taking
rocks outta the ground and that's that.
But there is a lot of
fresh water in particular involved in lithium mining.
- Yeah, so really why we're seeing the lithium boom is,
I mean, the computer, we're recording this on right now,
the AirPods I'm using the phone I have next to me.
All of this stuff that's rechargeable requires lithium,
and that includes electric cars.
So as the, as America is trying to transition away from gas
and oil and into electric, we need lithium to do that.
So it's requiring a lot more lithium, and we're hoping, um,
or at least the American government is hoping to have
that sourced here rather than
where it's currently sourced mostly in South America
and then processed in China.
Um, our team member, Alex Appel, really looked into,
um, why this process is so water intensive.
So mines need the water to process the lithium.
So when it's taken out of rock,
it's actually mostly taken out of this kind of mineral rich,
salty water that is technically called brine.
And, um, to process all of that,
you need fresh water to do that.
Um, and we use fresh water mostly just
because we know how it reacts chemically
at a commercial level.
There are mines that are looking into using like salt water
and other types of water, but really
what we're using right now is fresh water.
Um, in terms of recycling it, there is a couple
of California mines that are looking into it,
but nothing developed yet.
- Awesome. Um, Emma, so Morgan mentioned that we get a lot
of lithium from South America.
Um, which country does the US get the most
of its lithium from
and do we have any domestic lithium mining?
- Yeah, so we're gonna mention the primary place
that we're getting our, um, lithium batteries
and lithium production from is actually from China.
About 90% of our lithium battery imports currently are
coming from China, um,
and a few other different Asian countries.
Um, but China is the majority of that.
Um, and yeah, we do have one, um, we have had one,
um, location in the US called Silver Peak.
Um, our team member, Jordan Gerard did most
of her work specifically on Silver Peak
and looking into the environmental impacts of that.
Um, but they're producing,
or they have been producing up to this point about 1%
of the world's Lithium, um, which is pretty impressive
for it being just one spot in the us.
Um, but obviously now there's
more popping up all over the place.
But, um, yeah, as of right now,
silver Peak is the only one
here, and most of it's from China.
- Lauren, I want to dive into Silver Peak a little bit more,
and it's one of the most impressive bits of reporting here
that the team really showed up with receipts as
to this question of whether the mine at Silver Peak is
impacting the freshwater.
Uh, in the area reporter did a Zoom interview,
uh, and Alber Mall, the Marle, the owner of the mine,
followed up with a statement in bold albermarle operations
do not underline impact the freshwater aquifers
in, in the area.
And yet that is immediately followed up, uh, with,
uh, the receipts.
Uh, and wa walk me through that reporting process
and what Almar did in effect tell the Securities Exchange
Commission about its fresh water use?
- Yeah, no, this is, thank you for, for that question.
'cause this is one of the findings I think
that we're probably, uh, most proud of.
And I was actually just speaking with a, um, a classroom
of students about, you know, something quite similar.
This is what I call a hiding in plain sight discovery.
So the, the, um, information about
how much water was being taken from the ground in Nevada is
not, we weren't out there making measurements in the ground.
We weren't, you know, trying to unearth something
that nobody had had known before.
There are county, um, people, there are, there are jobs,
there are there, there is a, like, um, mechanism
for actually doing these measurements on a regular basis.
Um, and so we found an annual report from one of the sort
of regional water, um, councils in Nevada, uh, that,
that basically monitors, um,
water groundwater across the state
and just right there in plain sight, this report,
which is available to the public, stated
that groundwater measurements throughout the sort
of Silver Peak area, um, had decreased significantly.
And the, the hydrologist, the water scientist behind
that report was very direct in his statement saying,
and this is attributable to the, the mine,
the lithium mine at Silver Peak.
So we had the work of a, of a scientist who had previously,
you know, had spent I think 30 years working
for the US Geological Survey.
So somebody, a very credentialed person, um, was,
was taking these measurements and the county knew about it.
Um, but actually the state, um, gives out, you know,
something that we learned through the
process of our reporting.
When the state gives out water rights to industry, um,
to other stakeholders, it's based on an antiquated system
that's not actually related to
how much water is really available.
Um, and that was kind of one of the discoveries.
And you're, you're seeing a lot more of this in,
in the media kind of across the country.
We're learning that groundwater management across the board
in America is, is is being done very poorly.
Um, we don't really have a strong infrastructure for that.
And Nevada is, is kind of, is no different.
It seems that Nevada is starting to, you know,
even I think Morgan, um, if it was either you
or Jordan Gerard who spoke to,
I think it was Jordan actually who spoke to Nile Pennington
as we were getting near to publication, um, about, you know,
we're not there, there's a real problem with the amount
of data that's available.
And he said, yeah, Nevada needs to measure, go measure
how much water it really has so
that we can start working off of informed, um, numbers
and make informed decisions instead
of using this antiquated system.
Uh, but Almar basically said, you know, we're allowed
to use, we have the permits, the,
the state water engineer has
allowed us to take this much water.
So what we're doing is within our rights, it's legal, it's,
it's under the sort of, you know, government oversight
and yet you've got these different entities
and government not really speaking to each other,
not sharing data and big data, you know, big data gaps.
So that's what we really, uh, were able to uncover.
- Awesome. Morgan, Lauren just mentioned, um,
the water issues at Silver Peak.
Are there any other lessons from that mine that sort
of apply to mining,
that should apply to mining going forward?
- I mean, I think Lauren really touched on it pretty well is
that there's a lot about mining that
we know about in terms of scientific research,
but we're not necessarily legislating.
So kind of there's a large gap that we're seeing between
what the legislation allows versus
what environmentalists are kind of advocating for.
And not even just environmentalists use water scientists
that, you know, it is their job to go out there
and keep track of all of this,
and they're kind of like, yo, what is going on?
Why, why aren't more people concerned about this?
I mean, you know, Nile's been measuring that same well
for decades.
Um, as we,
as we wrote given giving it the old Nile Pennington test
and just seeing year after year
after year, that rock hitting further
and further down until now it's not even hitting
water 'cause there's no water left.
- Emma, I wanna bring you back in
and ask about Thacker Pass.
Uh, it's a name that probably a lot of listeners here
recognize due to, uh, the efforts
of the Reno Sparks Indian Colony
and the Summit Lake Ute tribe, uh, pushing to stop the mine,
which is located on the site
or the very least very near an 1865 massacre, uh,
so far it looks like that, uh,
that fight they, they are losing.
What makes Thacker Pass so important
or such a big deal in terms of
lithium development in the us?
- Yeah, and first I would just say that as far
as the tribal issues going on there, Noelle Smith
and Pacey Garcia have ran a really great article about that,
um, specifically during our project.
Um, but yeah, as far as domestic lithium, um,
development Thacker paths is gonna be incredibly important.
It's going to decrease our dependence on foreign, um,
companies significantly, significantly, um,
for both lithium production but, and battery manufacturing.
Um, so Lithium Americas is actually signed a huge deal
with their largest stakeholder, um, general Motors.
Um, and they have basically, um,
verbally have told, guaranteed, I guess, um,
that everything will be kept domestically.
Um, everything from production to, you know,
selling these products is gonna be within the us.
Uh, now technically nothing actually stops 'em from selling
outside of our borders.
Um, nothing legally would stop them from doing that.
Um, and there might be good reason to even think
that they would, there might be a broader market for
that out there, um, especially since a lot of their
locations, um, for manufacturing these batteries are
outside of the us.
Um, but that being said, they have
invested a lot in, um,
expanding the US EV production.
So, um, you know, that is definitely encouraging
and it definitely shows us that, um,
there are efforts being made to make sure
that these products stay within the us.
- And then what's the groundwater situation
potentially at Thacker Pass?
- Um, well, as far as groundwater, um,
basically we've been, um,
so Tim Crowley was someone we spoke to over there.
He's the VP for government affairs over at Lithium Americas.
Um, and according to him, um,
there won't be any damage, um, any negative effects
to people living in the area surrounding Thater Pass.
Um, though he does confirm that there will be 10 feet
of drawdown, um, in the groundwater levels.
And so, you know, that can create, you know,
different envir, there's different environmental
implications for that and how that could affect the soil,
um, groundwater quality.
Um, but he ensures, he stated
that there will be no negative effects.
Um, and so that water is going to be sourced primarily from,
um, they had bought a ranch that's in a nearby town that,
um, the farmer there was growing alfalfa.
And so when that farmer had sold them his ranch, he also
with it sold his water rights.
And so Lithium Americas has technically bought 22% more
water rights than they plan on using.
Um, which in, you know, according
to them will be a great thing
because that means that less water
will be used in the long run.
Um, but you know, it's hard to guarantee that
there won't be any negative impacts when there's 10 feet
of drawdown happening within several miles of a radius
of the facility.
- Emma, quick dumb question for you.
Is that groundwater or Colorado River Water?
- So this is going to be, so it's groundwater.
Um, so yeah, their,
their primary water source from the farmer
is gonna be groundwater well water.
Um, but then they also, that's a primary source,
but they will also be taking from the Quinn River Basin, um,
in Nevada as well, so that, um,
those are their primary places.
So the Colorado River doesn't necessarily have a strong
connection as far as use to this project specifically, um,
but definitely for others. Yeah.
- Yeah. And you know, of, of the dozens
of projects we looked at, based on
where they are in this sort of regulatory and,
and permitting process, you actually don't even disclose
how much water you're going to use
and where you're going to get it from
until pretty late in the process
of actually getting all the formal approvals.
So you can be pretty far into a project in the middle
of the desert in New Mexico or Arizona
or Nevada, um, where there's no water in sight.
Um, and, and have already invested quite a bit of money
and resources and time
and bought up claims to lithium deposits in
that area without having any requirements to start,
you know, thinking about where
you're gonna get the water from.
- I mean, it's not even just buying up claims,
it's also getting other people's money.
Um, a lot of these projects are making pretty big promises
to their investors before, like Lauren said, guaranteeing
that they have a source of water to even operate the mine
that they're promising to investors.
- Hmm. Um, Emma, returning to Thacker pass briefly, the,
when you talk about the drawdown, is that from the brine
that they're going to be extracting
or is that from fresh water? So
- That'll be fresh water.
Thacker Pass is a hard rock mine,
so they actually won't be using any of that saltwater brine.
Um, so yeah, when we talk about draw down, that's literally
to visually explain it, them pumping water from the ground,
freshwater from the ground, um, to a lot of
what they're using it for is just gonna be
for dust mitigation and, um, part of their,
'cause they have a processing facility on their site,
and so that will also be used for that.
Um, but yeah,
it's literally just gonna be pumped from the ground.
Um, and Tim Crowley has claimed that there will be,
you know, an extent of, um,
reuse in that as well.
Um, and that's something that, you know, kind
of Morgan had touched on it, there's not necessarily like a
super refined system for that yet,
but a lot of these companies are promising, um, this type
of reuse and recycling of the water.
- I, I, I wanna make sure we make more super refined jokes
here in this mining episode.
, uh, one last Thacker pass question.
Uh, speaking of refining is the bi the byproducts,
the waste called, uh, mine tailings?
Uh, what is the tailings situation looking like?
It's gonna be at Thacker Pass?
- Yeah, so the tailing situation was really interesting
to look into because, um, I mean, the biggest thing that
I really wanted to portray in that story is
that tailings last forever,
and they can contain toxic materials, radioactive materials,
um, and specifically at Thacker Pass that will be happening,
um, in fact, they're gonna be producing 272 million metric
tons of tailings that will be containing this toxic waste.
Um, some in levels that they don't actually know for sure
yet, um, as far as their, its radioactivity concentrations.
Um, and so obviously this is a huge issue
and a big part of what I was looking at, um,
that the spring, um, kind of how we developed our stories,
some of the students from the spring semester had looked
into was this idea that the way
that they'd be containing their tailings is unsafe.
Um, obviously we get more into detail about
that in the story, but, so that was something
that really drew to my attention
because if it's unsafe, you have 272 metric tons
of tailings, um, that could
- Sitting out there getting rained on
leaching, who knows where
- Exactly.
And so that is, um,
the anticipated production over their 40 year mine life.
Um, but even still, that's a huge amount
and relatively it is still a big amount compared to
what we see at other mines as well.
- Yeah, and I think one of the really interesting things
Emma did, but you should talk about Emma,
is just seeing are there any rules,
any laws about tailings across the country?
- Yeah, so no, I mean, yeah, that's the big thing we found
that there are no federally federal protections
or, um, protections for citizens surrounding these mines
or federal, um, guidelines really.
Um, you know, there's guidelines globally, like different,
um, basically just suggestions I suppose.
And states have their different rules for that.
Um, some were strict than others.
Some I found had really great management on that.
Some had none.
And so I think the biggest thing that was concerning about
that is that some of these states, there were no, um,
tailings management plans.
They had proposed lithium mines.
Um, and so if that's the case, that's something
that should be happening
before the mine is developed and not after.
Um, especially when, you know, as I said, there
have been thousands of people in the past a hundred years
who have been killed from these collapses.
And most, not notably the burino collapse
that happened in Brazil, um, a few years ago
that killed 300 people nearly.
And, um, you know, there will be decades if not hundreds
of years, um, of damage to their land, their soil,
their crops, and so yeah, obviously it's, um,
it's a pretty big deal
and it happens more commonly than people think.
And I had never heard about it before
and I didn't know that it was even a thing,
but, you know, it's a big deal. So,
- Um, Emma, where does Nevada fall in terms
of state regulations for tailings?
- Um, the companies are definitely, um,
they are able to kind of set their own rules.
I, I guess is probably the best way to say it.
I think that they have, um, decent
regulatory systems in general for mining compared
to some other states, but they don't necessarily have laws
pertaining very specifically to tailings management.
A lot of times, and this is what I found in a lot of states,
that, um, tailings are kind of a part of a broader category
of waste and, um, sometimes there's no differentiation
between, um, chemical waste versus,
you know, um, you know,
non-radioactive versus
radioactive waste, that kind of thing.
And that's something that's important too,
because all these waste need to be handled differently.
They have different effects when, um, there's exposure.
And so that was something
that was interesting about tailings, is that it was kind
of in this collective group of sometimes not even just
waste, sometimes it just was in the category of, um,
you know, kind of just their, I forget the word for it,
but they're just kind of rock waste, which I guess
is entirely, that's even more broad.
And so that's something that, um,
I think Nevada is also doing.
So
- One of the things I really appreciated about this piece,
starting with these very high profile examples,
but then pointing out that these problems are going
to scale up rapidly
and you, your, your team, Lauren discovered 72
proposed lithium mines pending in the US right now.
Of those 72, 40 of them are in Nevada,
I've never seen that number collected in one place before.
How how'd you put that together?
- Yeah, isn't that wild? Um, there we weren't able
to find a place where that number had been collected either,
and we looked , we looked quite a bit.
Um, so we did the sort of, you know, the, the boots
and leather work of, of reporters, um, you know,
that reporters have done for generations of, of trying
to determine what
that number would be based upon our own research.
So, um, you know, Morgan and Emma were a big part of this.
In addition to the, to our, you know, the rest of the team,
which was a, as a total group of 15 reporters, um,
we looked online as much as we can for media reports
that suggested that there was something kind
of in the works in a, in an area.
And then we, we dug
to find if there were any actual filings done by the company
regarding the project so
that we could vet if the project was real or not.
So we didn't base our number just on finding media reports.
We based our number on using media reports as, as sort
of like a, what I would call a breadcrumb trail
and then trying to follow the bread
breadcrumbs home somewhere.
And so we found technical reports,
we found environmental disclosures, we found SEC, um,
you know, uh, corporate, uh, filings, financial filings, um,
that describes these projects
and all the sort of various stages.
Some of them were just in exploratory phases.
Some of them were farther along in the permitting process
and had already reached the point in their process
where they had to identify the source of water.
I think of the 72 mines and work,
and you'll be able to correct me on this,
of the 72 mines we identified, was it less than 10
or around 10 that had already disclosed
how much water they would be using.
It's a very low number.
And so to know these, these mines are, are coming
and they're coming in different states
and they're, some of them are on state land, some
of them are on federal land,
some of them are on private land.
So their sort of regulatory journeys will,
will vary depending on all those different criteria.
But there's a lot of incentives from the government
to get these mines online as quickly as possible
and get them extracting lithium in its large, you know,
quantities as possible.
Um, so we really did the, the labor of,
of pulling together all of these different reports,
vetting them and, and determining, uh, this number of 72.
- Um, Morgan, did you have a number
you were gonna pull up there?
- Yes. So the number of mines
that specified the amount of water
that they would need was only 17 out of, um,
the 72 that we looked at.
And then the number of mindset specified, um,
that they would be using up a water source was six,
is what we have on hand.
- Wow. So they came out
and said they're gonna completely use up a, the water,
- Not necessarily completely use up, but use like a
- Okay. In
- That .
- Mm. Um, Morgan,
tell us a little bit more about those water findings.
You said 17 specified may, something about
how much water they were gonna use.
Um, were you guys able to sort of project
and put together a, an estimate of
how much water they could all use if they
were all to come online?
And if so, um, tell us about that.
- So, um, we really tried , um,
but this kind of goes back to
what Lauren was mentioning earlier about the kind
of wishy-washy federal regulation on water use
when it comes to mining.
When I say 17 mines specified water use,
that could literally just be like, Hey,
we think we're gonna use this much,
or we're gonna use this much per day,
but not necessarily tell us how many days they're operating
or we're going to use this much
for this part of the mine,
but they're not giving like, the full life cycle.
Um, so we really tried, Alex really, really tried
to get us an entire estimate, um,
but we just really weren't able to,
'cause if they're just not required to really kind
of outright tell us, um,
or tell regulators even really throughout most
of the process, um, most of the regulatory process,
both state and federal, um,
how much water they're gonna need.
So unfortunately we were not able to come up
with a cumulative total.
- And with some of these mines, I mean,
they're all using different processes to extract lithium.
So, you know, Emma alluded to Thacker Pass using a ore
or rock, um, you know, sort of format
to extract lithium from the rock in Silver Peak they're
using, they're pulling lithium out of brine water out
of this salty, uh, mineral rich water
and extracting it from there.
So depending on the process they're using,
it'll involve a slightly different, um, you know, amount
of fresh water and technique of fresh water.
Um, you know, there's some people saying they're gonna
recycle water, but they don't know how.
Um, or, um, you know, there, there's, there's other people
who are saying that they plan to use no water,
but we know that's not true because, you know, um, uh,
'cause we've seen how that's done, where we've seen places
that are trying to use new techniques
that have never been done at scale before.
I mean, and, and the salt and sea, uh,
the water use around that project.
Those projects in California, um, they're, uh, they're using
less brine water,
but more fresh water that I think even Silver Peak is using.
Uh, but it looks like they're using very little water
because of the way that their mechanism, way
that the actual pro processing
and extracting of the lithium works.
Um, there's a lot of projects that are going
to extract lithium from clay,
and I don't think there's a process
for extracting lithium from clay that's been agreed upon
as a sort of scientifically sound way to do it.
So again, charging ahead with these projects,
getting permits and would not only do we know, not know
how much water is gonna be used,
but we're not even sure necessarily
how we're gonna get the lithium out to begin with.
- Something else I also wanna add about kind of
how these companies are presenting their water use.
Something that almost everyone on the team had
to get familiar with was the unit of measurement acre feet.
Um, which, you know, we spent time
and Alex spent time kind of memorizing the conversion
to gallons.
And it's a really,
I don't wanna say deceptive,
but it's a way to present the amount of water
that they're using, um, in much smaller means than kind of
how the normal person can kind
of wrap their brain around it.
Um, I'm gonna take the time
to give you the the conversion
that I have no longer memorized.
Um, of course it is a saved
search in my Google.
Um, so one
acre feet is approximately,
um, 326,000 gallons of water,
um, or just of anything.
Um, so that is like such a big
number to just have like a one to that number ratio.
So it was kind of crazy to
be doing these conversions
and be like, oh, this number on paper that they're filing
with the SEC seems like nothing.
And then you do the conversion and it's like, wait a second.
How many swimming? How many
Olympic size swimming pools is that?
How many cups of water can I like, consume of
that amount of water?
Um, so yeah, that's just something
that I thought was really interesting
and kind of was a challenge in writing this was trying
to convey just how much water all of this is
to kind of really wrap your mind around it.
- I I wanna take a step sideways
and ask about the process of reporting this story, uh,
by my count, I think that there are 15
credited reporters on this piece, which gives you a sense
of the scale and importance of it.
Uh, for any of you, maybe this is starting with Lauren
as the editor and professor, uh,
but what's that process like coordinating a team
that big on a project of this scope?
- Yeah, that's a great question.
Um, the, the, the short answer is, it, it ain't easy
, but the, but, uh, let me give you a little context.
So this project was reported
and produced out of the Howard Center
for Investigative Journalism, which is a unit
of the Cronk High School of Journalism at a SU,
where we do original investigative reporting.
And so the students who come through
that program like Morgan
and Emma, um, are, um, were master's students.
Um, they've now graduated, um, who at,
as their capstone experience would enroll in the Howard
Center and participate whatever investigative reporting
project was taking place that semester.
Um, but prior to arriving in the Howard Center, Emma
and Morgan and, and their peers went through a very, very,
um, uh, you know, intentional curriculum to learn about
data and how we use data in investigative reporting.
Uh, they, they study just the techniques
of investigative reporting, how to, how
to do public records requests, how to do depth research and
and depth interviews with sources, how to do, um, sources
with potentially confrontational, um,
or, you know, challenging sources.
Um, how to, how to find, you know, these kinds
of documents from like offices of Inspector General
or the Government Accountability office where,
where government programs are audited.
Um, so they're prepared through this program
to get to the Howard Center
and then dive deeply into an original national
investigative project.
And so managing the group of 15 reporters, yeah, not,
not an easy thing to do,
but what we did is we had students focusing on sort
of different reporting threads at different times.
Um, so every once in a while we would, we would flare out,
people would start kind of go running.
Jordan was our main reporter looking at Silver Peak.
Uh, we had several reporters, um, including Daisy Tanner
who ran with the, the Salton Sea Projects.
Morgan spent a lot
of time looking into some projects in Utah
and North Carolina.
Emma was looking closely at Thacker Pass as, as well
as her colleague Annika Tolas.
So we had, we had a team of people kind of all looking in,
in sort of different directions.
Uh, we had a student, uh, Josh Shim Mki
who really managed the sort of data
for the team pulling together everything we were learning
from the technical reports
that we were acquiring about these different projects,
plotting them on a US map so we can see where they were,
where they were in relation to groundwater basins,
particularly groundwater basins
that may have been already designated as a,
as a groundwater basin that's already stress.
Um, which in Nevada that's most of them .
Um, so it was, you know, it, it involved basically a lot
of like flaring out, everybody run and go, go hunt
and then come back to base and let's, let's see where we got
and then we will re reorient ourselves
and then go do it all again.
So we kind of did that process for a while.
And then we really landed just by the sort of in, you know,
uh, the commitment to reporting
so deeply onto these different minds.
We landed on the Silver Peak finding.
We landed on the fact that Salton Seas reports, uh,
technical reports were disclosing plans
to use Colorado River Water, you know, one
of the most notoriously stress water,
uh, resources in America.
Um, so you, you know, that's as we went through the process
of, of flaring out and,
and coming back to base, we made these decisions
and that's how we kind of directed our reporting.
Um, and then pulled together this really great multimedia
project working with NewsHour West, um,
and their senior producer, Phil Ravi, um, working with,
um, USA today.
They, they came on as a partner kind of late in the game,
but provided, um, you know,
just absolute tremendous exposure for, for our reporting.
Um, and so, so yeah, so that's how we kind of, we,
we built the team, we, we built out relationships
to get the story out there,
and then we just jammed .
- Yeah, and there's a lot of content on the
website for this project.
It's not just the story you've got,
you've even got an interactive game, um, that takes you
through the process of, uh, proposing your own lithium mine,
which is really fun and interesting.
Um, and we'll drop a link to all of that in the show notes.
So I wanna wrap up here by, by putting some questions
to Emma and Morgan, um,
about groundwater regulations and laws.
Emma will go to you first.
What do you think needs to change, if anything,
to protect communities
and ecosystems in Nevada from being sucked dry
by these lithium mines?
- Yeah, um, I mean, as far as just the damage that comes
with that over pumping leads to just so many issues
that I don't think people understand.
Also, it outside of just, you know,
at Brian's when you're pumping so much water out, you risk
deteriorating that water source
and, um, creating salt water intrusion.
But outside of that, even there's issues
that just happen environmentally.
Um, even kind of what we did look at at Silver Peak,
you see, um, kind of these land fissures
and, um, sinkholes that are a direct result
of over pumping groundwater
and not having, um, you know,
the land not having the support to really stay up
and keep from compacting.
Um, so yeah, I mean it's a big issue.
And as far as things to change from that, I mean,
I think the very general answer that, um, I mean covers most
of it is just having more federal, um, guidelines
and having more of a just basic
overall standard that each state would have
to adhere to as a minimum.
Um, 'cause I think that's a big thing
that we notice kind of all over the board.
Um, with my tailings research, with the water research
with a lot of these state laws, um, there's just kind
of this general lack of having a bare minimum
set standard federally.
Um, and historically, I mean, that's really hard,
been really hard to implement in the mining industry,
but, um, kind of where we are right now, especially
concerning these water issues, that's definitely, um,
I mean, I think we think that that's something
that's necessary now.
- Absolutely. Um, Morgan, anything to add to that?
Um, I know you looked at mines outside of Nevada,
so I'm curious if there,
if there are state level things you noticed
or, um, other federal
regulations that you think should be in place? Yeah,
- So in terms of what would honestly help Nevada the most,
because most of these line mines are on federal land,
federal, um, policy would,
and updating that from the 1850s law
that it's currently governing most of the state, um,
would really be ideal.
So there is currently proposals, um,
in the federal government to update, um,
the mining law that's governing most of Nevada land
that would require projects to prove
that there are enough water,
like there are enough water resources
to actually execute the project without over draining it.
Um, however, it only has democratic support,
so it has an uphill battle,
but something like that, um,
would definitely help nevadans the most in terms
of state policy.
There's actually a house bill
that was just passed or passed last year.
Now at this point, , um, in Utah, HB five 13 that,
um, states it governs the great Salt Lake, um,
and mining from the waters in the Great Salt Lake.
And it says that anyone
that mines on the great Salt Lake needs
to put back in the same amount
or about equivalent, um, water that they took out.
So what gets taken out must go back in.
It doesn't necessarily specify how that should happen.
Um, I'm pretty sure there's still kind of rules
that are in proposals,
but something
that really requires either from the federal government
or from the state government to make sure
that water is a priority,
that not only the mine is gonna have water,
but the populations that rely on that same water,
the ecosystems that rely on that same water, um,
that everyone's gonna get their fair share.
But it's kind of hard to give the perfect legislation.
Obviously I'm not a legislator, I just write about them.
Um, when we're really trying
to balance all of these different things.
We're trying to balance, you know,
providing economic opportunity for these places,
we're trying to balance environmentalism, um,
and preventing climate change.
So I think legislators have their work cut out for them,
and I wish them the best of luck.
- .
Lauren, I wanna wrap with a 30,000 foot question for you.
Since you're sitting here
as a J School professor leading a team doing this
spectacular reporting that, let's be honest,
is not happening nearly
as often in local newsrooms right now,
particularly coming out of a, a,
a really terrible few weeks in terms
of journalism jobs across the west,
including publications like the LA Times
who should be theoretically in the driver's seat when it
comes to big investigative environmental reporting.
So what does this say to you in terms of how
we collectively, as I wave my arms generally at all of this,
uh, how, how do we as a country, as a democracy
make sure there are enough resources
or that the reporting that is happening at levels like this,
if it's 15 dedicated grad students are getting in front
of the people, the policy makers, the people
who live near these water supplies.
H how do you balance all of
that given the changes in the industry right now?
- Yeah, no, the, the, the, the news industry is going
through tremendous changes
and it's something that, you know, I talk about a lot
with my journalism students, myself
and my colleague in the Howard Center, um,
executive editor, mark Greenblatt.
The students who are graduating are concerned about the
industry that they're entering into.
But what's clear is that the importance of this work
and the importance of a good investigative journalism
that spends the time and takes the care, um,
and does the fact checking, um,
and gets all the sources to weigh in that the sort of value
and the importance of that kind of reporting.
Um, this, this is the time for it,
this is the time it's ever been so important.
Um, and what, it's one
of the great things about a program like the Howard Center,
which I'm very fortunate to have been a part of since, um,
since we opened up shop here in 2019.
Um, the programs like, um, the Howard Center and,
and other sort of collegiate investigative journalism
programs are hopefully kind of filling some of that space
that, um, you know,
professional newsrooms just can't afford to maintain anymore.
I think one of the biggest challenges
for a professional newsroom is
to maintain an investigative team.
'cause they're the most buck for the least bang, ,
- , - You know, they're, they, they require a lot
of resourcing and they don't put out as many stories,
but actually their stories are, can be incredibly impactful.
So they actually do have quite a bit of bang.
So not to, not to undercut that, but, um,
but we need these kinds of programs.
We need partnerships like the partnership
that the Howard Center had with NewsHour
and with USA today to get a project like this out.
Um, and so I'm hoping that the role
of places like the Howard Center can, can help for
what it's worth, um, in this, in this battle.
Um, but I'm also just hoping
to see a lot more health in the news industry and,
and we'll see as, you know, our next year, um, you know,
our election year takes place, what, how things play out.
.
- Awesome. Well, we'll leave it there.
Emma Peterson, Morgan Casey
and Lauren Olo with a's Howard Center
for Investigative Journalism.
Thank you all for being with us today. Thanks
- For having us.
Thank you. Thank you.
- Here's some good water news to close out this episode.
Fonda Monte, a subsidiary
of Saudi Arabia's largest dairy company,
has stopped pumping groundwater on state leases in Arizona.
The state announced last fall
that it would not re-up the leases, which expired at the end
of February because groundwater is largely
unregulated in Arizona.
Funde paid only $25 per acre to farm alfalfa on state land
and was able to pump as much groundwater as it needed to do
so the groundwater was pumping,
came from an aquifer designated
as a future water source for the city of Phoenix.
So this is great news for people who live there.
- We, well, that is it for today's episode.
Thank you, of course, for downloading and listening.
As always, feel free to pitch us an episode.
Send us your thoughts, comments, complaints at address
of course podcast@westernpriorities.org.
- Thanks again to Morgan, Emma,
and Lauren for joining us today.
And thank you for listening to the landscape.