Welcome to The Landscape, your show about America's
Parks and Public Lands. I'm Erin Weiss with
the Center For Western Priorities in Denver. And
I'm Kate Gratzinger in Salt Lake City.
We've got a great episode for you today
about a story that's unfolding in Nevada's Ash
Meadows National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge is home
to the famous or infamous Devil's Hole Pupfish,
which is undergoing a big rebrand right now,
thanks to nearby lithium mining interest. I don't
wanna give too much of that away, but
you're gonna wanna stay tuned for this one.
But first, the news.
Well, I'm gonna use this opportunity
to plug us and a report that Kate
and I released last week. It is called
the National Monuments
Disinformation
Brigade.
This is a who's who guide to the
crowd that is working to derail land protection
in the West. And they're doing this
using fear mongering and conspiracy theories, not good
faith concerns for public lands.
The report,
we're looking at
dozens, hundreds of pages, maybe, of raw research
that got distilled down into this. We looked
through social media posts, press interviews,
blog posts, and transcripts from an absolutely
bonkers anti 30 by 30 conference
to show that these folks really have a
very
tenuous grasp on reality,
and that is affecting
the debate over national monuments.
So you may be wondering who is in
this group. Well, it's folks like Ben Bur,
a very politically well connected guy who heads
up the Blue Ribbon Coalition,
is also Senator Mike Lee's nephew by marriage.
Folks like Marb Grit Byfield of American Stewards
of Liberty, who we've talked about on this
podcast before. Some new faces,
Sean Pond and Amy Tooker of Halt the
Dolores Monument in Colorado.
And, of course, our old friend William Perry
Pendley, who illegally served as President Trump's head
of the Interior Department
and who more recently wrote the Heritage Foundation's
Project 2025
chapter on the Interior Department.
Those are just a few of the names
in this report. We will drop a link
to that in the show notes. Please do
go read it, send it to your friends,
print out copies, and leave it for,
any county commissioners or state legislators or members
of congress who might be interested
in this debate over national monuments.
Our guest today is Wyatt Mieskow. He covers
drought, biodiversity, and the renewable energy transition throughout
the western US for Inside Climate News. Today,
we're talking to him about a recent story
he wrote about a wildlife reserve in Southwest
Nevada.
Wyatt, thanks so much for being here. Thanks
for having me.
So your story takes place in the Ash
Meadows Wildlife Refuge, which you say is sometimes
called the Galapagos of the Mojave.
Where exactly is it, and what makes it
so special?
So Ash Meadows is about an hour and
a half east of Las Vegas near the
California border. It's located in the Armagosa Basin,
and it's right next to Death Valley National
Park. Basically, the Funeral Mountain Ranges kind of
separate the 2. And given that it's, you
know, right next to Death Valley,
you can imagine it's a very hot and
dry place.
But 1000 of years ago, it had a
lot of water there. And that water
back then has kind of left behind this
really
intricate and delicate groundwater system.
And over fifties, Seapin Springs kind of found
in the Ash Meadows area.
And that's led Ash Meadows to have
or be the home of the greatest
let me restart that sentence. That's led Ash
Meadows to become the home of the greatest
concentration of endemic life in the United States.
So you have at least 26 endemic species
found in Ash Meadows, 12 of which are
listed as threatened or endangered.
And so that's kind of where it's gotten
this title as the Galapagos because it's just
this haven of biodiversity
in one of the harshest places
you can imagine. Right? I mean, it's right
next to Death Valley. I was there in
end of June, and it was it was
hot.
And it's an incredibly unique place, and I
say that as someone I grew up in
the Mojave Desert on the California side.
And, you know, driving into,
Ash Meadows in the Amargosa Basin, it looks
a lot like where I grew up. It's,
you know,
dirt and creosote bushes everywhere. But then you,
you know, spend a little time in ash
meadows and you stumble across, you know, these
kind of
oases
in the sea of creosote. And dirt is,
you know, these these cottonwoods,
lush cottonwoods,
and these bodies of water that are, you
know, like crystal blue that are fed from
these this ancient groundwater system that provides a
home for, you know, endangered fish that are
found nowhere else in the world. And you
see these little fish just swimming around in
the middle of the summer
when it's a 110 outside, and there should
be, like, no water in places like this.
Really, in most of the Mojave, it's quite
dry. And it's it's just a fascinating little
place, and it's earned kind of a a
cool reputation as the Galapagos of Mojave.
And when you say endemic,
that means they're they're found there and nowhere
else. Right?
Correct. They're endemic. They're you won't find them
anywhere else in the Mohave or in another
desert,
and they're just in Asmetos.
Wow.
So one of these endemic species is the
Devil's Hole pupfish, which sounds both kind of
badass and adorable at the same time.
What makes this fish, the the pupfish, so
unique?
Yeah. So the Devil's Hole pupfish is, you
know, a pupfish that's found in Ash Meadows.
It's actually technically part of Death Valley National
Park, but it's in Ash Meadows. It's kind
of a weird thing because the fish got
its protections before
death or Ash Meadows was a wildlife refuge.
But it's kind of famed for being the
most endangered fish that we know of in
the world.
This spring, they counted the most of them
in quite some time, just under 200
in the wild. And they live in this
water filled cavern and kind of this hillside
in Ash Meadows.
It just it looks like a regular kind
of rocky hillside you find in the Mojave,
but there's this cavern and it's filled with
water. They don't even know how deep it
goes.
And it's it's hot water. It's over 90
degrees. And they live kind of towards the
surface on the shelf, and they, you know,
eat kind of the stuff that grows there
on that shelf. And for 1000 of years,
they've just lived there and somehow been able
to survive.
And it's, again, I mean, it's it's the
rarest most endangered fish in the world, and
it's
pretty famous for that.
And it's their discovery
led to the creation of Ash Meadows
and ultimately kind of a lot of the
protections that came for the area
later on and also, of course, you know,
other species in the area being listed as
endangered or threatened. And it's kind of the
formation
of,
you know, Ash Meadows as a refuge, but
then also
for this story that I did,
the Devil's Hole Pup Fish has kind of
become
kind of the rallying
symbol behind this fight against this lithium mine
because the concern is
this lithium mine may consume water or impact
this groundwater aquifer that feeds, you know, these
seeps and streams for the other fish, but
also this cavern that make makes Devil's Hole.
And
if those water levels go down, you have
less of that critical habitat.
Devil's hole pupfish, you know, might see declines
in its population.
And,
the community and environmentalists out there are concerned
about that, obviously.
So the the devil's hole pupfish,
is sort of
go undergoing a rebranding right now, and that's
kind of, like, what, the the basis of
your story. Can you tell us how this
fish has been viewed locally
in the past and and how that's changing
and why?
Yeah. So as I read in the story
and what I heard from, you know, environmentalists
and community members while visiting,
Armagosa, which is the town near Ash Meadows
that's here maybe 10 minutes away,
was that, you know, when the devil's hole
pupfish got its
protections under the Endangered Species Act,
it was a pretty nasty fight between kind
of,
environmentalists
and the Fish and Wildlife Service and the
community because there was, you know, farmers were
moving in. There's a lot of development happening,
and they were pumping groundwater.
And that was leading to reduced water levels,
in Devil's Hole. And that led to, you
know, obviously, concerns that this fish could become
extinct. And it led to a supreme court
case, so very important one that ruled that
to protect the species under the Endangered Species
Act,
the groundwater pumping and development could be limited.
And not long after that decision, you know,
developers, they had been planning a city of
almost 50,000 people in the area.
That fell because they couldn't find a way
to make it work while also protecting the
fish. And so for many locals in the
area, the devil's hole pupfish was viewed as
this
little fish that no one really sees or
knows about that killed any chances of there
being any development in the area. And so
it was kind of viewed as a hated
pest at the the the visitor center at,
you know, Ash Meadows.
They have stickers that show, you know, back
in the seventies when this all was going
playing out,
you know, people having stickers saying, no. Kill
the pupfish and stuff like that. And, some
of that sentiment has remained for years, obviously.
You know, Ash Meadows is located in Nye
County, which is a pretty if you know
Nevada politics
and Nevada issues, you know it's a pretty
conservative county in Nevada,
where, you know, the environmentalists and the county
doesn't get along too much.
But what's united them and what's kind of
caused this rebranding is that
there's a drought.
Wells are running dry in the Amargosa Basin.
This is an over over,
over pumped aquifer at this point through the
and there's, you know, wells are running dry
at local, you know, people's houses.
And with this mine coming in, you know,
this might seem as like a really great
economic opportunity,
but residents,
who usually would not be on the same
side as the environmentalists who have been protecting
this pupfish for decades,
realize now that, hey, this pupfish
is how we can stop this mine. Because
of its endangered, you know, species act protections,
you can kind of use that as a
rallying cry and ability to kind of hopefully
stop this mining development. And that's what they're
pushing for, and that's what's united them. And
so they now realize that the Devil's Hole
Pupfish and Ash Meadows as a refuge
might be the way to kind of save
them from what they fear will be a
project that will take more water away from
them.
Alright. So walk us through this process,
of lithium mining and what's being proposed for
the area, and why
is that put that mine potentially such a
threat to the water?
Yeah. So Rover Critical Minerals is a a
junior mining company, which means they they kind
of just do exploratory.
They they find places
that might be suitable for a mine.
And,
this kind of site that they proposed in
the Armagosa Basin, Armagosa Valley,
it kind of came because, you know, there's
access to infrastructure. There's a community there with
workers and housing,
and they found lithium in the area. And,
what they've kind of shared so far, at
the beginning, it sounded like open pit mines,
and maybe that's still the plan. There was
a town hall that I visited in June,
where their idea was, you know, they wanted
to just potentially mine the surface of the
ground. You only dig maybe 20, 30 feet
in the ground, really do a lot of
surface level digging
because, in the area because 10000 years ago,
there were a lot of lakes and rivers
in the area that are now dried up.
There's a lot of playa,
playas in the area, and those are filled
with lithium.
And their goal is to extract that lithium
if it's economically feasible. But, again, they're in
the, I mean, pretty much beginning
stages of this, which kinda makes it interesting
that this fight has already, gotten so heated
is because, you know, all they've really done
so far is file their claims. You know,
they've stuck their sticks in the ground and
said, we're interested in mining this potentially.
And they got approval last summer from the
Bureau of Land Management
to begin doing the drilling. And what they're
gonna do is it's exploratory drilling. They're testing
the lithium quality, see if it's maybe feasible
economically,
to mine here. And if the lithium's of
good quality, there's enough of it to do
it, yada yada, all that kind of stuff.
And but that got stopped because
the Center For Biological Diversity and the Armagosa
Conservancy sued, and the BLM realized
or they realized that they hadn't done an
environmental impact statement. And maybe they should because
there's a wildlife refuge next door.
I mean, literally, it's a the the mining
claims are a couple 100 feet away from,
Ash Meadows boundaries. And so there's obviously big
concerns
that if you drill into the ground, and
at the time, you know, we were talking
potentially down to the water table, down into
the aquifer, You puncture that aquifer,
you have a blowout essentially.
And then water levels for these soups and
streams that kind of make up this wildlife
in Ash Meadows certainly doesn't have the same
amount of water it did before. And so
maybe you see some of these endangered species
like the devil's hole pufffish or some of
the other endangered fish found in the area
not have the habitats they need to be
able to continue surviving.
And that's the big concern of this project.
And it's, you know, I mean, it's it's
it's years away from even
being a mine if it even gets to
that stage.
But because this is such a delicate ecosystem,
there there this is an ancient groundwater system.
You're already seeing problems. There's already concerns
down the road in the coming decades with
climate change
of, you know, can some of these species
even continue to survive or at least at
the same levels they have been? It's a
very uniquely adapted place. It doesn't take a
lot to mess that up.
This drilling, even though it's maybe, you know,
obviously not as impactful as a open pit
mine. Right?
It can still have some impacts on that
groundwater aquifer, and that's the real concern here.
So
how are federal agencies responding to this? You
mentioned the BLM. Fish and Wildlife, I'm assuming,
manages the refuge.
Why can't they just stop this project considering
it poses such a dire threat, or can
they?
Well, that's a great and complicated question.
You know, the so, technically,
this the the the these mining claims that
the company has filed, it's on open public
land managed by the Bureau of Land Management.
It is adjacent right next to this wildlife
refuge and also not very far from a
national park.
But the land itself that they have filed
these claims on obviously is
doesn't have those protections.
So they're able to do this. And under,
you know, this country's current mining laws,
it's fairly easy to file those claims and
begin the mining process as long as you're
willing to do it.
And so, you know, the BLM, they didn't
realize at the time,
an environmentalist legend that BLM eventually admitted,
that kind of the impacts this would have.
Because on the surface, you know, it's outside
the rep the boundaries of the the refuge.
So you don't think about, hey.
Maybe the land's it's not in the refuge,
but
the groundwater
system that this refuge relies on, it's the
same aquifer.
And so that's kind of where it led
to complications.
A coalition is formed,
kind of pushing the interior department to do
a mineral withdrawal for 20 years,
in essentially,
the area surrounding Ash Meadows,
to protect from future,
mining claims in the area. That doesn't stop
with this one, but it would stop future
mines if they wanted to come in, for
it's for 20 years.
After that, it gets more complicated.
And that doesn't obviously stop this one,
but it would be a sign of protection.
And then, also, you know, the BLM has
expressed interest in, you know, working with this
coalition that's formed to protect Ash Meadows
in
finding a solution. And so there we've begun
the environmental,
assessment for this project, you know, and that's
not out yet. And
we'll see what happens. But, obviously, if
the prod the mud the the drilling was
found to, you know,
impact endangered species,
you can imagine if you can't find a
mitigation for that, then the project's likely done.
At least that's the hope for this coalition.
Give us a sense of the the politics
on the ground. Are there
any local groups aside from this mining company
that are saying, yes,
please, we wanna see a a lithium mine
at Ash Meadows?
And that's what kind of drew me to
this story is that there is really no
one on the ground besides this mining company
that's in support.
It's kind of a strange bedfellows situation. Like
I mentioned earlier, this is Nye County,
pretty conservative,
county that's, you know, told the environmentalists that
if this was a different fight in a
different place, we'd probably be on the opposite
side. But they recognize that Ash Meadows is
a pretty unique place next to Death Valley.
These communities nearby are,
you know, tourism is a pretty big draw,
or would they would like it to be
a big draw? Because you do have these
natural resources nearby, and you have people who
wanna come see them. So,
it's kind of a surprising turn of events
of that. You have,
environmentalists and tribes who are usually allies on
these types of things against mines. They've teamed
up, obviously. But then you also have the
local community at the local town of Armagosa
completely opposed,
to this project. You have the county completely
opposed to this project.
Nevada's Democratic
congressional delegation,
which is most of their congressional delegation,
has come out against this and, you know,
urged the Department of Interior to withdraw this
land from, you know, from from being extractable
from mineral minerals.
And so
there's really not much local support. When I
went out to the town hall, there was
well over a 100 people there, and,
many people spoke.
Only 2 residents said they were in support
out of dozens that spoke. And one of
them, you know, his reasoning was it's an
older community, obviously, living in the desert, and
most of them will be dead in 10
years anyways. So who cares what happens to
the water? And, you know, I think it
was food, and he was kinda laughed off,
after saying that. And so,
a little bit of sport, obviously. There's, you
know, obviously, potential economic development here and economic
opportunity, which could be exciting for this town.
But they don't view it as worth it
because if they don't have water,
you don't have anything as they told me.
Water is life as they say.
So I was surprised in your story to
read that even senator Catherine Cortez Masto, who
is a big friend of the mining industry,
is,
supporting and asking for the mineral withdrawal for
the area.
Meanwhile, she's pushing legislation that would allow companies
much more leeway in, dumping mine waste, which
would, you know, make
a lot of different types of mining a
lot more,
a lot easier to do in the west.
I'm curious
why you think she's on board with this
mineral withdrawal,
and whether you think that this situation
is impacting her her view of mining,
specifically lithium and water intensive mining in Nevada.
Yeah. Well, I can't speak too much to
the senator's
positions because I'm not her.
But I I think what, you know, you
point out
that she's been in support of many other
mining projects in the state of Nevada and
across the west, and that she's behind the
mining clarity act, which would, you know,
make it essentially easier to do some mining
activities on public lands.
I think what makes this different, and she
said this in a congressional hearing earlier this
summer when, talking to the BLM's director, Tracy
Stone Manning, about Ash Meadows and and trying
to protect it,
You know, she said she said that every
community leader that she had spoken to that
lives in that area, they're unanimous in their
opposition. And I think that's what separates this
from maybe other projects. You know, in my,
reporting, I have reported on many public land
projects, whether it's a mine or solar or,
pump storage or what have you. And you'll
always find people who are opposed, but also
people who are in support.
And but this is a case that's kind
of been shocking to me is that there
really is no local support,
at least for now.
And
I think that's the kind of
big dividing line between for senator Cortez Masto
and maybe some other of, you know, Nevada's,
leaders is that
the the local community does not want this.
And and if they don't want this and
you can't find a group that does want
this,
why would you come out in support of
it? I think also maybe, you know,
some would, you know, criticize senator Cortez Masto's
environmental record,
for because of, like you mentioned, some of
the things she's done in regards to mining,
and maybe in public land projects and and
or public land
sell offs and land deals in Clark County.
She know that many in the environmental community
in Nevada criticized her for that. And this
would be, you know, supporting this and getting
this done. That seems like a fairly easy
win potentially,
of getting, hey. You know? Sure. I did
this, but I did get you Ash Meadows
protected.
And, you know, it's all politics at the
end of the day.
Yeah. The the math works out.
So I wanna follow-up on what you were
saying earlier about the sort of endangered species
nature,
and and how that could really be what
stops this. Can you say more about that?
Like, what is the level of proof that
the
BLM or Fish and Wildlife has to
reach in order to really,
end this given that our mining laws are
so permissive and so skewed towards,
you know, allowing things to go forward,
regardless of the impacts on the ground?
Yeah. Great question. I think it's one of
those things we kind of have to wait
and see. I think because of a mining
statute
of mining, the laws that exist on the
books for mining, it makes it kind of
complicated
because the mining takes a precedent over a
lot of stuff. But, you know, there's been
cases in Nevada. You know, earlier this year,
the state Supreme Court in Nevada ruled,
you know, that
if the the state engineers,
which oversees water rights in the state,
if the science shows that
groundwater pumping will impact
other water right holders
or endangered species and or maybe both, probably
both in many cases,
they cannot issue that that project,
its water rights, and they can effectively kill
it.
That that was earlier this year. And, you
know, when I was talking to
folks on the ground at the time when
that state Supreme Court decision happened,
you know, one of the
situations they pointed to that they thought that
decision could really impact is what's happening in
Ash Meadows. If you can prove that this
ground, what the science shows
that this exploratory drilling will impact the aquifer
and that will reduce
water levels at the Devil's Hole, for example,
and impact the Devil's Hole pupfish,
then the state engineer doesn't have to issue
the water rights.
For the fish and wildlife service itself, you
know, I think usually the way things work
is that there's clear
impacts to an endangered species and there's not
a way to mitigate them.
That usually is a pretty effective way at
killing projects.
I'm not sure how it works with mining.
If if mining regulations kind of
maybe supersede some of those. I'm not as
sure on that, but
the hope here is that because of the
refuge's status, also, you know, Death Valley
being nearby as well and everything that's there,
because this is the same aquifer. It also
feeds into parts of Death Valley.
If you can show that this drilling will
impact those groundwater levels, then
the the hope is the endangered species act
can kill this.
So it sounds like there's sort of
2 different routes where by which this could
die.
Either the water rights or,
the state engineer or, you know, the fish
and wildlife service in the BLM saying, this
project can't happen because the the impacts are
too high and they can't be mitigated. Now
if they can be mitigated,
and that's where these things can get sometimes
really tricky, you see this in, like, Ryloot
Ridge, which is another lithium project that's much
further along,
in Nevada where, you know, the the the
environmental impact statement's very clear that it will
destroy critical habitat for an endangered
wildflower.
That decision is supposed to come in the
next fairly soon, I believe.
We'll just have to wait and see what
the BLM does, because the company feels confident
that their mitigation levels or mitigation plans
can account for destroying critical habitat.
And, I mean, that'd be I think that'd
be a real kind of litmus test over
in, you know, Nevada or
lithium projects in Nevada and
whether they can kind of mitigate those things
and then if the BLM will, you know,
buy that, you know, plant.
I wanna look at the big picture
and, do something that I know reporters
hate to do, which is get out your
crystal ball and speculate wildly for us.
The fact that this is playing out in
Nevada,
which traditionally has been the state where the
elected officials have been the
most determined to not overhaul
the
the mining act of 1872.
Is the fact that this is happening here,
the fact that this company can come in
and make this proposal
and basically
have the run of the place, thanks to
18/72,
do you think that changes the national
calculus on fixing the mining law. Is there
any talk here of okay. Maybe this is
a step too far and
with the
the push with the need for lithium being
so high, we need to address this here
or we're gonna be having this fight over
and over again for the next 50 years.
Yeah. That's a great question. And, obviously, you
know, there's been
signs from the Biden administration that, hey, Some
aspects of our mining laws should maybe be
updated. Though, the question, of course, is can
you get Congress behind it? And I think
the answer is probably not.
We're closer to passing things that make it
easier to mine, not passing things that make
it harder to mine.
So what I do think it shows kind
of nationally,
and I think this is a growing trend
you've seen for years now, is
we recognize that some of our environmental
laws are not ready for, well, environmental issues,
but also climate change issues.
And so you see
workarounds
by project opponents
to
get a project stopped
in ways that are kind of creative.
And I think this is a great case
of
recognize it looks as though residents are opposed,
wells are going dry, but there's no
real laws on the book saying,
oh, well, wells are already going dry. We're
concerned this lithium mine will cause more wells
to go dry.
That's all it takes to stop this mine.
Right? That's not enough.
The good of human human community is not
quite enough to stop it. So what do
you do? You look at the endangered species
act, and you find, you know, oh, hey.
We have a refuge right next door that
has a bunch of endangered species and is
also just a wildlife refuge that's, you know,
supposed to be protected from,
environmental impacts for these, you know, species and
for this landscape.
And so you go down that route, and
I think it's just another example of that.
And I think it's kind of one of
those unfortunate cases where
if you don't have something like that,
then there's not much you can do to
stop it. And I haven't heard
much conversation
about
from, you know, reporting on this story about
overhauling mining laws in general in this country
or updating the 18/72 Mining Law Offering, you
know, getting a new one, maybe a 2025
Mining Act. Right? But what I have heard
is it shows that we need to be
more strategic in our rush to, you know,
address climate change. You know, the opponents of
the project are you, for this and many
other, you know, environmentally
potentially destructive projects is that we're
building projects in places where maybe they're not
very well suited because we're in such a
rush to try and find these critical minerals,
that we're willing to, you know, overlook some
of those things maybe at some times.
And what they're arguing is, hey. Maybe we
should look at you know, in Nevada, we
should look at the land available,
and we should decide what is
what are the places that we can mine
and what are the places that are completely
off the table?
Similar to what you're seeing, you know, and
I think maybe example of this that you're
starting to see is, like,
the Bureau of Land Management is updating its
Western Solar Plan to identify
ahead of time
where is solar most suitable
and what's off the table. Where are the
places we're not gonna put utility scale solar
farms on? And I think there's a push
from
those against this project who have, you know,
had some success now in opposing it and
getting this coalition on board of doing something
similar in regards to mining. Obviously, I think
that's, you know, a long ways away. There's
no legislation that I'm aware of being crafted
to address that,
but that has been something in Nevada that's
gotten some,
discussion.
Nothing majorly yet, but time can change. And
maybe this project is what kind of pushes
that to have that conversation to make those
plans.
Well, I feel like you just sort of
touched on my last question, which is, the
real bird's eye view
here, which is the climate change
is, you know, causing some of these waters
or exacerbating some of these water shortages.
Lithium, of course, is the demand for lithium
is going up because it can help us
fight climate change, by being part of renewable
energy.
So
how are people talking about that trade off?
I know you mentioned planning, and that's
always great. We we're big advocates for land
use planning here. But what is that conversation
like in Nevada right now? How are people
viewing,
you know, being sort of ground 0 for
this terrible climate trade off that's happening because
of climate change?
Yeah. I mean, Nevada is kind of ground
0 for that because,
I think it's actually especially unique in Nevada
because it's not a, you know, you're not
fracking in Nevada for oil. So there's not
this traditional,
I mean, you have traditionally a lot of
mining, but not necessarily other forms of energy
development.
And now you're starting to see this if
you have solar coming in massively. Also, near
Ash Meadows in the Armagost Basin, there's a
ton of solar that's coming. It's also gonna
be the side of the Greenlink transmission line
if that gets through, which seems probably likely.
And so they're really seeing
a ton of the mining, the solar, the
pump storage, the transmission
coming to Nevada. And I think what you
just talked about kind of, you know,
we need these critical minerals. We need these
solar panels because we need to address climate
change. We need to get out fossil fuels.
We we have the science telling us what's
gonna happen if you don't do that quickly
enough. And Nevada's seeing that. It's that has
led to a lot of I mean, that's
pretty much the root of every environmental fight
in Nevada is that this is the state
where a lot of especially in rural Nevada
where there's a lot of you know, it's
80% public land, and so these towns don't
have a lot of say in what happens
next door. And they're kind of getting into
these fights
because they've kind of become the state that's
gonna sacrifice to,
you know,
address climate change. And that's behind all the
fights in Nevada, from Ash Meadows to Rilovich
to Thacker Pass,
to, you know,
solar and pump storage projects that don't get
as much
media attention sometimes. I mean, that's behind all
of it. And
I think some communities feel very much
a little bit left behind and maybe voiceless.
And I was talking to the town manager
of Armagosa about this project, and, you know,
her feeling was that, you know, she's worked
with the federal government and the state
to do solar in Armagosa. And, you know,
she's not thrilled about that, and the community
is not thrilled about being surrounded by solar.
But they they recognize that there's a need
for it and that since it is federal
land, they don't have a ton of say.
So they've worked them to find the right
places
and to, you know,
get some support behind it and not completely
opposed. Right?
Her argument is, okay. We've done that. We
have the transmission line gonna come through here
one day. There's gonna be a lot of
solar here.
Just keep the mine away. Just don't don't
mind near us, because that's one where the
environmental impacts are too much. The trade off
isn't worth it. They're too worried about the
water. You know? I mean, something she told
me, and many residents, pretty much everyone I
spoke to out there is that this community
could be dead in 10 years already.
But they know if a mine comes in
and takes up their water and causes more
wells to run dry, and then you also
have, you know, obviously, quality of that water
concerns as well,
then the town's definitely dead.
And they want to at least try and
fight and save it.
So it's a really interesting story happening in
Nevada, and I think this Ash Meadows situation
really kind of showcases it because
these communities are seeing the brunt of these
problems,
and they're trying to make the most of
it. And it can be hard to fight
some of these things when there's, you know,
so much pressure and so much money behind
it.
We will leave it there. Wyatt Myskow is
a reporter with Inside Climate News. Thank you
so much for your time and your insight
today.
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
In good news this week, we're excited to
share that the Biden administration is moving forward
with a proposal to protect part of California's
Central Coast.
The Chumash Heritage National Marine Sanctuary is the
1st tribally proposed sanctuary in the US.
NOAA released a final EIS, that's an environmental
impact statement, for the proposal last week, which
would include over 4,000 square miles of coastal
waters along 116
miles of the coast
stretching roughly from San Luis Obispo to Santa
Barbara.
It will be the 3rd largest sanctuary in
the National Marine Sanctuary System if and when
it's designated.
We made a video about that proposal for
our 30 30 postcard series, and we'll drop
a link to that in the show notes.
That's all for today, folks. We, of course,
always love to hear from you, so drop
us an email with questions, comments, complaints, compliments,
if you wanna know more about that anti
monuments disinformation brigade, of course, happy to talk
about that as well. And if if you
like the news segments of this podcast,
go subscribe to our daily newsletter, Look West.
We will drop that link in the show
notes.
Thanks again to Wyatt for his great reporting
on Ash Meadows, and thank you for listening
to the landscape.