A | RENO, Nev. -- In an ongoing legal battle with the Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine, environmentalists are poised to return to court with a new approach accusing U.S. wildlife officials of dragging their feet on a year-old petition seeking endangered species status for a tiny snail that lives nearby. The Western Watersheds Project said in its formal notice of intent to sue that the government's failure to list the Kings River pyrg as a threatened or endangered species could push it to the brink of extinction.It says the only place the snail is known to exist is in 13 shallow springs near where Lithium Americas is building its Thacker Pass Mine near the Oregon line.President Joe Biden has made ramped-up domestic production of lithium a key part of his blueprint for a greener future. Worldwide demand for the critical element in the manufacture of electric vehicle batteries is projected to increase six-fold by 2030 compared with 2020.Past lawsuits filed by conservationists and tribes have taken aim — largely unsuccessfully — at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management, which they accused of cutting regulatory corners to expedite approval of the mine itself in 2021.The new approach targets the department's Fish and Wildlife Service, charged with ensuring protection of fish and wildlife habitat surrounding the mine site 200 miles (321 kilometers) northeast of Reno.Western Watersheds Project says groundwater pumping associated with the mine’s 370-foot-deep (113-meter) open pit will reduce or eliminate flows to the springs that support the snails.In the formal 90-day notice of intent to sue sent to Interior Secretary Deborah Haaland last month, they say her agency's failure to make a 12-month finding on the listing petition filed in September 2022 is a violation of the Endangered Species Act.“The Fish and Wildlife Service isn’t supposed to sit on its hands while species are in imminent danger of extinction, but the fact that it hasn’t met the deadlines on the pyrg raises questions about why they might be delaying,” Adam Bronstein, the project's Nevada director, said in a statement.“It would be absolutely unacceptable if the Biden Administration is waiting until it’s too late to save the species so as not to interrupt the construction of a lithium mine," he said.Interior Department spokeswoman Melissa Schwartz said in an email Thursday the department had no comment on the group's intent to sue.Western Watersheds Project said time is of the essence because the snails were imperiled even before any new mining was contemplated due to livestock grazing, round-building and, increasingly, the anticipated impacts of climate change.“The species has no regulatory protection whatsoever ... because it is not an endangered species, or even a Bureau of Land Management-listed Sensitive species, and has no state law protections," the notice said.Conservationists and tribal lawyers claimed a partial victory last year when U.S. District Judge Miranda Du concluded the bureau failed to fully comply with new interpretations of the 1872 Mining Law. But she stopped short of blocking the project, allowing construction to begin as the bureau shored up plans for disposal of waste rock.The opponents appealed, but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Du's ruling in July.The tiny snail’s shell is less than 2 millimeters (0.08 inches) tall. By comparison, a U.S. nickel coin is 1.95 millimeters thick. They've managed to survive in isolated springs, which are remnants of extensive waterways that have covered what is now dry land only to recede many times over the last 2 million years, the listing petition said.The project says three of the springs are within a 1-mile (1.6-kilometer) buffer zone, the bureau established in its review of potential impacts of a 10-foot (3-meter) drawdown of the groundwater table, and the rest are less than 4 miles (4.8 kilometers) away."As drought frequency increases with climate change, the Kings River pyrg will be at high risk of extinction,” the letter to Haaland said. It notes that the Nevada Department of Wildlife considers the pyrg “extremely vulnerable to climate change.”Lithium Americas had no comment on the notice of intent to sue the Fish and Wildlife Service, spokesman Tim Crowley said. The company said when the listing petition was filed last year that it's done extensive work to design a project that avoids impacts to the springs.The Bureau of Land Management said earlier its environmental review of the project that it didn't detect any of the snails "within the direct footprint of the project or any area likely to be adversely affected by the project.”。 10月4日，市委副书记、市长王庆海到清原满族自治县，就稳定粮食生产、建设绿色矿山、壮大县域经济等进行专题调研。 在清原县土口子乡花岗岩矿采区，王庆海深入了解矿山恢复生产准备情况。他指出，要深入学习贯彻习近平生态文明思想，牢固树立“绿水青山就是金山银山”理念，将建设绿色矿山作为贯彻绿色发展理念的具体实践，坚持高水平保护与高质量发展并重，科学合理推进矿产资源开发利用，有力有序开展矿山复绿，实现资源效益、经济效益、社会效益、生态效益的有机统一。要持续推进石材产业规范化、规模化、智能化发展，积极帮助企业解决难题，强化各类生产要素保障，助力企业做大做强。要切实统筹好发展和安全，抓住国家推动大规模设备更新机遇，加快中小矿山机械化和大型矿山自动化、智能化改造升级，完善矿山企业安全保障体系，确保矿山安全生产。 调研过程中，王庆海强调，要深入贯彻落实全省县域经济发展大会精神，深刻认识推动县域经济高质量发展是实现全面振兴新突破的迫切需要，积极探索县域经济高质量发展新路径。要坚持生态优先、绿色发展，强化项目支撑、产业富民，充分挖掘县域经济增长潜力，立足各自产业基础、资源禀赋和生态文化优势走差异化、特色化发展之路。
B | 要积极打造特色农业产业，紧盯特色产业链和高附加值，在推进特色农业产业标准化、品牌化、规模化上深下功夫。要深化农业产业与乡村旅游融合，采取现场采摘、网上直播、餐饮民宿等多种方式，积极开拓域外市场，促进农民增收致富。要把确保粮食安全摆在更加重要位置，科学安排秋收各项工作，精心组织机收作业，备足各类农机设备，不断提升社会化服务水平，确保粮食颗粒归仓。 副市长于海峰参加调研。
C | 责任编辑：李丹。
Current article:http://lindunfokangliucishirun.shop/list_gxr/1sc.html
Published on:15:07:34
