Boiling Point: The Salton Sea Lithium Rush
Boiling Point: The Salton Sea Lithium Rush
Excerpt from this story from the LA Times:
There’s a lithium bonanza happening at the Salton Sea.
The boom started when one of the world’s largest supplies of lithium was discovered one mile below the dying lake. The metal is required to produce electric car batteries and is essential to reducing carbon emissions.
Yet lost in the excitement about the money and new jobs that the mining projects could bring are the concerns of the people who live there.
The impoverished area — which is more than 80% Latino — already has a childhood asthma rate that is more than twice the national average.
The asthma cases have been tied to the toxic dust created as the Salton Sea recedes from lack of water. And some local residents fear that the number of respiratory cases could soar even higher as the lithium mining projects drink up more of the area’s much fought over allocation from the Colorado River.
Residents also worry about the hazardous waste that the mining projects could create. And the area’s Indigenous tribes are concerned that sites they consider sacred, including Obsidian Butte, a volcanic outcropping on the Salton Sea’s shore, could be disturbed.
In March, a local community group called Comite Civico del Valle, along with Earthworks, a national nonprofit, filed a legal petition to stop the first of the planned lithium mining projects, which is known as Hell’s Kitchen.
The groups say the potential hazards of the project by Controlled Thermal Resources, a privately held company, were not properly studied before the Imperial County Board of Superiors unanimously approved it in January.
“Controlled Thermal Resources boasts about the sustainability attributes of direct lithium extraction, yet public health, hazardous waste, and water concerns remain unresolved,” said Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle.
The two groups want the project halted until the risks are studied and measures are taken to mitigate any harm that could happen to the communities or environment.
The county and company disagree and say that the project’s potential risks were properly considered in the environmental impact statement that California law requires.
“The County believes that the concerns were adequately addressed during the initial stages of the project development,” said Eddie Lopez, a county spokesperson.
Jim Turner, Controlled Thermal Resources’ president, said the company spent two years performing studies to ensure that the lithium could be extracted safely. The board of supervisors agreed that the company had completed that work, he said. “The official opinion is that the job was done very well,” he said.
Government officials are among those who want to move quickly. They say the Salton Sea could be the cleanest major source of lithium in the world and make the U.S. a major player in production.
Controlled Thermal Resources and two other companies with mining projects in the works use a process in which the metal is extracted from the hot, steaming brine that geothermal power plants bring up from the depths to produce electricity.
Lithium is removed from the brine before it is reinjected back into the geothermal reservoir deep underground.
The process, known as direct lithium extraction, is said to be far less damaging to the environment than hard rock mining or by pumping brine into large evaporation ponds.
The U.S. produces very little lithium even though the demand is great and growing fast with the rising purchases of electric vehicles.
Already 11 geothermal plants have been built around the lake. Controlled Thermal Resources’ project would be the first to combine electricity generation with lithium extraction.