For Fast Launch
February 7, 2024
Contact:
Paul Ruprecht, Western Watersheds Challenge, (208) 421-4637, [email protected]
Uncommon springsnail threatened by Thacker Cross Lithium Mine takes step towards ESA itemizing
WASHINGTON – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduced right this moment {that a} petition from conservation group Western Watersheds Challenge to checklist the Kings River pyrg (Pyrgulopsis imperialis) below the Endangered Species Act (ESA) introduced info exhibiting that itemizing could also be warranted. The uncommon springsnail lives solely in 13 shallow, remoted springs close to the positioning of the Thacker Cross lithium mine in northern Nevada. The Service’s discovering places the snail on monitor for a standing evaluate culminating in a 12-month discovering which will present full federal safety to the species and forestall its extinction.
“The Kings River pyrg is a uncommon aquatic snail that has landed on the point of extinction attributable to close by lithium mining that threatens to de-water the native aquifer and dry up the springs the snail must survive, and in addition attributable to water diversions and habitat degradation on the springs themselves because of cattle grazing,” stated Paul Ruprecht, Nevada Director for Western Watersheds Challenge. “Strip-mining for lithium at Thacker Cross, as presently authorised, would in the end contain pumping out the groundwater that feeds the springs inhabited by the Kings River pyrg, and with out ample spring flows the snail would go extinct.”
The Thacker Cross lithium mine is sited in a sacred burial floor recognized to the Paiute and Shoshone as Peehee Mu’huh, or Rotten Moon, the place a band of not less than 31 Paiutes was massacred by a Nevada cavalry battalion in 1865. Indigenous teams oppose the Thacker Cross Lithium Mine and the destruction of their ancestral homelands.
The realm focused for destruction can also be Precedence Habitat for sage grouse, and offers migration corridors for pronghorns and nesting habitat for golden eagles.
In response to Western Watersheds Challenge’s petition, all the recognized springs inhabited by the uncommon springsnail already endure from a point of habitat degradation, a reality confirmed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of their discovering, and spring flows have already been modified at 4 of the springs.
Threats to the pyrg embrace livestock grazing, roads, drought, local weather change, and potential dewatering and contamination posed by the Thacker Cross lithium mine. As a result of the pyrg exists in extraordinarily shallow springs, the species is especially susceptible to local weather change impacts like frequent and extended drought, in addition to impaired water high quality from fugitive mud, runoff, and cattle.
“With out ESA safety, this distinctive springsnail will turn out to be one other casualty of the lithium increase,” stated Ruprecht. “We’ll proceed to work to make sure that the pyrg will get the federal protections it must survive.”
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