#Amargosa Valley

[rjzimmerman]

Interesting story about the challenges to the mining of lithium in the Ash Meadows region of Nevada. Interesting for the substance, plus interesting because I've known Patrick Donnelly, the guy who has been combatting the mining interests in Ash Meadows for a long time. The story focuses on Patrick and his fiancé in their long battle to protect Ash Meadows and the Amargosa Valley.

Excerpt from this New York Times story:

Few Americans follow the nation’s lithium-mining industry as closely as Patrick Donnelly. Since 2021, he has set up 30 or so Google Alerts for variations on the word “lithium,” and he uses the findings to populate an online map of projects across the West. It is so useful that one industry insider has referred to it as “an investor’s handbook.”

This is paradoxical: Donnelly, who works at an environmental nonprofit called the Center for Biological Diversity, is one of the industry’s most vigilant watchdogs. The true spirit of his monitoring and mapping efforts comes through in a Twitter exchange he had with one mining firm, Rover Critical Minerals, a few years ago. In November 2022, he noticed an alert for a Rover project in southern Nevada, but he couldn’t find any information about its location. He decided to message Rover on Twitter. “In all of your materials, you never actually state where your Let’s Go Lithium project is located,” he wrote. “I’d like to add it to my lithium tracker map.”

The proposed mine, the company replied, would be in Pahrump, Nev., a town where Donnelly did his grocery shopping. But a month passed before a different alert revealed the project’s precise location: the edge of Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge, a beloved and biodiverse wetland not far from where Donnelly lived.

He messaged the company again. “Just saw your map,” the message began. “I would abandon that project right now, because you stand zero, and I mean zero, chance of getting it permitted.” He ended, “No chance that mine moves forward.”

The company wrote back. “We believe otherwise. We are well outside any area of environmental concern.”

On Christmas Eve, Donnelly wrote one last time, calling Rover clueless. “Your mine is sitting on a vast carbonate aquifer system which sustains literally dozens of aquatic, endemic species protected under the Endangered Species Act. You won’t even make it to permitting. The agencies will laugh in your face. And if they don’t, we will bury you with litigation. If you think Ioneer has had a hard time with us,” he continued — referring to the Australian company whose proposed lithium mine triggered litigation over its potential threat to a species of buckwheat — “you ain’t seen nothing yet. This is my home.”

The company never responded.

[zachbradleyphotography]

for you to find what I see in you

Amargosa Desert Memorial Cemetery

Amargosa Valley, Nevada

[eopederson]

Alien Cathouse Brothel,

Amargosa Valley, Nevada, 2020.

The real thing and legal!

[thorsenmark]

Sometimes You’re Sitting in a Parked Car and See Amazing Colors and Patterns on a Mountainside (Death Valley National Park) by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: While at the Death Valley Pay Station with a view looking to the southwest to a mountainside of the Amargosa Range. This is in Death Valley National Park. What I was attempting to do in capturing this image was finding a balance between the colors with the patterns and shapes on this mountainside and that of the skies above as a color contrast.

[autotrails]

American Auto Trail-Death Valley National Park (Part 1) (Death Valley Jct to Furnace Creek Ranch CA)

American Auto Trail-Death Valley National Park (Part 1) (Death Valley Jct to Furnace Creek Ranch CA) https://youtu.be/O1No9NxMA3A Part 1 explores from Death Valley Junction, traveling into Death Valley National Park through the Eastern entrance.

[literatureonthepage]

2021

[swampwizards]

Ash Meadows Amargosa pupfish males (blue) competing for a female’s (gray/green) attention

these fish are related to the more famous devils hole pupfish, and both are found within the bounds of death valley national park. this fish is critically imperiled, with a small endemic range.

[davidohlerking]

Amargosa Valley, NV USA

[plethoraworldatlas]

Hundreds of new mining claims have been staked within the community of Amargosa Valley, Nevada, on thousands of acres directly adjacent to Death Valley National Park.

These new mining claims, documented here for the first time, are staked above groundwater aquifers that feed the springs at Furnace Creek in Death Valley National Park and provide drinking water to the Timbisha Shoshone Reservation. Furnace Creek hosts the park’s visitor center, hotels and other tourist amenities.

“We are extremely concerned about this dramatic rise in mining activity directly adjacent to Death Valley National Park,” said Mason Voehl, executive director of the Amargosa Conservancy. “These claims were filed right next to people’s homes and businesses, and mining there would threaten the groundwater that communities and the environment rely on for survival.”

The new claims were filed by Canadian-based Rover Critical Minerals and follow a year of controversy over claims filed near Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge just a few miles away. The company's proposed mining project in that area sparked a lawsuit that led to the withdrawal of project approval and prompted efforts to secure a mineral withdrawal within the Amargosa Valley area.

Local governments, including the towns of Beatty and Amargosa Valley, have expressed support for pausing new mining claims in the area so that a mineral withdrawal planning process can be undertaken. The Timbisha Shoshone Tribe has also supported that proposal.

“Our national parks were set aside for future generations to experience abundant wildlife and iconic landscapes and learn from our rich cultural stories. These new mining claims are encroaching on our ability to tell that shared story across the California desert,” said Luke Basulto, California Desert program manager at the National Parks Conservation Association. “We have a fleeting opportunity to protect this place — Congress and the administration can act now to save Death Valley National Park, Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and the rare waters that sustain them.”

The claims have not yet been registered in the U.S. Bureau of Land Management’s Minerals and Land Record System. But in recent field reconnaissance, local residents encountered hundreds of claim markers staked in the ground, with numbers indicated on the claim notices as high as 387. These claims appear to be blanketing an area of approximately 8,000 acres on the border of Nevada and California, just 1 mile away from the park.

Drilling and mining in the area could harm springs and groundwater wells in Death Valley and impair Timbisha Shoshone Tribal water rights. While new mine claims do not guarantee full-scale mining operations, lax regulation means that exploratory drilling alone, with limited regulatory requirements, can have an impact on scarce groundwater sources and natural resources.

“These new mining claims are a real escalation against our efforts to save Ash Meadows and the Amargosa River Basin,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center for Biological Diversity and a longtime resident of the area. “Now one of our country’s most beloved national parks and a sovereign Native American nation are also under attack. We need immediate action to pause further expansion of the mining industry in this sensitive region.”

[desertprincipessa]

amargosa valley. via flickr

[zachbradleyphotography]

how to fix everything

Ash Meadows, Nevada

[laur-kay]

The Amargosa Opera House, Death Valley Junction, California - Andrew Chamings for SFgate

[thorsenmark]

Releasing the Stresses of a Day in Death Valley National Park by Mark Stevens Via Flickr: A setting looking to the northwest while taking in views amongst large rock formations with a look down into the basin and valley and then to the snowcapped peaks of the Panamint Range. This is in Death Valley National Park while walking along the Dantes View Trail.

[reinato]

Existe uma estrada que atravessa o Vale da Morte, um dos desertos mais inóspitos do mundo.

Quilômetros e quilômetros de asfalto atravessam o deserto e na falta de distratores e falta de curvas, a paisagem monótona do deserto extremo envolve os motoristas, provocando bocejos e sonolência, que pode ser muito perigosa, induzindo o sono.

O Vale de também pode parecer um pouco assustador, talvez talvez seja apenas o nome, mas ao percorrer esse caminho, os trailers lhes causa alguma inquietação.

Uma linha reta onde se deve dirigir 2 horas seguidas no meio dos desertos mais inóspitos do México e dos EUA é o terror dos caminhoneiros que lutam contra o sonho que os envolve sem sentir.

Esta estrada nacional que decorre de leste a oeste no estado da Califórnia atravessa o Parque Nacional do Vale da Morte, um deserto espetacular considerado um dos lugares mais quentes do planeta (temperaturas registradas acima de 54oC).

A partir de Las Vegas você pode chegar ao Vale de La Morte em menos de 2 horas, entrando por Amargosa Valley através da estrada estadual 95.

[phatburd]

Amargosa Valley, Nevada