Environmentalists warn of intent to sue over snail species living near Nevada lithium mine

abcnews.go.com:

Environmentalists are poised to return to court in an ongoing legal battle with the Biden administration over a Nevada lithium mine

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