A Canadian mining company behind a massive new lithium mine in northern Nevada has received a $250 million investment to complete construction of the new mine — a project that aims to accelerate America’s shift from fossil fuel-powered cars but that has come under fierce criticism from neighboring tribal nations and watchdog groups for its proximity to a burial site.

Lithium Americas is developing the mine in an area known as Thacker Pass where it plans to unearth lithium carbonate that can be used to make batteries for electric vehicles. The area, known as Peehee Mu’huh in the Numu language of the Northern Paiute, is home to what could be the largest supply of lithium in the United States and is also a site that tribal citizens visit every year to honor dozens of Native men, women, and children who fled American soldiers in an 1865 unprovoked attack at dawn. 

The funding from Orion Resources Partners LP, a global investment firm specializing in metals and materials, will enable the first phase of construction to be completed by late 2027. The investment firm is also considering giving an additional $500 million to support later phases of the mine’s development. 

The critical financial investment comes just weeks after a report from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch called for a halt to the construction of the mine after concluding its approval violates the rights of Indigenous peoples whose ancestors are buried there. 

“Orion’s commitment to this project highlights the strategic importance of Thacker Pass to national security and developing a domestic supply chain as we work to reduce American dependence on foreign suppliers for critical minerals,” said Jonathan Evans, Lithium Americas’ president and chief executive officer, in a press release.

Lithium Americas said that research indicates the actual burial site is located several miles away from the project site, and a federal judge agreed with the company, citing a cultural inventory study that did not uncover any human remains. Gary McKinney disagrees. He is a spokesperson for the group People of Red Mountain and is a descendant of one of the survivors of the September 12, 1865, massacre.

He and many others believe the project area to be a graveyard for his ancestors, in part due to Indigenous oral histories and a 1929 autobiography describing the massacre there. 

“What that mine is doing is desecrating,” McKinney said. “They’re erasing parts of the history of the Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone people.” 

He said the mine was approved during the COVID-19 pandemic when reservations were shut down, Indigenous communities were grappling with high rates of the virus, and few realized the project was moving forward. 

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“Our tribal chairman at that time, he died of COVID,” said McKinney, who is an enrolled member of the Duck Valley Shoshone Paiute Tribe. “What I’m saying is this whole thing wasn’t done with the best of morals or intentions of honoring and respecting those cultural sites.” 

His organization, People of Red Mountain, sued to stop the mine along with four tribes — Reno-Sparks Indian Colony, Burns Paiute Tribe, Summit Lake Paiute Tribe, and Winnemucca Indian Colony — but no court challenges have been successful. The Duck Valley Shoshone-Paiute Tribe also criticized the mine in an appeal to the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch report from last month concluded the mine violates Indigenous peoples’ right to free, prior and informed consent to projects that affect their territories. The report notes tribes have raised concerns about the risk of toxic waste from the mine polluting their water and about their cultural practices being curtailed by limited access to the area.

In a letter to Human Rights Watch, Tim Crowley, vice president of government and external affairs at Lithium Americas, emphasized that the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which contains the right to free, prior, and informed consent, is not binding. At the same time, the U.S. government believes consulting with tribes is sufficient without achieving support from all tribes, he said. 

“Further, the Treaty of Ruby Valley, which is the treaty that pertains to Western Shoshone peoples in the Thacker Pass area, does not reserve rights to access off-reservation public land,” Crowley wrote. “The Thacker Pass Project is not in a federally recognized Native American territory. If it were, mining could not happen without the express consent and approval of that tribe.”

The new investment in Lithium Americas from Orion Resources Partners LP helps fulfill the terms of a $2.26 billion loan that Lithium Americas received last fall from the U.S. Department of Energy to support the project. 

Abbey Koenning-Rutherford from the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch said the Thacker Pass mine is symbolic of the broader risks of mining to Indigenous peoples and underscores why there’s a need to reform a 1872 U.S. mining law that enables companies to claim mineral rights on federal lands, including land stolen from tribal nations.

“The United States should respect Indigenous peoples’ centuries-long connections to Peehee Mu’huh and act to prevent further harm at Thacker Pass,” Koenning-Rutherford said.

This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A $250M investment will help this lithium mine get up and running. That’s bad news for these tribes. on Mar 13, 2025.

President Donald Trump signed a slew of executive orders on the evening of January 20, his first day in office, focused on offshore wind, fossil fuel development, and Arctic drilling.

Included in this windfall is a declaration of a National Energy Emergency, showing just how serious the incoming administration is about establishing its own energy policy.

The emergency declaration gives Trump the power to suspend some requirements under the Clean Air Act. It also aligns with the Trump administration’s priority to expand fossil fuel production in the U.S. to meet growing power demand.

At least 47% of all emissions from carbon-intensive energy production in the U.S. come from rural America, according to a 2024 report from the Rural Climate Partnership. Currently, about 60% of coal-fired power plants reside in rural America.

With the majority of the country’s coal plants and over 80% of clean energy plants like wind, solar, and geothermal based in rural areas, what happens to climate and environmental policy under the next administration has a bearing on rural Americans.

And the majority of American energy currently being built is renewable, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which is under the Department of Energy. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022 made clean energy incentives widely available for communities and businesses across the country.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) received more than $13 billion from the legislation to carry out three programs, including rural electrification efforts, under their Rural Development umbrella.

Trump has ordered federal agencies to “immediately pause” the dispersement of IRA funds. Additionally, the new administration has given agency leaders 90 days to review all “processes, policies, and programs for issuing grants, loans, contracts, or any other financial disbursements” of IRA funds to align them with Trump’s energy policy.

Notably, the new administration’s definition of “energy” and “energy resources” excludes renewables like wind and solar.

To date, the vast majority of U.S. solar and wind plants have been built in rural areas, per the Rural Climate Partnership’s report.

“Clean energy is rural energy,” said Josh Ewing, founding director of the Rural Climate Partnership. “Almost all of the clean energy that needs to be built to power the United States is going to be built in rural places.”

Funding from the IRA will accelerate the clean energy boom in rural places once it lands in communities. While it is difficult to get a complete picture of the IRA funding that has been allocated or spent by the USDA, nearly $9 billion in rural clean energy grants have been announced as of December 2024. Much of that funding is still on its way out the door.

According to Ewing, IRA funding that has been announced — like some of the grants from the USDA — may not yet have legally binding contracts in place. Without a contract, it could now be susceptible to Trump’s dispersement freeze.

“Highest Environmental Standards” and Deregulation

Trump has promised that his administration will maintain the “highest environmental standards,” including the “cleanest air and water on the planet.” The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the nation’s top environmental regulatory office, charged with enforcing pollution and wastewater standards under the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, which have been around since the 1970s.

But the President has plans to deregulate the EPA as a means to spur American businesses. Rollbacks of rules governing chemical standards and the disposal of toxic coal waste that occurred during Trump’s first term provide some insight as to how the new administration plans to deregulate the EPA.

In the time since Trump’s first term, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the long-held “Chevron deference” precedent, giving courts the power to overrule how federal agencies interpret laws that pertain to their areas of expertise. This new standard gives Trump more latitude to make changes at the EPA following his political priorities.

Trump also plans to revamp his efforts to cut down on government regulations, notably through his new Department of Government Efficiency, to be led in part by Elon Musk. Those efforts could look like this executive order from his first term, directing federal agencies to eliminate two regulations for each new one passed and weakening environmental regulations.

Trump issued an executive order on January 20 freezing all rules not yet published in the Federal Register and subjecting them to a review, a move which is typical for new administrations to take upon assuming office.

The new administration also rescinded 78 executive orders issued by former President Joe Biden, including a number that made explicit reference to climate change.

“Climate extremism has exploded inflation and overburdened businesses with regulation,” the White House wrote in the day one executive order.

Some Optimism Remains

Ewing told the Daily Yonder he is optimistic that the grants that have been announced will still reach rural communities.

“I have a hard time seeing any lawmaker want to take money away from rural electric cooperatives that they are going to use to reduce energy costs for their consumers,” Ewing said.

“You start cutting support for clean energy, you’re going to hurt rural people more than you hurt anybody else.”

This article first appeared on The Daily Yonder and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Feather River Canyon begins just outside of Quincy, California. This corridor is home to Highway 70, one of the few year-round arteries to the many mountain communities. It is known for fishing and notable whitewater rafting, as well as steep canyon walls.

The holiday season brought a series of storms to this area as part of an atmospheric river, a long, narrow plume of moisture that can stretch for thousands of miles. Think of it as a rain storm that travels along the jet stream. These events not only bring increased rainfall and provide much-needed precipitation to the American West; they also bring increased risks of landslides, especially in areas affected by wildfires.

Since the 2021 Dixie Fire, there have been nearly a dozen reported landslides that have closed Highway 70 along the Feather River Canyon. These slides have ranged from small to major, closing the highway from just a few hours to days or weeks at a time. The trifecta of wildfires, topography, and heavy rainfall work effectively to dislodge the exposed rock and dirt.

“When you take away the vegetation, the raindrop goes directly to the soil and that mechanical action of the raindrop on the soil can help dislodge soil particles and start moving material down slope,” said Nina Oakley, Ph.D, an applied meteorologist and climatologist for the California Geological Survey.

Oakley specializes in atmospheric rivers and geohazards, and her work focuses on the interaction between extreme rain events and post-fire burn areas. She stressed that these burned areas have a huge affect on future landslide activity, because without vegetation on the surface, raindrops have a stronger impact force on the ground, which can more easily dislodge soil.

Though not directly related, atmospheric rivers and wildfires play an important role in the landscapes of California, Nevada, and other western states. Research has shown that as temperatures rise due to climate change, the atmosphere holds more water vapor and therefore injects more moisture with every rainfall. In fact, for every 1˚ Celsius increase in temperature, the atmosphere can hold 7% more water vapor. In burn areas, like those in eastern California, these elevated moisture levels are leading to landslides.

These events in turn lead to increasing road maintenance work to combat the effects to travel corridors in the region.

“Especially the Feather River Canyon, with the geography that’s in there, you get the water that comes through the rock with a lot of storms, so it definitely is prone to debris and slides,” explained Chris Woodward, spokesperson for Caltrans District Two. 

Woodward, who has been with Caltrans for eight years, said there has always been land and rock slide activity in the canyon–but it’s increasing.

“It feels like since the Dixie fire, we’ve had even more [landslides], with a large portion of it being in the burn scar as well,” he said.

Atmospheric rivers and wildfires aren’t the only culprits causing landslides in the region. The unique Sierra Nevada geology and topography also contribute. Younger volcanic rocks lie on top of older granite stone, giving the Feather River Canyon a unique geology that is more prone to landslides. Throughout the canyon, there are already varying degrees of erosion that can be seen in some places.

Caltrans regularly patrols the Highway 70 corridor and makes minor repairs throughout the year, and the agency schedules extra crew members during winter storms. Woodward said the state divides Caltrans into multiple districts, allowing each unit to adequately focus on its assigned region. District Two maintains more than 4,000 miles of highway across eight counties. They have 22 maintenance stations and more than 30 different crews to cover this stretch of northern California.

“We also have staff, especially during storms, in areas where we’ve seen debris,” said Woodward. “The Feather River Canyon is a good example. You’re always getting some kind of debris, especially if you’re having heavier systems, a lot of rain, different things like that.”

Sometimes the slides and debris can be cleared by patrolling maintenance crews. Other times the slide is massive and the state sends it out to a contractor. Known as a director’s order, this allows Caltrans employees to continue to monitor the road while a contractor clears the slide.

How do atmospheric rivers play into this?

An atmospheric river “is a concentrated corridor of heavy vapor that leads to precipitation, and often heavy precipitation in California,” said Kristen Guirguis, Ph.D., a scientist with the University of California, San Diego.

Imagine a river with intermittent rapids traveling from the sub-tropics to the dryer mid-latitudes. Each series of waterfalls is a storm. Now imagine this river is more than 1,000 miles long and several hundred miles wide. With each waterfall, a storm pounds the West Coast, bringing rain and snow to the region. This is essentially what an atmospheric river resembles. However, not all atmospheric rivers are the same.

“There’s been research that suggests that in the future, precipitation is going to become more volatile,” said Guirguis. This translates to more dry spells in between storms followed by wetter, more intense storms.

“Under climate change, when you have a warmer atmosphere, then you can hold more water vapor. So there’s a potential for just wetter, wetter storms,” she said.

Atmospheric rivers are being increasingly recognized for their importance. Guirguis said they are important to study because these events deliver so much of California’s water, up to 50% percent in some locations. According to the American Meteorological Society, atmospheric rivers transport on average “more than double the flow of the Amazon River.”

It’s only been in  the last two decades that scientists, like Nina Oakley, have really begun to focus more on atmospheric rivers.

“We really need to consider those moisture transport processes to study precipitation extremes,” said Oakley. She added it is important to understand the mechanics of an atmospheric river and how no two are alike.

In 2023, the American Geophysical Union developed a five level scale for these potent storm systems. Similar to a hurricane rating, the intensity scale goes from AR-1 to AR-5. With AR-5 being the most intense, the rating is based on moisture content and duration. These two data points help meteorologists predict the potential rainfall amounts and impact to a region when forecasting an atmospheric river event.

But it’s not moisture alone that leads to landslides in a burn area.

“What will cause flash flooding and debris flows on a recent burn area is tied to rainfall intensity,” said Oakley. “We also have changes in the water repellency of the soil. These physical and chemical processes change the soil water repellency and the potential for erosion.”

Oakley is currently studying the burned area of California’s fourth largest fire, the Park Fire, which began outside of Chico, Calif. and burned almost 430,000 acres. That burn area acts as a valuable case study for scientists.

“The late November storm on the Park fire got about 10 inches of rain, but it was all kind of moderate intensity,” said Oakley. “So we didn’t have any debris flows observed there, even with all that rain, because it wasn’t intense.”

Without high-energy, intense rainfall, Oakley said an atmospheric river may not cause a landslide–but those aren’t the only concerns. Wildfires and atmospheric rivers can also cause increased sediment runoff, which alters waterways, fisheries, and water resource infrastructure. This intersection of rain and fire is blending the impact of climate change in compounding ways.

“There’s all these cascading effects of having a wildfire and rainfall occurring on it,” explained Oakley.

With winter in full swing and wildfires extinguished, more atmospheric rivers are on their way. How they impact the burn scars of the Caldor, Dixie, or Park fire is yet to be known. But scientists like Oakley and Guirguis are working to help inform the public about the potential impact of these weather events.

The best thing Oakley urged the public to do ahead of a storm is to stay informed.

“Tune into your local National Weather Service office and determine whether there’s a hazard in your burn area,” Oakley said. “Is it an extreme atmospheric river or not?”

Editor’s Note: As the Sierra Nevada Ally has reported, the incoming Trump administration has signaled its intent to reduce or remove certain climate-related federal agencies, like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That agency is responsible for managing and maintaining the nationwide emergency radio network that alerts the public of extreme weather events.

Two key climate agencies could look different–or cease to exist–under a Trump administration

Follow live election results from the Associated Press to see how Nevadans are voting for federal offices.

This story was first published in The Fulcrum and republished with permission.

Although Nevada has a sitting U.S. senator who is Latina (Catherine Cortez-Masto), Latino political representation still lags. This could explain why some Latino voters feel discouraged or why — despite such high population numbers — Latino voter turnout is lower than that of other demographics in the state.

A study by the Pew Research Center found that 36.2 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in 2024, up 4 million from the 2020 election. This makes Latino voters one of the most critical voting blocs, leading both Democrats and Republicans to ramp up their efforts to tap into such potential support. In Nevada, Latinos are projected to be crucial in both the presidential race and the contest for the state’s other Senate seat, pitting incumbent Jacky Rosen (D) and against Republican Sam Brown. Ads from both parties populate platforms like YouTube — one of the three most used apps by Hispanics — trying to win over the Latino voter bloc.

What these ads, as well as the political machine, seem to miss is that Latinos are not a monolithic group. This can lead politicians to miss out on the many different factors that shape Latino identities. Voter tendencies can vary significantly between different Latino groups — and even within Latino families.

A multigenerational perspective

Rico Cortez is a Mexican American living in northern Nevada. He was raised by a single mother, Rebecca Guerrero, and his Latino roots, along with growing up with a strong matriarch, have shaped his political views. “Women’s rights are super important to me because women raised me. Women brought me into this world,” Cortez stated.

Latinos tend to put a larger emphasis on family than that of non-Hispanics. According to the Pew Research Center, 84 percent of Latinos believe that family members are more important than friends. Cortez moved back to northern Nevada five years ago to care for his aging mother because his connection to his family is so important.

Rebecca Guerrero was born in Verdi, Nev., in 1929, making her 95 years old. Despite her age, she is still civically engaged and has consistently voted throughout her lifetime. For her, it was important to pass on this civic duty to her children. Her political identity has shaped Cortez, and today, both Guerrero and Cortez represent a unique part of the Latino vote in Nevada.

As a young mother, Guerrero struggled with the cost of living in Nevada. “Well, it was no picnic. It was rough because the man that I was married to didn’t care too much. And we had to go on welfare to get my kids what they needed,” she remembers. Rising rent prices, inflation and increasing the minimum wage have become increasingly important to Guerrero and her family.

This falls in line with the priorities of other Latinos in Nevada. In the state with the largest Latino middle class, the cost of living is one of the most significant issues for many Latino voters. Eighty-four percent of Latinos in Nevada agree that it is difficult for middle-class families to prosper in the United States. Republicans — like GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo — have capitalized on this by touting their ability to do things like loosen requirements for business licenses in the state and tighten immigration laws to save jobs.

Immigration is another critical issue for Latinos in Nevada, and Guerrero has her own immigration story. At 10 years old, she had to leave her dying grandfather in Durango, Mexico, to travel to live with her aunts in California. Leaving him behind was hard for her. “I had to kneel and have my grandfather do the sign of the cross and bless me. Then I crossed, he stayed on that side, and I came to this side,” she said.

While some Republicans have used immigration as a selling point to Latino voters, the Trump campaign has pushed anti-immigration rhetoric and massive amounts of disinformation, leaving some voters, like Guerrero, upset; when asked about Trump, she stated, “If you don’t have a good president, well, everything goes to pot. If we get Trump, well, Trump is an asswipe.”

According to a Univision poll, Latino voters in Nevada favor Kamala Harris by 18 points. While both Guerrero and Cortez will be voting for Harris in November, 41 percent of Latino voters are undecided. Issues like abortion and border security are making some lean toward the former president.

Abortion is one of the most significant issues for Cortez in this election cycle. He sees reproductive rights as an essential part of supporting women. “I’ve just always been an advocate for women. I don’t want to see my little nieces having to fight for things that my mother already fought for.”

For Guerrero, abortion has been a bit of a gray area. She comes from a strong Catholic background. Catholic doctrine opposes abortion. And with Catholicism being the largest faith amongst Latinos, it can sway values and belief systems. While Guerrero is still very religious, time and conversations with her son eventually led her to support a woman’s right to choose. Cortez and Guerrero are among the 44 percent of Nevadan Latinos who say they will vote “yes” on a ballot measure that would establish the right to abortion in the Nevadan Constitution.

The issue of abortion reflects how Latino viewpoints can differ significantly depending on factors such as age, religion and party affiliation. While the Latino vote will be crucial in Nevada and across the nation in November, it is not monolithic, and many different cultures and life experiences shape the identities and values of Latinos in the Silver State.

Regardless of the differences, Cortez is proud to be Latino and is excited to see how important the Latino vote has become in Nevada. He celebrates the sense of community he feels being Mexican American.

“I love that sense of community. I think we have a strong sense of community, and we care for each other and look after each other.”

Latino families in Nevada are a deciding factor this election cycle was first published in The Fulcrum and republished with permission.

Election Day is fast approaching and there are several offices, candidates and ballot questions that are up for a vote of the people on Nov. 5. To help sift through it all, the Sierra Nevada Ally has created a voting guide with links to campaign sites, social media pages and more information on key dates, ballot questions and races that will affect the everyday lives of people living in the region.

This interactive guide includes information on candidates for federal, state and local offices, with links to campaign websites, social media profiles and more information. Simply scroll through the page to browse information or you can click into specific information and races.

Access the voter guide on your desktop computer, laptop, or mobile device by simply clicking “Voter Guide” on the main navigation on the Sierra Nevada Ally homepage.

This guide was made possible through technical support from GovPack, which is funded by a grant from the Knight Foundation.

At Scougal Rubber, a corporation in McCarran, Nev. east of Sparks, machines apply more than 1 million pounds of pressure at 280 degrees Fahrenheit to create giant bearing pads used in buildings and bridges to help transfer weight throughout the entire structure. The company is headquartered in Seattle, but has been at this location since 2011. It recently got a more than $700,000 grant grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to install solar panels on the property to cut energy costs and operate more sustainably.

Why here? Why is the federal government investing in this Seattle-based manufacturer? And what does it all have to do with rural development in northern Nevada?

Eva Price has lived in rural America most of her life.

“I am from rural Nevada. I live in Fernley, Nevada. Two years ago, 2021, or now three years now, we moved from California, and I used to live in a rural part of Oroville, California,” she said.

Now, she’s working as the controller at Scougal Rubber Corporation.

“I joined the company a year ago and one month, basically. One year and one month ago.”

In her job, Eva is head of the financial and HR departments.

“I oversee accounts receivable, accounts payable, payroll, HR. Um, I do the general ledger and financial statements with Rob [Scougal President Rob Anderson]. So I report directly to Rob, the president,” she said.

Rob Anderson brought around 11 people with him from Seattle to start Scougal Rubber in 2011. The company now employs about 90 people in northern Nevada. He thinks the grants USDA provides help to the economy of rural Nevada.

“Their ideas, it would be very valuable for this area,” he said. “Um, “Especially if they can get into the residential and multiple family housing and that sort of thing, to bring workers closer to the manufacturing environment.”

For Eva, a resident of rural Nevada, this sort of aid directly benefits employees like herself.

“A grant like this is really very helpful to manufacturing companies like ours, because we never thought we never thought that a grant will be available to us,” she said.

The grant she’s referring to comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA. The agency is giving Scougal Rubber nearly $730,000 to install solar panels to help with electricity costs and reduce the pollution that comes from using fossil fuels. It’s part of a push by the Biden/Harris administration to invest in more clean energy projects, like this one at Scougal Rubber or the large-scale Thacker Pass lithium mine in northern Nevada.

And it’s what brings Basil Gooden to northern Nevada. He’s the undersecretary for the USDA.

“I really enjoy getting out in these communities and seeing the partners, seeing the workforce in rural development, but seeing the people on the ground that actually benefit from our programs and hearing their stories,” Gooden said.

Gooden is fairly new in the job, being sworn in as undersecretary in February. But… 

“This is my second stint with USDA Rural Development. I worked previously in the Obama Administration as a State Director,” he said.

To him, this is more than just a job, though. 

“Rural is in my blood,” he said. “I went to Virginia Tech as an undergrad. My dad took me to college back in the 80s. When he dropped me off, he told me three things. He told me, ‘Hey, study hard, get good grades, stay out of trouble.’ But the third thing he told me was, ‘Don’t come back to the country because there are no opportunities in the country.’”

This idea has persisted through the 1980s to today. According to the Rural Policy Research Institute, rates of poverty are 3 percentage points higher in rural areas than in urban areas, which can lead many to leave the country for city life. It’s this kind of “rural brain drain” that is forcing Gooden and the Biden/Harris administration to rethink development in rural America.

“I am passionate about making sure that the opportunities are in the country, that we are making sure that rural kids can come back to their areas, because there are either jobs or housing,” Gooden said.

There have been some signs that the federal government is making rural investments a priority. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill is investing 3.5 billion in Nevada in 2024 for 275 specific projects, including expanding broadband in rural America.

In that bill, more than $117 million were earmarked for clean energy projects, like the one at Scougal Rubber. Gooden said his role with the USDA is about supporting these efforts.

“We have in rural development an awesome, awesome opportunity to really focus on rural energy,” he said. “This administration, the Biden/Harris administration, has really, really pushed a lot of funding in renewable energy, knowing that it will help reduce the cost of operations for rural businesses, for farmers, ranchers.”

Not everyone is on board, though. Some farmers and ranchers are concerned how these investments could uproot their way of life.

“It’s not as simple as people saying, ‘We don’t want this in our backyard. We don’t want this disturbing us.’ These communities in rural areas of Nevada and throughout the West have suffered immense impacts from historical mining in the area, from Superfund sites to mercury contamination, and they still are greatly impacted by those,” said Susan Frey, a third-generation rancher who lives in Orovada, Nevada.

Frey is the spokesperson for the Thacker Pass Working Group, a collection of residents dedicated to protecting their community against impacts from the Thacker Pass lithium mine that was approved for construction in 2021. Frey said she loves rural Nevada, but federal officials don’t always understand the full impact of rural development on life in these areas.

Take jobs for example. Frey said most people in her community are employed by local farms and ranches, so any new employees would be coming from neighboring cities.

“With that growth comes problems with infrastructure and housing and things like that, that communities have to deal with as these things are coming online,” Frey said.

That’s part of the reason Basil Gooden from the USDA visited northern Nevada. He says he wants to hear directly from rural residents and businesses about the challenges they face and how his agency can help make rural life more vibrant and sustainable.

“One of my favorite quotes comes from Vernon Johns, who is a civil rights leader back in the 1960s. He would always say, ‘If you see a good fight, get in it. If you see an area that is really trying to fight to either level the playing field or fighting for equity, get in it and help them,’” Gooden said.

For people like Eva Price, that means being able to work in the rural areas they grew up in, which is pretty unique.

“We have deer that are coming through our property as well, in the neighborhood where I live. Here, we see horses a lot. They have the right of way, so we have to stop when they cross the street,” Price said, laughing.

John Wayne once said, “Courage is being scared to death but saddling up anyway.” Courage was on full display at last month’s 10^th annual De Golyer Bucking Horse & Bull Bash Rodeo in Fallon, Nev.

The affordable, family-friendly event happens every year on the last Saturday of June. If you didn’t get a chance to see all the action in person this year, the Sierra Nevada Ally has you covered.

For many participants in this year’s event, rodeo is more than just a sport; it’s a way of life.

Every year, Kristina and Cody de Golyer host the Bucking Horse & Bull Bash Rodeo at the Fallon Fairgrounds in Fallon, Nev. Rodeo goers got to enjoy Mutton Bustin’, Jr. Steer, Bull Riding and Barrel Racing events, among many others. This year, the rodeo had the honor in welcoming back the International Trick Riders.

This year’s event was not only a big milestone for the de Golyers, who were celebrating the tenth year of the rodeo. It was also 4-year-old Storm Jackson from the Shoshone Nation’s first attempt at Mutton Bustin’.

“It was fun!” he said, as he got some help putting his cowboy hat back on his head.

Another young participant who was excited to ride the Jr. Steers was Justin Sherman. The 13-year-old has been riding for a year-and-a-half, and had taken part in ten rodeos. He is inspired by his uncle who also participates in Professional Bull Riders (PBR) rodeos.

For 16-year-old Ray Valdez, it’s all about riding colts. He’s been riding for two years, thinking he would start riding bulls. But after his first rodeo, he instead got hooked on riding colts.

“I love the feeling being up there, when they jump, and I am up in the air. It’s a great feeling,” he said.

The annual de Golyer Bucking Horse and Bull Bash happens every June. So if you’re looking for a rodeo event without the large crowds found at the Reno Rodeo, this trip to Fallon might just be the way to go.

You’re at least guaranteed to see some courageous riders of all ages.

Thundering equipment, pulverized terrain littered with the dismembered and dying. D-Day? Mariupol? Game of Thrones? No, it’s a sunny day in the American West, and a pair of Bureau of Land Management bulldozers are ripping pinyon and juniper trees out of the ground. To do this, they’re dragging a 20,000-pound Navy anchor chain across the forested landscape.

The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, is the powerful Interior Department agency that administers 245 million publicly owned acres, or one-tenth of the nation’s land, as well as 700 million acres of subsurface mineral rights. It describes its mission as sustaining “the health, diversity and productivity of public lands for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations.”

In pursuit of this lofty goal, the BLM has obliterated pinyon-juniper forests since the 1950s, “chaining” millions of acres throughout the West. The agency’s fire program tells Barn Raiser that over just seven recent years—2017 through 2023—it removed more than 1.7 million acres’ worth of trees. In doing that, the agency spent just over $151 million in taxpayer money on chaining and on followup activities intended to encourage replacement plants. The BLM calls the latter “treatments,” a mild-sounding term that encompasses harrowing, plowing, mowing, fire, herbicides and more. Eventually, 38.5 million acres of pinyon-juniper forest will be on the chopping block, says the BLM. 

Next up are 380,000 acres of eastern Nevada’s ecologically rich pinyon-juniper forest in South Spring and Hamlin Valleys, near Great Basin National Park. To save the forest, the Center for Biological Diversity and Western Watersheds Project have brought a federal lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management as a whole, two of its local Nevada offices and its parent agency, the Department of the Interior. Nevada’s United States District Court is expected to hear arguments in the suit this fall.

Western Shoshone elder and systems engineer Rick Spilsbury, who joined the litigation, called the BLM’s plan “ecocide” and “a scorched earth attack on … the natural world that has supported my people for tens of thousands of years.” The Western Watersheds Project describes the BLM plan as “heavy-handed,” with “woefully inadequate” analysis to back it up. The high cost is no surprise, says Scott Lake, attorney for the environmental nonprofits. “The government is hiring contractors who are running heavy equipment for hours a day and weeks at a time.”

The BLM calls the suit the result of a “policy disagreement” rather than a matter of law. The agency has justified the practice of chaining with reasons that have morphed over the years, claiming, for example, that the ancient indigenous pinyon-juniper forests are “encroaching” into grasslands, thereby posing a wildfire hazard as well as a risk to the habitats of native species.

Others say that the BLM’s justifications are based on bad science and incomplete analysis. A 2019 review of more than 200 scientific studies by wildlife biologist Allison Jones and colleagues found that “what we see today in many cases is simply [pinyon and juniper trees] recolonizing places where they were dominant but then chained.” The recolonization “is mistaken for encroachment,” wrote Jones et al. The scientists concluded with a warning: “The pace of activity on the ground may be outstripping our understanding of the long-term effects of these treatments and our ability to plan better restoration projects.”

Checking what boxes?

The BLM must consult with tribal nations when projects affect their interests. The agency says it respects “the ties that native and traditional communities have to the land” and the way “strong communication is fundamental to a constructive relationship.” According to the agency, “This means going beyond just checking the box to say we talked to Tribal Nations when we take actions that may affect Native American communities.”

As an example of that “strong communication,” the BLM’s Environmental Assessment for the chaining project describes the agency mailing letters describing it to 5 out of 21 Nevada tribes, along with one in Utah. The document then reveals the agency has had no back-and-forth communication with any of them.

This anemic form of consultation “has been happening for years,” says Western Shoshone elder and healer Reggie Sope from Duck Valley Indian Reservation, which straddles Nevada and Idaho. “That’s the way they put it. ‘We sent them letters, that was our consultation.’ ” His tribe was among the 16 in Nevada that were not consulted, according to the list in the BLM’s Environmental Assessment.

Nor was the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians, a four-Band consortium headquartered in Elko, Nevada. Putting a letter in the post is not consultation, says Julius Holley, a council member of both the Te-Moak Tribe and one of its constituents, the Battle Mountain Band. “In our opinion, consultation is a face-to-face meeting,” he says.

The Te-Moak Tribe gets some 40 letters a week from the BLM, Holley says. These may involve matters ranging from minor, such as a mining company’s discovery of an isolated flake (a chip knocked off a piece of stone while creating an arrowhead or other tool), to major, like chaining 380,000 acres. The council continually goes through the letters to determine the important ones, Holley says, then asks for tours and/or meetings concerning them. Citing the ongoing lawsuit, the BLM did not answer questions about how the contacted tribes were chosen and whether any actual interaction had taken place since the Environmental Assessment was written.

Ancient knowledge undercuts BLM claims

The BLM’s crusade against the pinyon-juniper forests recalls the decimation of the continent’s great buffalo herds and salmon runs, undertaken in the 1800s to cripple the tribes that relied on them. For millennia, the pinyon-juniper forests have been vital to tribal nations in Nevada and other Western states. They shelter myriad animal and plant species and are the source of pine nuts—a sweet, creamy, protein- and nutrient-rich staple that was once a mainstay of tribal diets and traditions.

When rabbitbrush in Nevada’s lower elevations turns yellow in the fall, tribal members know the nuts are ripe. It’s time to trek to the mountains and harvest them. While some use long poles to knock the pinecones off the trees, others engage in an age-old tribal fire-prevention practice: removing and chopping up fallen timber and brush that could act as tinder and feed a wildfire. 

The cut wood is put to use roasting the cones and making meals for the group. The roasted pine nuts are removed from the cones and eaten out of hand or stored for future use. Ground up, cooked pine nuts are used in preparations ranging from bread to porridge to soup. They can be formed into patties with berries and ground meat—usually venison or elk, says Sope: “Like a quick snack but all natural. Very delicious and nutritious.”

When Sope was a boy, he says, he learned from his elders that long ago the Creator guided his people to a place where they would find all the food and medicine plants they’d need. “So here we remained,” Sope says. “We survived for a long time. They had ceremonies and blessings to honor the Root Nation and ensure it would be plentiful for generations to come.”

The BLM creates a serious challenge to that abundance. After its bulldozers have demolished South Spring and Hamlin Valleys, the agency plans to “treat” whatever’s left. This involves choosing among fire, herbicides and other alternatives. The agency calls this process “adaptive management,” which seems to imply benign creativity. The BLM’s court documents also instruct Nevada’s U.S. District Court to be “highly deferential” to this type of decision-making.

Not so fast, says Lake, the environmental groups’ attorney. He notes that federal courts have repeatedly directed agencies to provide site-specific, landscape-level analysis for immediate and indirect effects of such actions before moving forward. Broad guesswork and ongoing improvisation are not enough, federal courts have held. The National Environmental Protection Act specifically requires this, so it’s not just common sense, but a matter of law, argues Lake.

The BLM’s continually changing assortment of reasons for razing the trees started in the 1950s with the need to create additional grazing land for cattle. That reason has become less acceptable though, according to Lake. “The idea that we should be deforesting [to provide] cattle forage is not really that popular these days, so the rationales have been shifting.” Creating livestock range hasn’t stopped; it’s just no longer widely acknowledged.

Citing the ongoing lawsuit, the BLM did not respond to questions about its past and present goals of creating grazing land. The agency does, however, still support grazing; it offers livestock grazing permits at less than $1.50 per animal per month on 155 million of its managed public acres.

For the birds

One new BLM reason for deforestation that sounds ecologically benevolent is creating habitat for the sage-grouse, an increasingly scarce bird—and in the process demolishing the habitats of many more animal and plant species. “You have to look at the whole picture before you draw up a plan,” chides Sope.

Further, the shrubs in which the sage-grouse likes to breed, nest, forage and over-winter may take decades to establish themselves in devastated terrain. During that time, the BLM has to fend off competing weeds with fire, mowing, herbicides and other destructive methods.

One wonders how any birds will cope. The BLM’s Environmental Assessment assures us that leveling a forest is a “negligible” issue for migratory birds. While the chaining is underway, they simply fly away, the document says; when the noise is over and the forest is gone, the birds will “likely return.”

“To what?” asks Sope.

Meanwhile, tree-dwelling bats are on their own. Under the law, the BLM claims, it need only “consider” effects on them. In preparing the BLM’s court document, someone looked up “consider” in the dictionary and discovered it means “reflect on.” The BLM, according to the document, will contemplate the fate of the bats as it uproots trees, sets fires and applies herbicide.

Fire prevention is another BLM goal. We can all understand that eliminating a forest means it can’t catch fire. However, the extensive surface disturbance the bulldozers create while razing the trees has long encouraged vast swaths of highly flammable, fiercely invasive cheatgrass to spread throughout the West. Overgrazing, motorized recreation and mining have contributed to the spread of the invasive grass, unintentionally imported from Europe in the 1800s as a contaminant of straw packing material and other plant items, according to the US Geological Survey.

As a result, fires that historically occurred centuries apart in the pinyon-juniper forests, cared for by attentive tribal citizens, are now far more frequent. The BLM decries this frequency but does not acknowledge its own culpability for it. Nor does the agency appear to be pursuing multifaceted, systemic and continuously monitored remedies. Simply laying waste to the environment here and there is not supported by science, federal law or tradition.

“The Root Nation is in jeopardy,” warns Sope. “How long are we going to suffer? How long is the Earth Mother going to suffer?”

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