May 2025 A Rock in a Hard Place: The Lithium Conundrum in Nevada

Want cleaner energy? With current technology, we’ll need a lot of lithium, but lithium mining can have harmful consequences.
A radio story about how hard it is to create a radio story about such a difficult topic; a serious tale told with a sense of humor. Music from Blue Dot Sessions.
FIRST AIRED: MAY 12, 2025
Image Credit: Ari Epstein
Transcript
1) Intro: [1:08]
[MUSIC: sad intro/background music]
[SFX: door to beanbag room swings open]
Katelyn: Hey, Ramona. I haven’t seen you for a while… wait, it’s 3 am, how long have you been lying in that beanbag?
Ramona: grrrrr
Katelyn: Gosh, you look awful, AND you have your sad music playing? What’s going on?
[FADE MUSIC LOWER]
Ramona: mhrrrr
Katelyn: What’s this all over the walls?
[SFX: peeling sticky note off wall]
Katelyn: sticky notes? What are you doing here?
Ramona: arrrggghhh
[SFX: rolling over in beanbag]
Katelyn: Hey, stop it. You need to get up, move, DO SOMETHING. What’s wrong with you?
Ramona: It’s this class, Katelyn. I should have dropped it when I could.
Katelyn: What class?
Ramona: Terrascope Radio. I think I told you. We‘re trying to tell this story about lithium mining.
Katelyn: Ok, and?
Ramona: My classmates and I have put together like a million versions, with different stories and different people speaking but it’s just not working. Ahhr, let me just play this for you. This was our first script version, Rowan is narrating this one.
[SFX: rolling in beanbag, typing something and pressing “enter”]
[SFX: click sound]
2) Beginning of a documentary about lithium mining in Nevada [2:16]
____________________________________________________________________________
[PLAY: RenoMusicianInterview_YrBLAK_0258.wav]
[FADE TO BED]
Rowan: Nevada is home to many deposits of minerals, including gold, silver, and copper, making it historically a very attractive mining territory. Now, the state is in the grips of the Gray Rush – a massive push for a mineral found in a wide variety of products from batteries to medication. A mineral that is critical to the worldwide transition to cleaner energy…
Lithium.
[FADE IN starting right before “lithium” – SaltyStepsAmbi_YrBLAK_0247.wav]
Rowan: Here, on top of a massive pile of salt and mining byproducts overlooking a flat desert landscape checkered in ponds of blue and green…[cut off here]
____________________________________________________________________________
[SFX: click sound]
Katelyn: Why did you stop it?
Ramona: I can’t listen to this. It’s all too general, like you could have looked that up. There is no story in this piece.
Katelyn: I thought it sounded fine, but sure, I see how this can start to get boring if it went on for much longer. Personally, I don’t really care about this topic, but there’s gotta be a way you could make it into more of an engaging story for people who actually do care. Was there any particular story that stood out to you?
Ramona: Actually, there was. *hehehe* pupfish. Wait, my classmates, Jackson and Victoria, put this one together… here it is!
[SFX: click]
____________________________________________________________________________
3) Pupfish [5:43]
[AMBI: walking, footsteps]
[FADE OUT AMBI]
Victoria: So I’m in Ash Meadows, a wildlife refuge just east of Death Valley, along the border of Nevada and California. I’m here on a group tour with Mason Voehl [veil], executive director of Amargosa Conservancy– an organization dedicated to protecting the natural beauty of Ash Meadows.
[AMBI: wind and grass rustling]
[FADE IN on “winding”, FADE OUT on “trees”]
Victoria: So far I’ve seen winding, prickly stalks of yellow grass, grey leafless ash trees, and a serene turquoise spring. But this next stop, just outside of Ash Meadows, is a little different. In the distance I see a long grey chain-link fence.
[MUSIC: suspenseful]
[OPTION: Service Road 237, Trailhead (link))]
Victoria: As we get closer, I see that it’s topped with rusty barbed wire. A sign warns us that the area behind the fence is under video monitoring. A part of the desert…. Under video surveillance?!
[OPTION: Katelyn saying “whoa”]
Victoria: Mason led us into the viewing area– a dirt path with fenced-in walls and a ceiling. At the end of the path, I looked between the black bars and saw what all the security was for: a deep, narrow cave in the ground
[MUSIC: something more contemplative, but with energy]
[OPTION: Service Road 237 (Thin Fog version), Trailhead (link)]
[OPTION: Unakite, Graniteworks (link)] #more energy, but also denser…
Jackson: Mason explained that this cave, Devils Hole, was no ordinary cave. About fifteen feet down, there’s an oxygen-deficient pool that gets less than six hours of sunlight a day. Most fish wouldn’t be able to survive there, but there’s like this superfish, the Devils Hole pupfish, that can! In fact, it’s their only habitat. And as of spring 2025, there are just a few dozen of these fish left in the wild.
Jackson: In that pool, there’s an algae covered platform that protrudes from the wall. It’s where the pupfish lay their eggs and breed. But as resilient as these pupfish are, that shelf is their key weakness. That shelf is submerged in only two feet of water, and as Mason puts it,
[ACT: 012LAV_dr2, 9:23-9:27
“If the water in the Devils Hole falls below that shelf and that shelf dries out, that’s game over.”
]
Jackson: Not only that, Mason explains, there’s a long history of locals who have wanted these pupfish to die.
[ACT: 012LAV_dr2, 10:20-10:28
“Back in the 1960s, 1970s. Ash Meadows, before it was a wildlife refuge, actually supported a lot of agriculture.”
]
Victoria: Farmers who pumped groundwater out of the well dropped the water level of Devil’s hole to lethal levels. The National Park Service sued the farmers, and it went all the way to the Supreme Court. Long story short, the protection of the pupfish won.
Jackson: After that, every time a nearby farmer or rancher sent in an application to use groundwater in the area, the state of Nevada would stringently check how much it would impact the water in the Devil’s Hole.
Victoria: And these limits made the local residents angry…
[ACT: 012_LAVdr2_D
“The town of Amargosa Valley is just west of us. This basically was, in some ways, a death nail on their ability to actually grow as a community. Again, you can’t do anything out here without water.
There was a time where you would drive around Amargosa Valley in this area, and you’d see bumper stickers that said either kill the pupfish or save the pupfish. I mean, it’s that polarizing.”
]
Jackson: Ranchers would come to Devil’s Hole with their guns and shoot into the cave. Over time, security intensified, until it became the intimidating fenced-in area we’re standing in now.
[AMBI: something to bring us back to the setting]
Victoria: But in summer 2023, something strange happened: the local residents and the pupfish found themselves united against a common enemy.
Jackson: The new threat was a mining company. They wanted to explore the area near Ash Meadows, drilling boreholes and looking for lithium, hoping to start a new mine if they struck it rich.
Victoria: This set off alarm bells for Mason and his colleagues at the Amargosa Conservancy. Drilling so close to the Ash Meadows area could definitely harm the Devils Hole pupfish. So Mason started to rally as much support as he could.
Jackson: But he needed the support of the local community – a community that used to hate the pupfish.
[ACT: 000_031203_D
Nye County, which we’re in, is one of the most aggressively libertarian counties in the United States. That is not an exaggeration. Me and my colleagues were called ecoterrorists
We went to the commission, though, and said, Look, local towns are worried about this. We’re worried about it. And Nye County joined us.
]
Jackson: The local residents knew that this mine was threatening their water supply. And because of that, Mason was able to bridge the massive political divide and form an alliance to stop the mine. Together, they sent a letter of opposition to the BLM– that’s the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all mining on federal land. Then they filed a lawsuit. Their case was that the drilling would threaten the extinction of the Devil’s Hole pupfish.
Victoria: [speak quickly] Mason told us it was this frantic time. It was constantly all hands on deck. The deadline was getting close. The drill rigs were already on site, drilling was set to start in 48 hours and everyone was anxious:
[ACT: 000_31203_D
“They were getting set up and we were going: “what do we do”?
]
[BUILD UP music from bed level, then STOP music abruptly after “what do we do?”]
[OPTION – Pewter Lamp, Desjardins (link)]
[PAUSE for :03]
[ACT: 000_031203_D: BLM did the right thing and pulled their permit at like 10 pm on a Wednesday night saying yeah we agree with you, we aren’t permitting the drilling.
But this was sort of like a wake up call for the entire community. We went, how was this even possible, that a project this bad, this close to the refuge, almost happened? And it’s because, again, we never saw this threat coming. We have to protect the groundwater flowing into Ash Meadows otherwise this whole… national wildlife refuge status doesn’t mean anything.
]
Jackson: The groundwater… that both pupfish and people depend on.
____________________________________________________________________________
Transition: [1:01]
[SFX: click]
Katelyn: Okay so, what’s wrong with this one?
Ramona: It’s, I mean it’s a good story, I like listening to it, but it only kind of touches upon the larger problem with this whole situation. Thing is, if Mason and others weren’t keeping tabs on the situation, people might not have found out that they were starting to drill there until it was too late. AND if not for the pupfish, THEY WOULD HAVE HAD NO SAY IN THE MINE BEING THERE.
Katelyn: I think you might be being dramatic.
Ramona: Am I?
Katelyn: What I do agree with you on is that your story needs way more background information. Like, what do you mean when you say communities have no input? I’m no expert, but I would imagine that there are policies in place for that.
Ramona: Well, kind of. I am also not an expert. But, umm, we talked to Kassandra Lisenbee, outreach director at the Great Basin Resource Watch, explained this to us.
Katelyn: The Great Basin Resource Watch?
Ramona: They’re a non-governmental organization from Reno, Nevada. Their goal is basically to protect the natural resources and communities from mining impacts. Ohh, here’s the sound. She explains it WAY better than I could.
[SFX: after “Nevada”, typing/clicking in the background]
____________________________________________________________________________
4) Policy Piece [2:00]
[ACT: Kassandra – Nevada Public Lands2.wav
“Nevada here is 80% public lands. Mining on public lands actually operates under the 1872 federal mining law, so it’s about 153-ish years old at this point, um it was really written to promote westward expansion…Because of that, mining gets a lot of perks. They are considered the highest and best use of public lands and so a lot of regulators and communities feel like they don’t have a right to say no to a lot of mining projects.”
“We have 29 different reservations here in Nevada. A study from Morgan Stanley on the energy transition shows most of the minerals that people will want to pull out to support the energy transition are within 35 miles of Native American reservations. So. Who’s paying the price of these mines?”
]
[SFX: click]
____________________________________________________________________________
Katelyn: It sounds like the mining companies have the better end of the deal. So what? They just get to come in and do whatever they want with the land? Why don’t you make your piece an exposé about that?
Ramona: Hmm, I don’t know. I feel like that’s not particularly fair, or a good story to tell. It’s not like the mining companies are in an easy spot, either.
Ramona: We met this geologist – Randal Burns – he works for Lithium Americas at a planned lithium operation called Thacker Pass. Talking to him, [small pause] it was clear that he cares about mining ethically. You know, there is effort in mining companies to minimize the ways the process affects land and water. Here, take a listen to this story Jordan narrated…
____________________________________________________________________________
5) Mining Perspective [2:20]
[ACT: randal-like-i-said-good-and-bad-mines.wav
“I have seen legacy issues. The previous mine I worked at was actively dealing with legacy issues. Very aware about how bad it could be”
Jordan: Having seen issues with other mines, Randal looked for a company that would CARE about their environmental impacts.
Jordan: One issue mining operations face deals with the leftover materials, called tailings, which are usually wet and get left onsite in dams. If the dams fail, acid from the tailings can seep into the ground and release other, potentially harmful minerals, contaminating the groundwater and soil. Lithium Americas solves this by neutralizing these tailings and making them dry.
[ACT: randal-filter-tailings.mp3
“Later in the process, filter tailings, neutralized it’s like a tile, no risk for dam failure. From an environmental standpoint this is a really good place to be for a mine.”
]
Jordan: Lithium Americas has definitely thought about the damage to land and water. While interviewing Randal out in the mountains near the proposed mine site, he talked about the impacts of Thacker Pass.
[ACT: Randal-everything-has-an-impact.mp3
As far as mine projects go, it’s pretty remote, water table’s not impacted, building here. Not displacing people, many other things, anything you do has an impact: clear cutting ground for corn, housing, for what trade off? Clear cutting ground:it’s for natural resources. If you can’t grow it you have to mine it.
]
____________________________________________________________________________
Transition: [1:09]
Ramona: You see what I’m saying, though. Imagine putting in all this effort to make the mining operation as good as possible, under pressure from the media, hated by some members of the community. [sigh] That can’t be easy.
Katelyn: I see. So what, the mining companies aren’t the bad guys? I guess I just kinda assumed they were the ones causing harm.
Ramona: Well, mining is an invasive process. That’s a fact. But there’s also more to it and you can’t just make a piece about how mining companies are evil.
Katelyn: Hmm okay, makes sense. Oh, oh, oh. I have an idea. What do you think about this for your piece: The inside scoop on what it’s like being in the lithium industry and having people hate you.
Ramona: Actually, that might be interesting. But it also misses the point a little. If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to include the voices of people in the impacted communities, which are a crucial part of the story.
Katelyn: Is that really important to have? Do you need to put those people in your story?
Ramona: That is not up for debate. You should have been there. These lithium mines have a real impact on people’s livelihoods. I mean, these are people’s homes we’re talking about, their communities.
Katelyn: Sorry, I didn’t realize.
Ramona: No, no, I mean, I didn’t realize either until I went to Nevada. Their stories were so compelling, I was in awe just listening to them speak. There’s no way we can leave them out of the piece.
Ramona: I should really play you some of them. My classmates, Suhaila and Elsa tried to put them together, but it felt [pause] it felt like what we produced wasn’t doing them justice.
Ramona: [sharp exhale] Anyways, give it a listen.
____________________________________________________________________________
6) Fermina + Edward + Community Impact [4:02]
Suhaila: So what is the impact of mining? From the speakers we listened to and people we talked to on the streets in Nevada we learned it’s land and it’s water but it’s also a struggle of trust like Edward Bartel, a rancher near Thacker Pass describes:
[ACT: Edward 5.8.wav
“A big part of our ranch is out near the mine site and they’re going to draw down the water table underneath our ranch out there and affect springs and stock watering locations…When they test pumped their production well, after 2.5 days it had already started showing a drawdown on our stock water well There’s a direct connection, not disputable.”
]
[ACT: Edward 5.8.wav (continued)
“Obviously we don’t trust the mines in terms of their promises. If they had someone in there acting in good faith it’s gonna be hard to tell that. And something I would like to see independent monitoring – to have something like the usgs come out so we have some degree of comfort that it’s not just the fox guarding the hen house”
]
Elsa: And it’s a struggle of protecting histories and futures which Fermina Stephens, Director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project which works to protect the human rights and treaty rights of the Western Shoshone people explains:
[ACT: Fermina-laws+bad-guys.wav
One of the things that need to be changed is the law, the policy that actually gives us equal leverage, because right now there’s nothing, absolutely nothing out there, that protects our culture or our spirituality and our culture and our spirituality is one with the environment and biodiversity. Who we are as a people is interlinked with everything that’s being destroyed, and so the laws need to change for the betterment of everybody, because those are the things that are important not just to indigenous peoples but to all peoples because those are our life sources that need to be protected.
]
Elsa: It’s not just outdated laws, this is also what some people believe. 10
[ACT: Fermina-laws+bad-guys.wav:
“When we were talking to the guy with the transition coalition and someone asked him about the destruction to all the indigenous people and their culture. HE was like, “well I’m trying to save the planet for my future generations, so that’s more important than these peoples’ culture” so right there you know, and it’s been said before.
]
5.8 NIMBY:impact_4.wav (All clips below included in this file)
Suhaila: And mining creates a point of divide among communities and families like Kassandra sums up:
[ACT: Kassandra – ½ family.wav
“I’m a pretty normal Nevada girl, half my family works in mining and half my family hates mining”
]
Suhaila: And like Sara in Reno:
Just-dont-talk-about-it.wav “Yeah my dad is in mining while he’s my dad and I love him but I’m really against it chemicals bad
Elsa: And yet, for others, mining is their livelihood.
Miner lives.wav (both acts included in this file)
[ACT: Adam – No school go to mining.wav
“My name is Adam Seary, supervisor for silver peak…worked in mining for 15 years…yeah if you’re not going to school to further your education and higher up roles and you’re single and young, mining is a good start.”
]
[ACT: Tom – Lived in Reno 50 yrs.wav + Tom – Family in Mining.wav
“My name is Tom, I’ve lived in Reno my whole life, 40 years…do you have family members that are miners? Oh yeah numerous, grew up here my whole life, a lot of my friends work for the mines”
]
Suhaila: But one thing people can agree on is:
[ACT: Kassandra – Grow or Mine.wav
“If you can’t grow it, you gotta mine it”
]
____________________________________________________________________________
7) Reflection + Conclusion 😀[3:00]
Katelyn: Wow, okay, that was powerful. You definitely need to include some of those clips in your piece.
Ramona: I know! And interestingly everyone recognizes the seemingly obvious fact that some of the materials we need in today’s age, like lithium, we can only get it through mining. There is really just no other way to get it.
Katelyn: If there’s no other way to get it, do we even need to get it at all? How much do we really need lithium?
Ramona: Huh, you want your phone and laptop to have a battery? Well, you probably want lithium for it. [small pause] I’ll do you one better. Do you want us to transition away from fossil fuels to more renewable energy and electrify transportation? Well, you heard what we might lose in the process.
Katelyn: Ugh this hurts my head. I thought we were solving a problem by moving toward renewable energy, but we are just creating another in its place.
Ramona: I know. I mean, there are some alternatives to lithium batteries being developed, but right now, it seems we need the lithium.
Conclusion
[SFX: dropping headphones on table]
Katelyn:… Wow. So we need lithium to have a future, but the only way to get it is by mining, which hurts the environment and is regulated in Nevada by some outdated, loose law from the 1870s. Yeah, and anyone living near these mines are out of luck unless they happen to have pupfish in their backyard. And I really want to be mad at the miners right now, but it’s also their livelihood. I don’t know who to be mad at! I’m so confused! When did I start caring about lithium mining??
Ramona: Mhm, you see how I feel. Now try to make that mess into a story.
Katelyn: So your piece should be about… the…um… I don’t know.
Both: (Sigh)
Ramona: Wanna join me on the beanbag?
[MUSIC: Vernouillet, The Sweet Hots (link) #more playful, goofy
OR
MUSIC: Convoy Lines (1 min version), Truck Stop (link)] #more groovy
[BED LEVEL]
8) Acknowledgements [1:01]
Elsa: This story was produced by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2025 Terrascope Radio class. Jackson Dryg, Ramona Poreitere, Katelyn Battacharia, Jordan Prawira, Elsa Deshmukh, Suhaila Cotton, Victoria Pham, and Rowan Wergeland. Terrascope Radio is a class developed by MIT Terrascope, a first year learning community in collaboration with the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program. Thank you to Terrascope director David McGee, community coordinators Michelle Contos, and Em Schule, Radio Instructor Ari Epstein, and Undergraduate Teaching Fellow Lien Nguyen.
We would also like to thank the organizations who were gracious enough to educate us about this topic, the Great Basin Resource Watch, the Western Shoshone Defense Project, the Nevada Museum of Art, and the folks at Lithium Americas Technical Center and Albemarle’s Silver Peak operation.
Music provided by Blue Dot Sessions. Guitar playing by Reno musician Tommy Come Up
9) Extra Scene [0:07]
[FADE OUT music]
[SFX: knock on door]
Lien: Hey, you two good? What’s this all over the walls?
Lien: Guys? GUYS?