Last week, a U.S. District Court judge extended a July restraining order that temporarily freezes exploratory drilling for a potential lithium mine in Mohave County, less than two months after a September hearing ended.
Judge Diane Humetewa, the first Native American woman and enrolled tribal member to serve as a federal judge, handed down the ruling last Tuesday.
“So now that we’ve obtained the preliminary injunction, that means that they won’t be able to do any of the ground-disturbing work, including drilling for the duration of this case,” said Laura Berglan, senior attorney for Earthjustice. “The next thing that we’ll do is send out a schedule, motions for summary judgment. It’ll be papers and oral arguments with the attorneys from here on out.”
She represents the Hualapai Tribe in its suit against the Interior Department and Bureau of Land Management over the Big Sandy Lithium Project in Wikieup. The 2,300-member tribe has opposed it since 2019.
They’ve argued, alongside the Western Mining Action Project, that the U.S. government has violated the National Historic Preservation Act and National Environmental Policy Act by wrongfully approving the plan that could permanently damage culturally significant lands and water around that site.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes filed an amicus brief backing the tribe, claiming that BLM has failed to take “a hard look” at how this project can potentially impact the state’s finite groundwater.
The Australian-owned Arizona Lithium and Navajo Transitional Energy Company are partners. They planned to drill 131 boreholes and see if there’s enough high-grade lithium in the ground to mine in the future. But Hualapais have worried about the possible harms to Ha’Kamwe’, a nearby sacred warm spring.
Humetewa agreed.
She wrote the plantiffs “raised credible concerns” that drilling “was likely to imminently threaten the aquifer feeding Ha’Kamwe’s water, causing irreparable harm.” They added “sufficiently serious questions” about whether BLM complied with the National Historic Preservation Act, so the “balance of equities and public interest tipped in [their] favor.”
“I think that just goes to support the tribe in our beliefs that this is something worth protecting,” said Ka-Voka Jackson, director for the tribe’s Department of Cultural Resources. “The court is honoring that with this ruling. I know other tribes have not been so lucky. We’re very happy we can protect Ha’Kamwe’ for the time being.”
Requests for comment from Arizona Lithium and its attorneys went unanswered.
In a statement, Hualapai Chairman Duane Clarke shared “a huge sense of relief” after the decision, adding “but we know this is not the end of the story.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Laura Berglan's name.
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