This investigation was reported in collaboration between Inside Climate News and Columbia Journalism Investigations.
BLACK HILLS, S.D.—Trina Lone Hill wasn’t surprised that mining companies had found lithium in South Dakota’s Black Hills. Gold and uranium had drawn drillers to the Lakota Sioux tribe’s hallowed ground in these western highlands years ago. Now, with this new mineral powering the global green-energy transition, the tribe’s historic preservation officer had one thought: “Here we go again.”
About 1,000 miles away in southwest Nevada, Joe Kennedy, of the Timbisha Shoshone tribe, watched a sacred stream fade after a lithium-mining company began drilling in search of the mineral—all while his tribe fought to prevent a second company from boring into the aquifer beneath its reservation.
And in western Arizona, Brandon Siewiyumptewa, of the Hualapai Tribe, witnessed fissures crack open the earth and drain a spring sacred to his people after another mining company had drilled into land they warned would be too fragile to touch.
Scenes like these have played out across the country as the U.S. ramps up production of lithium—a key metal for electric vehicle batteries. By 2030, at least six new mining projects are projected to extract lithium from American soil and another 13 will soon follow—mostly in the dry Southwest. That’s a huge jump from the single one currently in operation. And it’s just a fifth of the more than 100 projects to which companies have staked claims, according to a unique database compiled by Columbia Journalism Investigations (CJI) and Inside Climate News (ICN).
