Mining company looks for lithium near Ash Meadows refuge
The company’s search for lithium could lead to drilling near Ash Meadows, and conservationists worry that it could upend the fragile oasis ecosystem in the Nevada desert.
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The company’s search for lithium could lead to drilling near Ash Meadows, and conservationists worry that it could upend the fragile oasis ecosystem in the Nevada desert.
A mineral exploration company hopes to discover lithium, a necessary component of rechargeable batteries, on a small patch of land in Nye County, Nev. But the operation could decimate a neighboring wildlife refuge with one miscalculation.
Conservationists argue that the proposed exploratory drilling could devastate the springs in Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge and threaten endangered species.
"This small, iridescent blue-or-green fish swims in the hot waters of an inhospitable fishbowl made of rock in a Nevada section of Death Valley National Park, where it somehow got trapped thousands of years ago."
The Devils Hole pupfish's natural habitat is a single water-filled hole in a cave in the Nevada desert. Its numbers at one point dwindled to just 35 animals. How does it manage to survive?