The lawsuit challenging Lithium Americas’ project was filed by a Nevada rancher Feb. Groundwater pumping associated with the mine will reduce or eliminate flows to the springs that support the snails, it says. They have survived in isolated springs, which are remnants of extensive waterways that have covered what is now dry land only to recede many times over the last 2 million years, the petition said. The snail’s shell is less than 2-millimeters (.08-inch) tall, according to the petition, which notes by comparison a U.S. “We have a responsibility as a society to avoid wreaking ecological havoc as we shift to renewable technologies.” he said. Molvar, a wildlife biologist, agrees the nation must “transition from the dirty fossil fuels that are responsible for climate change” but not by mining in sensitive habitats. “Federal land managers put this aquatic snail in the crosshairs of extinction by hastily approving large-scale lithium mining at Thacker Pass,” said Erik Molvar, executive director of the Idaho-based group.įight over dead reporter's sources stalls before Vegas judge Other threats to the snail’s survival include livestock grazing, road construction and climate change, the petition said. It says the biggest threat to the snail’s survival is disruption of groundwater flows as a result of the 370-foot-deep (113-meter), open-pit mine that the Bureau of Land Management approved last year and is currently being challenged in U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service for the Kings River pyrg, a springsnail found in 13 isolated springs around Thacker Pass 200 miles (321 kilometers) northeast of Reno. The Western Watersheds Project filed the listing petition last week with the U.S. (AP) - Conservationists are seeking Endangered Species Act protection for a tiny snail half the size of a pea that is known to exist only in high-desert springs near a huge lithium mine planned in Nevada along the Oregon state line.

Snail pictures