There is no easy answer in the debate over lithium mining — and either way is a difficult environmental trade-off
The 2024 South Dakota Legislature ultimately failed to pass a bill (HB 1043) which would have begun to regulate and tax lithium mining, which is seen as an emerging environmental threat in the Black Hills.
The bill, which would have imposed modest 5 percent tax on net profits from lithium mining, passed the House but repeatedly failed to get the required two-thirds vote in the Senate, where the numbers were complicated by the cancer-related absence of Sen. Mike Diedrich and by Gov. Noem’s refusal to appoint a replacement for disgraced Sen. Jessica Castleberry while she awaited an advisory opinion from the South Dakota Supreme Court about what constitutes a conflict of interest for state legislators.
Interestingly, the Senate’s four Democrats were instrumental in killing HB 1043. They voted against it in a show of solidarity with Sen. Shawn Bordeaux from the Rosebud Reservation, who took a firm position against any further mining in the Black Hills. Had the Democrats supported limited regulation of lithium mining, the bill would have passed. Instead, this new environmental threat will remain completely unregulated for at least one more year.
Mining interests also opposed the bill, complaining that it would discourage any prospecting for lithium, which apparently sells for about 49 cents an ounce, compared to gold, which brings around $2,000 per ounce.
Currently, America’s one functioning lithium mine is in the high desert of Nevada. There is speculation that the mineral can be gleaned from tailings piles at sand and gravel operations where the land has already been disturbed. We reportedly get close to 90 percent of our lithium from Argentina and Chile, where it is also mined in the high desert.
Since much of the American demand for lithium relates to electric vehicle (EV) batteries, the subsidies for EV purchases contained in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) could increase our demand for lithium drastically in the next few years. On the other hand, new technologies in this fast-changing field, including the manufacture of smaller EV batteries and an increase in battery recycling, could reduce that exploding demand.
The greatest environmental concern with an exploding lithium boom concerns the huge amounts of water that the mining requires, particularly in desert regions where water supplies are already dwindling. Argentine law requires consultation with Native communities before mining begins, but locals are struggling to enforce that law as multinational corporations pressure the government to allow them to ravage the earth. In the Jujuy province of northern Argentina, indigenous activists have established protest encampments in an effort to slow or stop lithium mining, resulting in at least one violent showdown with the police.
When we consider the protests (as illustrated by the photo above from the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance Facebook page) that we have encountered over the last 50 years over uranium and gold mining in the Black Hills, and the endearing slogan that “the Black Hills are not for sale,” our sympathies should lie with the indigenous protesters in northern Argentina. At the same time, our environmental sensibilities tell us that we should be purchasing more electric vehicles. There is a difficult environmental trade-off in all such decisions.
Information about the lithium controversy in Argentina was gleaned from an article by Amelia Rayno in the February-March issue of Progressive Magazine.
Jay Davis is a retired Rapid City attorney
