An Arizona tribe is suing the Interior Department for approving a lithium exploration project that its members say threatens a medicinal spring considered to be sacred.
The Hualapai Tribe filed a lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, arguing the agency violated federal law when it approved a proposal for a subsidiary of Arizona Lithium to drill more than 100 exploratory wells near the Cofer Hot Spring, despite the tribe’s objections.
“Despite repeated efforts by the Tribe to protect its sacred property, BLM ignored these harms and approved the Project,” attorneys for the Hualapai wrote in the lawsuit.
The legal brawl is yet another sign of the looming challenges around the rush to explore for and mine lithium — a key electric vehicle battery ingredient — in the arid Southwest, a region of the country that’s already been gripped with historic drought.
