The hastily approved project went forward without comment from the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe. Image credit: Russel Albert Daniels / High Country News Feb. 18, 2021 From the print edition
Editor’s note: In April, the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone tribal council voted unanimously to withdraw the tribe from its agreement with Lithium Nevada, based on a petition from tribal members.
In the Great Basin Desert of northern Nevada and southern Oregon, Thacker pass cuts a wide swath of sagebrush and bunch grasses between narrow ribbons of mountain ranges. The region is a caldera a collapsed volcano that formed an ancient lakebed. For millennia, Indigenous peoples used the verdant valley as a pathway between their winter and summer homes. Today, the Fort McDermitt Paiute Shoshone Tribe’s reservation is located nearby, along with the small agricultural community of Orovada, clusters of buildings surrounded by circular green fields of alfal