Peehee Mu’huh (aka Thacker Pass) is a sacred site to the Paiute-Shoshone.
Two massacres have taken place in Thacker Pass (one in 1865 and another pre-colonization). The land is still used today for ceremonies, traditional hunting and gathering, and educating young Native people. The mine is destroying this unceeded land and the possibility for these traditional uses.
Read more about the land’s sacredness and Lithium America’s involvement in human-rights violations in Argentina.
Peehee Mu’huh is critical wildlife habitat for threatened, endangered, and endemic species.
This includes the greater sage-grouse, pronghorn antelope, Lahontan cutthroat trout, golden eagles, Crosby’s buckwheat, and old-growth sagebrush habitat. The mine will destroy all of this.
Read more about wildlife and habitat impacts.
Thacker Pass is one of the few remote, quiet, dark places left in the lower 48.
There are few truly remote places left in the United States, and almost none in the lower 48 states. We have only recently begun to value truly dark skies (see International Dark Sky Parks) and quiet places (see Quiet Parks International). Thacker Pass is one of few places left where you can experience deep quiet and dark skies with amazing views of the stars and the milky way. The mine project will destroy that.