U.S. Lithium Mining Projects Projected to Reach 19 by 2030, Including Sites on Tribal Lands

Mining companies have found lithium in South Dakota’s Black Hills, a region considered hallowed ground by the Lakota Sioux tribe where gold and uranium drew drillers years ago. Inside Climate News reported this development in collaboration with Columbia Journalism Investigations.

In southwest Nevada, Joe Kennedy of the Timbisha Shoshone tribe observed a sacred stream fade after a lithium-mining company began drilling there.

The Timbisha Shoshone tribe also fought to prevent a second company from boring into the aquifer beneath its reservation. In western Arizona, Brandon Siewiyumptewa of the Hualapai Tribe witnessed fissures crack open the earth and drain a spring sacred to his people after another mining company drilled into the land.

The Hualapai Tribe had warned that the land in western Arizona would be too fragile to touch.

At least six new mining projects are projected to extract lithium from American soil by 2030, with another 13 mining projects to soon follow, mostly in the dry Southwest. U.S. , according to a unique database compiled by Columbia Journalism Investigations and Inside Climate News using public records and corporate filings accessed through S&P Global.

Columbia Journalism Investigations and Inside Climate News identified roughly 540 proposed lithium mines worldwide, with the dataset identifying operators and shareholders behind them. U.S. lithium’s global market share rising from less than 1 percent today to as high as 8 percent in the next five years.