Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

How environmental group’s legal strategy has helped protect biodiversity in Nevada

Teihm's Buckwheat

Wade Vandervort

A dormant Tiehm’s Buckwheat plant at Silver Peak Range in Esmerelda County, Monday, Dec. 14, 2020.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed five lawsuits against federal government agencies in Nevada in 2021, spanning from a lack of protection for fish against oil drilling and fracking in central Nevada, to violations of the Endangered Species Act, to energy projects that encroached on Native land.

The center is a nonprofit organization that protects endangered species through legal action, filing two lawsuits in January, one in April, one in August and one in December. Nationwide, the center filed 81 lawsuits in 2021, said Patrick Donnelly, the center's Nevada state director.

It also had two litigation victories in Nevada, one in February and one in April, regarding sage-grouse protections in sagebrush habitats and a decision to put Nevada’s Tiehm’s buckwheat under the Endangered Species Act. The sage-grouse case, which closed in February, was filed in 2015, and the Tiehm’s buckwheat lawsuit, filed in September 2020, finished in April.

“It was validation for what we had been saying about Tiehm's buckwheat, so that was certainly a good feeling when that decision came down,” Donnelly said.

In the initial Tiehm’s lawsuit, the center requested the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the plant under the Endangered Species Act on an emergency basis in 2019. In 2020, it discovered approximately 40% of the buckwheat — 17,000 Tiehm’s buckwheat plants — was destroyed or removed on public land at Silver Peak Range in Esmerelda County. The species’ survival, the center’s press release states, was threatened by an open-pit lithium-boron mine and other mining-related activities.

The 2020 discovery sparked a renewed request for emergency protections under the Endangered Species Act. The center petitioned BLM to take additional action, like 24-hour security and fencing, to spare Tiehm’s buckwheat. In the center’s win, U.S. District of Nevada Judge James Mahan ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service must issue a listing decision for the buckwheat within 30 days. 

“The win was actually fairly consequential as far as a judge recognizing that extenuating circumstances can force the government to do exceptional things,” Donnelly said.

Dr. Naomi Fraga, a botanist who studies Tiehm's issues, said that the buckwheat is a good indication of Nevada’s biodiversity. 

“Now that a judge has ruled the Service must act, I feel they have no choice but to protect this plant under the Endangered Species Act,” Fraga said in a statement released by the center. “It clearly qualifies, and without those protections, it will be on a path to extinction.”

An official with the Fish and Wildlife Service says the department doesn’t comment in ongoing litigation.

Scott Lake, the only full-time Nevada staff attorney for the center, has worked most intensely on the December Dixie Meadows lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management for its approval of a geothermal energy project that the center claims may harm the Dixie Valley toad, a rare amphibian found only in Dixie Meadows. The center submitted a petition in 2017 to the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the toad under the Endangered Species Act.

BLM’s green light on this project would cause added damage to the nearby hot springs, which the center claims would dry up. BLM did not respond to an interview request regarding litigation by the time of publication. 

To the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, the springs — called Paumu —  are sacred and used for medicinal purposes. The projects would hurt the tribe, its culture and its history, according to the center and a statement from Cathi Tuni, Fallon Paiute Shoshone tribal chairwoman. 

“This location has long been recognized as being of vital significance to the tribe,” Tuni said in a statement. “We have a duty to protect the hot springs and its surroundings, and we will do so.”

Lake said species preservation issues often overlap with Natives’ interests.

“I want to make it very clear that I don't speak for tribal interests,” he said. “I think our interests here in Nevada in protecting biodiversity do tend to coincide with tribal interest because whether you call it protecting biodiversity or protecting the landscape, what the tribes consider important or sacred, it's really the same, especially when it comes to water. … I would say that a lot of my work does fit into that area of overlap. The Dixie Meadows (case) is one obvious example.”

These lawsuits are a means to an end, Donnelly said. While in an ideal world the species are protected — and the Fish and Wildlife Service has more funding to do so — other lawsuits will inevitably be filed in 2022 to protect Nevada’s flora and fauna, he said.

“The Biden administration, in my line of work, isn't turning out to be all that different from the Trump administration,” Donnelly said. “There's a lot to sue over. And realistically, there are more problems than there are attorneys.”