Thacker Pass
Community Connections

Lithium is a light, versatile metal used in most rechargeable electronics like mobile phones, laptops, and electric vehicles. See our Clean Energy page for more details.

Lithium Americas has contracted Sawtooth Mining, a subsidiary of the North American Coal Corporation (NACCO), to mine the lithium at Thacker Pass in a relatively simple process. This mining partnership will provide jobs at Thacker Pass to those who have been affected by the downturn in coal production. The sedimentary-clay deposit at Thacker pass requires similar mining techniques to many coal deposits.

In block mining, once one block is mined to the bottom, mining will move to the next block while backfilling begins in the previously mined area. This allows us to reclaim the land quickly while mining still occurs. Only a small portion of the overall pit will be exposed at any given time during operations, and the entire pit will be backfilled at the end of the mine life. The backfilled pit would then be capped with topsoil and revegetated with native species.

Sawtooth Mining has over 60 years of surface mining experience and currently operate eight surface mines in similar deposits and manage reclamation for over 200,000 acres under regulatory permits. Their extensive reclamation history has earned them over 88 federal and state awards in the last 30 years, which includes reclaiming includes over 61,000 acres of land, reconstructing over 53 miles of streams and over 1,340 acres of wetlands and planted over 8.6 million trees.

Health and safety excellence is one of our core principles, and we seek to prevent, minimize and manage occupational health and safety risks for our employees, contractors and the communities in which we operate.

We will continue to focus on health and safety as we transition from feasibility and permitting to construction and mining at Thacker Pass. This will include a formal training process and updating policies, procedures and risk assessments as identified by our company’s board-level Health, Safety, Environment and Sustainability Committee. The Committee’s mandate is to support employees and contractors to maintain their health, safety and wellbeing.

In 2019, we entered into a mine design, consulting and mining operations agreement with North American Coal, who will have exclusive responsibility for the design, construction, operation, maintenance, mining and mine closure services for Thacker Pass. They have over 60 years of surface mining experience and currently operate eight surface mines in similar deposits. They have strong safety records, one of the top five surface mine operators as of April 2021, ranked by five-year average total incident rate.

Safety performance at Thacker Pass will be reported in Lithium Americas’ sustainability report.

Nevada is home to abundant lithium resources and a talented workforce.

Since early exploration work began in 2008 at Thacker Pass, more than $100 million has been invested in Nevada, including over $8 million in environmental and cultural studies to support permitting and project planning. This effort was essential to ensure that our operations can optimize lithium yield while minimizing potential effects on natural resources in the area.

The Thacker Pass deposit is the largest and highest-grade known sedimentary lithium deposit in the United States. This is a remarkable asset for America. We are committed to responsibly mining the lithium deposit for the benefit of Nevada and the United States.

Our company shares Nevadans’ respect for the environment and commitment to community.

Lithium Nevada is a 100%-owned subsidiary of Lithium Americas with its office in Reno. In addition, the Company also owns and operates a processing test facility in Reno, designed to carry out metallurgical testwork to make our future processing plant as efficient and effective as possible. To date, the facility has produced over 20,000 kg of lithium sulphate solution.

The Thacker Pass project is expected to provide substantial economic benefits to the United States at the local, state and national levels, including:

• Direct employment of 1,000 good-paying jobs during the two-year construction period (Phase 1),
• Direct employment of 300 good-paying permanent positions during the 46-year operating period,
• Several hundred indirect jobs with suppliers of products and services to support mine construction and operations,
• Over $1 billion of capital investment on a combined basis for both Phases 1 and 2 including sustaining capital, and
• Corporate tax payments to the federal and state governments totaling approximately $6.7 billion over the 46-year operating period (based on a price of US$12,000/t of Li2CO3 and applicable tax laws currently in effect).

Humboldt County will directly benefit from government support for road maintenance, education, safety and other public services.

Lithium Americas is committed to investing in Nevada. We strive to improve our communities through direct investments that increase the quality of life and serve our neighbors. We will be providing Nevadans with expected improvements to local and regional infrastructure as well as community investments.

We are committed to building capacity in the local communities through new training and skills development programs, developed with the aim of maximizing local employment.

A BuildNV Core Construction Training Program in Humboldt County was launched in late-2020 by community members from Fort McDermitt, McDermitt and Orovada. The 80-hour program is designed to train workers in construction, building maintenance, related trades in our communities and provide career technical education, helping to provide skills training that addresses a current gap in Nevada’s workforce. The Fort McDermitt Tribe kindly offered the use of their Tribal student center and gymnasium to hold classroom instruction and conduct online testing. We collaborated with Great Basin College (GBC), Winnemucca campus and Native Workforce Development of the Inter-Tribal Council of Nevada (ITCN), to provide computers, software and online access to students. GBC generously donated 10 desktop computers to the Fort McDermitt Tribe.

We are committed to investing in our community and maintaining the existing high-quality of life.

In 2017, Lithium Americas partnered with the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation (UNR Foundation) and established the Great Basin Sagebrush Restoration Fund (GBSR Fund), to advance research and development towards improved, cost-effective restoration of sagebrush rangelands. Since then, several companies with operations in Nevada, including Nevada Gold Mines, Hecla, Kinross and the United States Bureau of Land Management, have made funding commitments and the GBSR Fund is now the largest sagebrush restoration fund in the United States.

Thacker Pass is a project founded on nearly 10 years of environmental baseline data collection that was thoroughly analyzed by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management through an Environmental Impact Statement.

Since early exploration work began in 2008 at Thacker Pass, more than $100 million has been invested in Nevada, including over $8 million in environmental and cultural studies to support permitting and project planning. This effort was to ensure that our operations can minimize potential effects on natural resources in the area.

Comprehensive plans to mitigate potential impacts to wildlife, water and air have been developed, and advanced revegetation technologies have been developed through funding of the Great Basin Sagebrush Restoration Fund, established in 2017 with the University of Nevada at Reno.

We are committed to environmental stewardship and will meet or exceed all state and federal requirements during construction, operation and reclamation. We recognize that the success of our operations must be underpinned by our commitment to responsible and sustainable business practices, as outlined in our 2019 Sustainability Report.

In 2019, we entered into a mine design, consulting and mining operations agreement with North American Coal, who will have exclusive responsibility for the design, construction, operation, maintenance, mining and mine closure services for Thacker Pass. They have over 60 years of surface mining experience and currently operate eight surface mines in similar deposits. They have strong safety records (one of the top five surface mine operators as of April 2021, ranked by five-year average total incident rate) and manage reclamation for over 200,000 acres under regulatory permits. Their extensive reclamation history has earned them over 88 federal and state awards in the last 30 years, which includes reclaiming includes over 61,000 acres of land, reconstructing over 53 miles of streams and over 1,340 acres of wetlands and planted over 8.6 million trees.

“We believe that our focus on developing and maintaining strong relationships with people and communities, keeping everyone safe and operating in an environmentally sensitive manner are critical parts of our commitment to be a good corporate citizen.”

Justin Burggraff
President of Sawtooth Mining.

No, the project will not dry up any wells or affect any other water rights.

Approximately 350,000 acre-feet per year are pumped from wells in Humboldt County. Thacker Pass will make up less than 1% of this total. Thacker Pass will use little water - approximately 2,600 acre-feet per year in Phase 1 and an additional 2,600 acre-feet per year in Phase 2.

All process water will be recycled in a closed-loop cooling circuit, as a cleaner alternative to evaporation coolers, allowing us to save more than 1,000 acre-feet of water each year.

These are false claims. We have designed and engineered the mine and processing plant to avoid operating in the Montana Mountains area to protect its sagebrush habitat and important cultural areas.

Sagebrush ecosystems in the US have eroded to about 56% of their historical range due to land degradation, especially from wildfire and invasive species propagation. While these ecosystems provide vital habitat for many native species found in the west, sagebrush rangelands represent one of the most endangered ecosystems in the country.

In response, Lithium Americas partnered with the University of Nevada, Reno Foundation (UNR Foundation) and established the Great Basin Sagebrush Restoration Fund (GBSR Fund) in 2017 to advance research and development towards improved, cost-effective restoration of sagebrush rangelands.

Since then, several companies with operations in Nevada, including Barrick and Newmont’s Nevada Gold Mines JV, Hecla Mining, Kinross Gold and the United States Bureau of Land Management, have made funding commitments and the GBSR Fund is now the largest sagebrush restoration fund in the United States.

The GBSR Fund is led by Dr. Tamzen Stringham, a rangeland scientist and the Interim Chair of the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR) Department of Agriculture, Veterinary and Rangeland Sciences. Dr. Stringham has joined forces with colleagues from UNR and other institutions with diverse backgrounds in plant community and landscape ecology, bioengineering, and wildlife biology to engineer efficient, technology-driven solutions.

To date, research supported by the GBSR Fund has produced numerous successes in seed technology, precision rehabilitation and genetics. The tools developed by the GBSR Fund were recently deployed to assist a federal agency with the rehabilitation of federal lands impacted by recent large wildfires in Nevada.

In restoring the vitality of sagebrush rangelands, Dr. Stringham’s research is essential to the preservation of the many desert animal species like the sage grouse. In 2019 and the first quarter of 2020, the GBSR Fund initiated six research studies consisting of 86 treatment and species combinations, across multiple locations in Nevada, Oregon and Utah, in concert with Brigham Young University. Additionally, experiments with Wyoming sagebrush have been initiated at two locations within the Martin fire burn scar, where germination, emergence and establishment of the species will be tested.

Later this year, we expect to receive the remaining state permits and water right transfers required to start construction. Once the permits are in hand, we plan to start construction, currently expected to take two years.

Lithium Americas is a publicly traded company listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the trading symbol LAC. Our shareholders are geographically diverse, and our shareholder composition is a healthy mix of institutional, retail and management and directors.

View our job openings in Winnemucca and Reno. Job openings should increase as we get closer to construction and operations, so check back often.