STATE ENGINEER HALTS LITHIUM MINE WATER RIGHTS AFTER COALITION MAKES REQUEST

GREEN RIVER — A coalition of Colorado River Basin advocates released the following statements after the Utah State Engineergranted its requestfor reconsideration on a water rights application for Utah’s first major lithium mine on the Green River.

The coalition filed the requestdays afterthe State Engineer issued its May 1st approval of a water rights application for Blackstone Minerals. The decision followed months of protest from Green River residents, water rights owners, and public interest advocates. The May 1^stdecision would have set a detrimental precedent for lithium brine water extraction in the imperiled Colorado River Basin, allowing Blackstone minerals to drill up to 10,000 feet deep through high-pressure geologic formations and jeopardizing existing water rights.

The water rights application from Blackstone Minerals, which is a subsidiary of foreign-owned Anson Resources, requests appropriating 14,000 annual acre feet of non-consumptive uses within an area that the State of Utah classifies as an Area of Concern. The project, in the heart of the Colorado River Basin, would drill through radioactive aquifers contaminated by a now-ceased uranium milling operation.

https://greatbasinwater.org/state-engineer-grants-coalition-request-to-reconsider-lithium-mine-water-rights/