BLM COUNTDOWN, page-764

NTEC has no experience with BLM and no experience with lithium. Hiring them was such blatant tokenism that it assured the Secretary of Interior will delay any action indefinitely. BLM might agree to drilling with a buffer zone of as little as a mile around Hakamwe, but that's where the lithium is located. The first two drill programs cherry-picked the 4% of the claims where the best results were expected. Half the proposed drill sites now are within a mile of the springs, and so is the well (converted drill hole from earlier round) where the water for drilling and dust abatement would be sourced.
AZL moved on to paying way too much for Prairie, because it knew Big Sandy is a lost cause. A change in administration next year might restart the process, but the federal courts won't change and the Hualapai did everything right in Arizona, that the opponents to Thacker Pass did wrong in Nevada.