The Bureau of Land Management is analyzing the proposed McDermitt lithium Exploration project. The project will affect 103.3 acres and is proposing to construct 30.2 miles of roads. This is located in southeastern Oregon just north of the Nevada border. You can see the proposed disturbance in the map below. When looking on google earth there are routes in this area that look to be used for recreation. BRC supports multiple use and recognizes many off-roading trails that are loved and used were actually created by other public land users at one point. However, some pieces of this proposal are concerning for the recreation community. The BLM is required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) to analyze all the potential effects of proposals on public lands. Areas of analysis always includes, environment, soil, water, habitat, economics, wildlife and recreation. However, this proposal says the following in the environmental assessment,
“There are no permanent recreation sites within the Project Area. Dispersed recreational activities may occur at the Project Area However, proposed action is not closing public land. HiTech will be responsible for maintaining roadways and access to public lands for dispersed recreational access. Therefore, this EA will not analyze this resource.”
It is helpful to know that recreation access will not be closed during the project, since there are many groups claiming that multiple-use management of public land is going to lead to widespread closures of recreation. However, the EA could have provided a broader analysis of how recreation could be affected by this proposal and possibly even enhanced. It is clear that there are roads in the project area. You can see in the image below the gray lines are existing roads. As is common with these projects, HiTech, the company proposing the exploration project, is proposing to maintain these roads and keep public access open. However, this needs to be explicit within the EA and all of the potential effects good and bad to recreation. If the exploration phase of this project ultimately leads to production, it is likely that 7,2000 acres of land will be disturbed and removed from public access. The BLM should explore alternatives that provide expanded or enhanced recreation nearby to offset the loss of access that would occur from a longer term impact.
Submit a comment below telling the BLM they need to put the same time and energy in to protect recreation that they do for the environment. Comments are accepted through April 25, 2025.
