RENO, Nev.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed in a settlement with conservationists to decide by April 4 whether a rare toad warrants endangered species protection in wetlands next to a geothermal power plant under construction in Nevada.

Lawyers for the agency signed the deal this week with a conservation group that filed a lawsuit to block construction of the Ormat Technologies Inc. geothermal power plant about 100 miles east of Reno.

The dispute is part of a growing number of disputes over wildlife protection and/or tribal rights to federal lands that the Biden administration faces as it pursues its climate change agenda by replacing the fossil fuels with renewable energy.

The Center for Biological Diversity and a Nevada tribe last month obtained an order from federal court in Reno temporarily blocking construction of the Ormat project east of Fallon.

But the U.S. 9th Circuit of Appeals suspended that order on Feb. 4 pending a full review of Ormat’s appeal. The Reno-based company opened last week. The San Francisco Court of Appeals plans to hear oral argument on the appeal in June.

Ormat had said he could be forced to abandon the project if he could not start work by February 28. Vice President Paul Thomsen said this week that the new listing agreement would not affect his plans.

The Center for Biological Diversity’s new settlement with the Fish and Wildlife Service is similar to one it won last year regarding timelines for listing a desert wildflower that the agency has since proposed for status. endangered in a planned lithium mine halfway between Reno and Las Vegas.

Neither the Tiehm buckwheat nor the Dixie Valley toad exist anywhere else in the world.

“We are delighted that the Dixie Valley toad is being put on the fast track for protection,” said Patrick Donnelly, director of the Great Basin center.

He first applied for the toad’s listing in 2017. Donnelly said it was the toad’s “last and best chance to avoid extinction”.

“Bulldozers are already destroying the toad’s habitat and preparing for a massive groundwater pumping operation that could dry up the only wetland where it lives,” Donnelly said.

Geothermal energy is generated from hot water deep underground.

The Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe, a co-plaintiff in the lawsuit which claims the power plant will ‘turn a unique and isolated desert oasis into an industrial site’, says the site is sacred to its people who have lived there for thousands of years. years.

Thomsen said in an email to The Associated Press that the mitigation plan the company has spent six years developing to offset any potential environmental impact “does not depend on whether or not the toad is listed. under the Endangered Species Act”.

“Ormat has long recognized the importance of conserving the Dixie Valley Toad, regardless of its legal status,” he said, adding that “we remain fully committed to the sustainable development of energy projects. renewable in the State of Nevada and around the world”.

Part of the base of future efforts to produce more “green” energy in the United States, environmental advocates generally support these efforts, but argue that projects like the geothermal power plant and a pair of planned lithium mines in Nevada should not be built if they cannot comply with federal environmental laws.

Lithium is a particularly important mineral in the Biden administration’s energy agenda because it is needed to make batteries for electric vehicles.

Earlier this week, President Joe Biden underscored his efforts to counter China’s dominance in the electric battery market and bolster domestic lithium production when he announced $35 million in assistance to MP Materials to extract lithium from geothermal brine in southern California near the Nevada line.

Meanwhile, his administration also announced it was delaying decisions on new oil and gas drilling on federal lands after a US judge in Louisiana blocked how officials calculated the true costs of climate change.

In the West, the drilling is often disputed by environmentalists who say it will harm a variety of fish and wildlife, including the endangered sage-grouse.

Protecting grouse habitat is also part of a legal battle at another planned lithium mine in Nevada near the Oregon line.

Several tribes who have joined this lawsuit also say Lithium Nevada’s Thacker Pass project sits on land where dozens of their ancestors were slaughtered by US cavalry in 1865. This case is also before the 9th Circuit.

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This story corrects an earlier version that referred to the Fish and Wildlife Service as the Forest and Wildlife Service.