Shelby Herbert
Nevada: land of casinos, alien sightings and unfathomably huge deserts. A huge chunk of the landscape is arid steppe — but the Silver State actually hosts some serious biodiversity. As a transplant who only just recently learned how to say "Nevada" correctly, I never would've guessed that so many species live here and absolutely nowhere else in the world. And the state has big potential for renewables: solar, geothermal, and even lithium for electric vehicles. But some of those developments have serious impacts on wildlife habitat. This year, the Center for Biological Diversity successfully petitioned the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to give emergency Endangered Species Act protections to the Dixie Valley toad. And that’s because its habitat is in the way of a proposed geothermal facility.
Is the clean energy revolution really clean if parts of it perpetuate the extinction crisis? Of course, renewable energy developments pave the way towards carbon neutrality, and are part of humanity's collective solution for climate change. But there's a cost to habitat where they're installed. This episode of [biota]LKS is about contradictions. Climate change is one of the greatest existential threats to life on earth. And renewable energy sources are a huge part of that solution. But not everybody agrees on how and where renewable power plants should be installed.
I'm Shelby Herbert, and I'd like to welcome you to [biota]LKS Podcast. I'm an environmental reporter and an audio storyteller, and I got my start in public radio. You can hear my work on NPR affiliate station KUNR 88.7 and the Mountain West News Bureau. This episode is part of an ongoing series about connecting to the biodiversity in our own backyards. Patrick Donnelley directs the Great Basin Center for Biological Diversity. He's a desert activist, fighting for public lands, endangered species, rural communities, and a livable climate. Today Patrick is here to talk about the endangered species listing process, friction between renewable and conservation goals, and how he drove a 15 foot tall bucket across the state to protest a pipeline. And oh dear, a lot of toads. There is so much toad talk happening in this one. So let's hop right in! Hi, Patrick. Welcome.
Patrick Donnelly
Hello. Thank you for having me today.
Shelby Herbert
What have you been working on lately? I've seen your Twitter. You’re way out there. Oh my God, beautiful pictures of the rangeland landscape every day. What's going on?
Patrick Donnelly
Well, you know, Nevada is full of endemic species. Species that live in one place and nowhere else on Earth, and the state is just covered in them. Every basin you look in, there's going to be some type of fish or some rare plant or a snail or some other creature that lives in there and absolutely nowhere else on earth. That’s part of what makes Nevada such a unique place — all of our narrow endemics. That's really most of what I work on: visiting these species, documenting their habitat and the condition and the conservation status of the species. Then using that to inform our conservation work to protect biodiversity.
Shelby Herbert
Awesome. Thank you so much. Can you tell me a little bit like what makes Nevada stand out as far as biodiversity goes? Like, why are there so many species that only live here and absolutely nowhere else in the world?
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, there are a couple reasons. The vast majority of Nevada's endemic species are aquatics that are associated with a spring or a creek or a lake. The history of Nevada is that it was not always a desert. It was once a series of inland lakes — large lakes that filled many basins. These lake systems would've had one species of fish swimming around across the whole lake. Well, over many thousands of years, Nevada dried up. Those lakes, like Lake Lahontan, receded and now we are left with springs and creeks and rivers. So, that climate history is one reason. The other reason is tied to the extreme topography of Nevada. Nevada is broken up into approximately 250 topographic basins that are enclosed from one another. So, these creatures that eventually were stuck in these springs and creeks — as opposed to the big, huge inland water bodies they used to live in — they became isolated from one another. For instance, I work on this Dixie Valley Toad. It’s completely isolated.
Shelby Herbert
That was a landmark thing you guys were involved in. Tell us more about the toad!
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, I was gonna use it as an example of this isolation. It’s been separated from its nearest cousins — the nearest other toads for 600,000 years. It's been totally isolated out there, just becoming its own little species. So, the Dixie Valley toad is a really good example of Nevada’s endemism. It's had 600,000 years to become highly attuned to its habitat. Its habitat was created by hot springs; springs that flow out there at Dixie Meadows, which have created this marshland habitat that the toad lives in. And they have become uniquely adapted to that hot spring system, such that they need it to survive. The Great Basin is, of course, a cold desert. The hot spring allows the water to stay warm enough so they can survive the winter. But there's a threat to the Dixie Valley toad — this proposed geothermal power plant. It could dry up those springs.
Shelby Herbert
Absolutely. What’s moving the needle on geothermal here in Nevada? Like, could you talk a little bit about what happened earlier this year — around April — with that landmark ESA decision?
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, so recognizing the threat to the Dixie Valley toad from the proposed geothermal power plant, we submitted an Endangered Species Act petition to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Dixie Valley toad under the Endangered Species Act in 2017. Meanwhile, for the ensuing several years, the Bureau of Land Management continued to process the environmental compliance work and the permit for the power plant. And so in late 2021 — let's see, it was the day before Thanksgiving — that BLM approved the Dixie Meadows Geothermal project. And we made an immediate appeal to the Fish and Wildlife Service to emergency lists, the Dixie Valley Toad, as a result of the threat from that power plant approval and the Fish and Wildlife Service agreed. And so in April of this year, they issued an Emergency Endangered Species Act listing for the Dixie Valley Toad, which was the first emergency listing in 11 years and only the second in 20 years. And they gave the to emergency protective status. And now there's a court battle ensuing on what that means. You know, we say that means they have to stop construction immediately. They say they can continue on their merry way. So we're currently in court in the District of Nevada fighting about what an Endangered Species Act listing does for the toad.
Shelby Herbert
On that note, what exactly about geothermal developments threatens these hot spring ecosystems? Like, how how are they interacting with that environment or what have you seen in the past?
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, geothermal energy is a pretty simple idea. You pump up very hot water. You use it to heat up a fluid. They frequently use pentane or other mediums that transfer heat. So you use it to heat up that fluid, which creates steam. That spins a turbine, creating energy. So, it's sort of very simple. And so you pump that hot water up, use it, and then they re-inject it. Now, they're re-injecting colder water than what they pumped in, right? They pump it, they extract heat from it, and then they re-inject cold water. Over time, that can affect the temperature of the geothermal reservoir they're exploiting. Additionally, they're pumping huge amounts of water. We're talking tens of billions of gallons a year. The Dixie Meadows project would pump 45,000 acres a year, which is a vast amount of water. Now it's recirculating it —it's pushing it back in the ground and re-injecting it. But the act of that pumping and recirculation and the re-injection, which involves huge amounts of pressure and force within the aquifer can create new fractures. It can close up old fractures, create pressure and temperature gradients. It basically alters the subsurface hydrology, such that springs situated near geothermal power plants almost always dry up or change dramatically. And there's data from all around the world showing that this happens when you build a geothermal power plant. That's the concern.
Shelby Herbert
Are there any specific examples from the past where geothermal developments have harmed a specific species or ecosystem?
Patrick Donnelly
There's examples from around the globe, from Iceland and New Zealand and so forth. But there's many examples in Nevada too, close to home in Reno. There is the Steamboat geothermal power plant that's the one south of town when you're driving by Carson City that people are probably pretty familiar with. And that contributed to Steamboat Hot Springs drying up, and there's a rare plant there. The Steamboat buckwheat, which is now listed under the Endangered Species Act as protected because the hot springs it relied on for life dried up. Additionally, just up the road from Dixie Meadows, there's a space called Jersey Valley Hot Spring. And the same company, Ormat, built a geothermal power plant next to Jersey Valley hot spring, and the hot spring dried up within a couple years. So, this happens.
Shelby Herbert
Yikes. That's bleak. I mean, at least in the circles I run in, people view geothermal as a close-to-perfect renewable energy source. But, I mean, all of our actions have consequences. Has your organization identified any ways these geothermal companies can ameliorate the damage they do? Or is your position just like that they're all bad?
Patrick Donnelly
There's no mitigating the damage When you dry up a spring. You know, you dry up the spring, that's it — it's game over. You've destroyed that ecosystem. So your only option is to situate geothermal away from springs. And there are places this can be done — places where you can situate geothermal away from sensitive groundwater dependent ecosystems. But it does limit the places. Right now, there's this idea you can just build geothermal anywhere and there's never any problems. And that's just not the case. We say there needs to be a planning effort done by the Bureau of Land Management in Nevada and the Governor's Office of Energy to identify low-conflict places to build geothermal. Where can we build geothermal without driving species extinct? That's a fundamental question that no one has an answer to right now. And so we're stuck doing what I call playing whack-a-mole with bad projects, and that's not acceptable.
Shelby Herbert
So, a while ago, we spoke about another geothermal development that's threatening a particular species. And I kind of wanted to check in with you about that. What's the vibe with the sandhill skipper right now? This butterfly is in Nye County, right?
Patrick Donnelly
No, it's in Humboldt County.
Shelby Herbert
Humboldt, sorry!
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, in northern Nevada. Near the Oregon border. The bleached sandhill skipper is a very rare species of butterfly that lives at a place called Baltazor Hot Springs. Same company, of course. Ormat proposed a geothermal power plant there at Baltazor. And they did not evaluate the impacts on the bleached sandhill skipper in the environmental permitting for that geothermal power project. We, unfortunately, found out about it too late. So we were unable to fight the power plant, but we were unable to do an Endangered Species Act petition for the butterfly. Our concern is that the habitat the butterfly needs is an alkaline salt marsh fed by the spring. And if the spring dries up, the salt marsh goes away and the butterfly goes away. So it is threatened with extinction. So we submitted an Endangered Species Act petition to protect the bleached sandhill skipper. I have no updates since we spoke earlier in the summer. These Endangered Species Act petitions take time to go through the process and the 90-day finding usually takes one year. So I'm not holding my breath for any quick action on that. I will say I was out there a few weeks ago and there was no sign of any activity from Ormat. So it doesn't appear they're moving very quickly, even though it is approved and they could break ground any day they want.
Shelby Herbert
That's really interesting. You said something about how things pop up on your radar. How's your organization able to identify these hotspots where these conflicts are happening, usually? Is there, like, a tip line or...
Patrick Donnelly
There's a variety of ways we find out. I have a lot of antennas out there. I subscribe to the Federal Register, so every morning at 6:00 AM, I am aware of any major federal action happening across the United States for the environment and the land management agencies. So that's one way —I have 57 Google alerts. I catch a lot of stuff in my 57 Google alerts, you know. And then we do have concerned citizens who email us; most notably the different endemic species that has nothing to do with geothermal, but Tiehm's buckwheat, which is a famous little wildflower that is in the way of a lithium mine. We found out about that because of a BLM whistleblower who actually got suspended from the agency after he told us about Tiehm's buckwheat. And that type of thing has happened with numerous species, like the Dixie Valley toad, which we were just talking about. We had a professor there at UNR contact us because he had been working on that species and he was concerned about its fate. And then sometimes it's just dumb luck. I was just going through an old list of imperiled species in Nevada and I happened to see that the bleached sandhill skipper lived at Baltazor hot spring. And I said: "Hey, wait, wasn't there a Baltazor geothermal project? Oh."
Patrick Donnelly
So it was totally random that we even found out about the bleached sandhill skipper.
Shelby Herbert
I was almost hoping that there was some kind of one-to-one correlation. Like, okay — there's a hot spring here, so there's probably a lot of speciation in this area. I guess it's a little bit more complicated than that.
Patrick Donnelly
But you've got the basic premise that most hot springs in the Great Basin have some form of endemic life.
Shelby Herbert
Has anyone ever raised concerns about a particular species or area that you were just like: "the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't pan out"? Like, maybe you’d say it might be better to use this space for energy purposes than protecting wildlife..
Patrick Donnelly
You know, I think issue selection — what I choose to spend my day on — is one of the chief challenges at my job. I like to say I'm in an endangered species emergency room and I'm the triage nurse. And I'm trying to figure out how we can spend our limited resources. We definitely choose fights we think we can win. We definitely choose fights that have maximum impact on biodiversity. And, yeah, some stuff is gonna get lost. I mean, I have a tracking list of like 40 species in this state that we could file an Endangered Species Act petition for tomorrow. But I just don't have a lot of time and we're filing about three to four per year — which, you know, is pretty good. I mean, that's a lot. We're a big pain in the ass to the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, I'll say that. But you know, it doesn't keep pace with the scale of the extinction crisis in Nevada. So that's a very difficult day-to-day decision process for me. Given how dire the situation faced by Nevada's biodiversity is.
Shelby Herbert
What has been your best fight?
Patrick Donnelly
Tiehm's buckwheat — the rare little wildflowers standing in the way of the lithium mine — has certainly been the biggest fight I've ever taken on in my career. It's been profiled in media outlets around the world, in Australia and London and Europe and all over. And it has really helped catalyze a discussion about the environmental impacts of lithium mining and electric vehicles. And so I'm very proud to be part of that. It's not over yet. We still might lose Tiehm's buckwheat, but I think that little buckwheat has had a substantial impact and outsized impact on the dialogue, on the cultural zeitgeist about lithium mining. And so that's really important and meaningful I think to me because ultimately, we work on all these rare little species that live in one place. And like I said, there's a million of them, and they're all in danger. So, how do we pick the ones to work on? Well, we pick the ones that can have the most impact. We pick the ones that have a broader societal impact, a legal impact, and can really make a difference for biodiversity preservation around the world and not just in that one place.
Shelby Herbert
What is its societal role?
Patrick Donnelly
Well, I mean, it is a dark example of complete annihilation. This species would be completely wiped off the Earth. And I believe there is a visceral human reaction to extinction. I think humans don't like extinction if there is a universal moral code, if such a thing exists. I think not driving species extinct is part of the universal moral code. And so people have reacted very strongly to this idea that a mine would wipe a species off the face of the earth. And that's why it's drawn such attention, you know, And meanwhile there's a lot of people out there who would say, "Oh, who's going to put a wildflower in front of a lithium mine? Or a toad in front of a geothermal power plant?" So it's really catalyzed discussions about whether the clean energy revolution will be clean if it perpetuates the extinction crisis.
Shelby Herbert
Absolutely. How do you confront the other side of that though? I mean, we still have this horrific global problem with climate change and fossil fuels. What would you say to someone who's really skeptical about prioritizing saving these species?
Patrick Donnelly
I mean, if the only place on earth to produce geothermal energy was at Dixie Meadows and we had to sacrifice the Dixie Valley toad for that — then maybe there'd be a discussion. But it's not, and there's actually many, many, many places where we can produce renewable energy that don't drive species extinct. And, meanwhile — biodiversity, the toad, the buck wheat — all of it is what gives us clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. And what puts food on our plates. Without biodiversity, we have nothing. We go extinct. And so the toad's fate is our fate. The buckwheat and us are intertwined. And if we let all these species get wiped out in exchange for development of any kind, whether it's clean energy or dirty energy, we are really jeopardizing our own existence on earth.
Shelby Herbert
I think we talked about that in our last interview and I was like, "Woah."
Patrick Donnelly
It's my tagline.
Shelby Herbert
I love it. I love it. That's awesome. So, you mentioned you guys do about like three to four species a year for the listing process. Where are you now in October, 2022?
Patrick Donnelly
Boy, I'd have to look. I think it's three this year.
Shelby Herbert
That's awesome. Is that three in Nevada?
Patrick Donnelly
I'd have to look. We recently did a Utah petition as well. Oh — but I think we did have three in Nevada this year. And then I have like probably three in the hopper right now that we're working on. And then, like I said, my list is 30 or 40 species we could petition as soon as we have time to write it.
Shelby Herbert
For sure. So, if you had a button in front of you and you could get one of those 40 listed right off the bat, what would that be?
Patrick Donnelly
Oh wow. Easy, easy. The Amargosa toad.
Shelby Herbert
Ooh, tell me about that.
Patrick Donnelly
The Amargosa toad lives only in Beatty, Nevada. Beatty is this cute little gateway town to Death Valley National Park, between Las Vegas and Reno. And the toad lives just there along the Amargosa River. And I also live along the Amargosa River, just south of there. And so, the toad's fate is my fate. And there is a whole bunch of open-pit gold mining proposed all around Beatty — big open pits. They're planning on going beneath the water table and dewatering and that could dry up the river. That could wipe out the toad. And I'm very, very concerned about the toad's fate and we're hoping to get that petition going as soon as possible.
Shelby Herbert
We've talked about a couple of toads in this interview. What is their role in that ecosystem? Like, if we lose the toads, what else do we lose in that environment?
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, I think you wanna look at their predator prey relationships. They're gonna eat invertebrates, they're going to eat flies and bugs. They're going to eat small fishes. And so they're basically keeping the populations in balance. They also probably provide nutrient cycling and aeration of decomposing marsh grasses. Moreover, I think we just want to protect a toad. If the toads are there, that means you have a relatively intact, relatively pristine groundwater dependent ecosystem. And so, if the toad is there, that's a good indication. It's something really special and needs to be protected. Again, if you protect the toad, then you protect the town's drinking water in Beatty. You protect the toad, you protect my drinking water down the river. There are much bigger impacts to these listings than just putting them on a list. It could potentially save people. And I like to refer back to longtime Nevada activist and Pyramid Paiute tribal member and elder, Norm Harry, who recently passed away. He used to say, "What's good for the fish is good for the people." And, you know, that's so true with the Amargosa toad and with so many of these aquatic species that we're working on.
Shelby Herbert
Right, right.
Patrick Donnelly
I will say that I work with scientists on almost every single petition I do. So basically every petition I do, I'm consulting with an expert in the field. They're providing edits and feedback, and in some cases, they co petition with us. So we do work with scientists on these petitions.
Shelby Herbert
That's awesome. If you're able to share what h your best direct action moment. I'm thinking along the lines of like monkey wrenching...
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah. Well, you know, anyone who's gonna work on that type of stuff is not gonna talk about it on a podcast.
Shelby Herbert
Right, right. . I saw you in that amazing eagle costume!
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, I would say the best one was a big fight we had for many years with the Las Vegas pipeline — a proposed pipeline 300 miles through eastern Nevada to suck down billions of gallons of groundwater and pump it to Las Vegas. And we fought that for many, many years. There was a moment in the 2019 Nevada Legislative Session when there was a bill that looked like it was gonna pass, which would've enabled the pipeline. It would've overturned the law that we had been suing over. In a last ditch effort to stop it, I drove out to Baker, Nevada. Baker is where the pipeline would've been. There, the residents had built this 15 foot tall galvanized steel bucket — they had a sign on it that said "No Water Grab," or whatever. It was the symbol of the fight against the pipeline. So I hooked it up to my truck and I drove all the way across the state with a 15 foot tall bucket. I brought it to the front steps of the legislature and we put a sign on it that said, "No water grab Las Vegas — Eastern Nevada will be bled dry." And we had a big press conference in front of the bucket and it was on the front page of all the newspapers the next morning. The bill was dead by noon the next day.
Shelby Herbert
Fantastic. That was awesome. Patrick, thank you so much for joining me. Any parting thoughts?
Patrick Donnelly
Yeah, yeah. If I could give one more: Climate change is an existential threat to humans and wildlife. If we don't address climate change, we have nothing. But so is the biodiversity crisis. So is the extinction crisis. The Center for Biological Diversity strongly supports renewable energy —done the right way. We support complete decarbonization of our grid, including geothermal energy and lithium production. But it's gotta be done the right way so that we're not harming biodiversity and threatening all life on Earth. And so we're trying to seek solutions where that can happen in harmony with biodiversity.
Shelby Herbert
Hey folks, thanks for joining me today. I've included a link to my coverage of Patrick's bleached sandhill skipper butterfly petition for NPR affiliate KUNR 88.7. You can learn more about the Endangered Species Act petitions in your region by checking out the Center for Biological Diversity.
I'm Shelby Herbert, and this is your cheerful reminder that you inhabit a dying planet. Don't stop talking about it.
Episode 1.0: Renewable Developments and Conservation Goals