Welcome to CalMatters, the only nonprofit newsroom devoted solely to covering issues that affect all Californians. Sign up for The Inland Empire newsletter to receive a weekly look at how people in the I.E. are living, learning and working.Critics of a proposed lithium mine near the Salton Sea entered round two of their fight to force stricter environmental review of the project.
It’s the latest stage in a legal impasse over the massive lithium project. Environmental groups are trying to make sure nearby residents get the benefits of lithium production, while guarding against harmful impacts. The company says critics are using court challenges to stall an important energy project.
The nonprofits Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks filed arguments with the Fourth District Court of Appeal last week, asking the court to reconsider a claim they filed in 2024, which a superior court judge dismissed earlier this year.
In their appeal filed Sept. 11, the groups argue that the environmental impact report for the Hell’s Kitchen lithium mine neglects potential problems with air quality, water use, hazardous materials and tribal cultural resources.
“The project would create a high-water demand in an arid desert environment where the drying out of the Salton Sea worsens severe air pollution impacts,” the brief stated.
Lauren Rose, a spokesperson for Controlled Thermal Resources, the parent company of Hell’s Kitchen, denounced what she called a “frivolous legal appeal.”
“This group’s ongoing actions are a clear abuse of the original intentions of (the California Environmental Quality Act) and only serve to delay progress on clean energy projects that are essential to the community, California, and the nation,” she said in a statement to CalMatters.
Hell’s Kitchen promises to unearth thousands of kilotons of lithium, a mineral essential to electric car batteries, cellphones and other electronics. Officials with the nonprofits say they’re in favor of lithium production, but want to ensure it doesn’t compromise the health and environment of surrounding communities.
“We make the case that the project must be corrected to meet the standards that protect our community and our environment,” Luis Olmedo, executive director of Comite Civico del Valle, told CalMatters. “The lawsuit isn’t about stopping clean energy. We are for clean energy.”
The groups also released a report summarizing their call for heightened scrutiny of the project’s impacts. And they laid out demands that included creating a Lithium Valley joint powers authority with a local advisory commission, dedicating more of the state’s lithium extraction excise tax to areas closest to the project, and enacting an additional environmental mitigation fee on lithium produced there.
Under the existing formula, Bombay Beach, a small hamlet on the Salton Sea near the project, would get $8,631 to offset impacts of the project, while larger areas such as El Centro, Calexico and Imperial would get six-figure payments.
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Bari Bean, deputy CEO of natural resources for Imperial County, said in a statement to CalMatters that the lithium tax formula is “a practical and balanced framework that considers both population size and geographic proximity to the lithium resource.”
Bean said a joint powers authority would duplicate existing systems for community input. Imperial County wouldn’t support additional lithium fees, she said, since California already has stricter environmental protections than other states, “making development in California more challenging and often less cost competitive.”
State and federal officials have predicted that the area around the Salton Sea that they call “Lithium Valley” could become one of the world’s biggest sources of the “white gold,” freeing the U.S. from dependence on other countries for the critical mineral.
Imperial County Supervisor Ryan E. Kelley said the project will advance both regional economic growth and U.S. energy goals.
“This initiative will position Imperial County as a leader in clean energy, contribute to California’s sustainability goals, and strengthen the United States’ critical mineral supply chain,” Kelley said in a statement to CalMatters.
However, Rose said the ongoing court challenge has halted that momentum, and risks stalling lithium production in California.
“Just a few short years ago, Imperial County was leading the charge for clean energy and sustainable critical minerals development in the United States,” she said. “Now, billions of investment dollars have flowed to other states, including Nevada, Utah, Texas, and Arkansas, leaving California in the dust.”
Olmedo said his group has never called for injunctions against the project, but wants safeguards on its operations.
Hell’s Kitchen would extract lithium and other critical minerals from super-heated brine in the Salton Sea aquifer and then reinject the brine into the earth, in what the company calls a closed loop system that’s cleaner than other lithium mining systems.
Cal Poly Pomona Professor James Blair, an advisor to Comite Del Civico and member of Imperial County’s Lithium Valley Academic Taskforce, said the environmental review doesn’t prove that claim.
Blair said direct lithium extraction is framed as a “cleaner, greener method of lithium extraction compared to open mine or brine ponds,” but research on similar systems show that they use lots of fresh water. If that’s the case at Hell’s Kitchen it could worsen the decline of the shrinking Salton Sea.
“Novel technologies bring unknown results,” Blair said. “We don’t really know how much water is needed.”
