Mining for the Climate Episode 3: "The Body of the Mine”

Full Transcript

​[00:00:00] You're listening to Mining for the Climate. This is Alex.

 Mines are like living organisms. They require a living space. 

They need to consume certain things to survive, like chemicals, energy, water. As their metabolism ramps up, mines crush rock, absorb desired elements from it, and discard their waste in piles of boulders and streams of cloudy water. Thinking about a mine in this way brings order to its many processes.

But the shape and nature of this metabolism is not always evident. As the history of mining teaches us, mining companies tend to keep some aspects of their operations out of sight. In response, those who resist these operations work to uncover the actual shape of the mine, and its impact. 

Throughout this struggle, the contours of each mine are constantly redrawn. [00:01:00] So in this episode, we pay attention to the power inherent in the act of obscuring, and in the act of revealing.

This is Mining for the Climate, episode three.

It's a hot June day. We're driving to Piedmont Lithium's outpost along the winding Dallas Cherryville highway, passing sign after sign declaring "Stop Gaston County Pit Mine.”

We pull into the gravel lot outside a one-story warehouse with Piedmont Lithium's logo on a sign outside. An employee beckons us in. Inside an air-conditioned room filled with boxes of rocks and presentation slides on easels, we introduce ourselves to three Piedmont employees who we'll sit down with for the next two hours to talk about the mine.

Yeah, so Piedmont Lithium started back in 2016 by our now chief geologist Lamont Leatherman who grew up just a few miles north of here in Lincoln County…

When we [00:02:00] speak with these representatives, our first question is about the impact of the mining pits, the places where Piedmont would blast and move rock. 

As I was mentioning before, about 25% of the acreage is mining. So these are the four pits that we plan to have and we will mine them south, east, west, and north and so that's where mining activity is slated to happen. We will convey material from the mines to the concentrator plant and then also take it to this area here which is what we call our waste rock pile. So that's just after we've blasted and gotten the spodumene-hosted rock we're going to send any of the waste rock here to be stored.

The open pits are the most visible parts of the mine, where many of its processes start. They are, in a sense, the mouth of the mine. Let's begin here. 

Part 1: The Mine's Mouth

Piedmont Lithium plans to build an open pit mine. Think a ribbon-like circuit that spirals down into the earth, heavy haul trucks that [00:03:00] rumble around the site, and timed explosives that rip apart tons of solid rock, tearing the earthen cavity even wider. In Piedmont Lithium's case, this is the mechanism that would bring the raw spodumene, the lithium bearing rock, up for processing.

When we ask about what noise, light, or dust impacts the mine might have to nearby residents, Piedmont representatives describe a clean, almost invisible mine that's isolated from its neighbors. 

Juan prompts Monique Parker, Piedmont's Senior Vice President of Safety, Environment, and Health, to talk about the issue.

Obviously, there's population around. There are neighbors. If they really want to stay in their farms, in their houses, what, what kind of options do they have?

For all intents and purposes, if there’s a neighbor outside of our mine permit boundary, they can stay in their home. Our activities don’t change the livelihoods of those around them in a negative way in that regard. There’s very little things that would prevent them from being able to stay on their properties if they’re outside our mine permit boundaries.

[00:04:00] You can understand how their, perspective on the land will change, right? More light pollution, potentially dust, changes in the landscape for sure, perhaps fences going up…

Well here’s the thing, although those things may be true cuz we are gonna have fences around our property and those types of things, but we’re also gonna have trees. So this area is rich in trees and other natural resources so we’re gonna have various berms and other protections where the reality of it is, they may never know we’re there.

Erin and I, our children went to a middle school. There was a mine right across the street from them. I didn't know it, and so I really didn't, but at one point I was driving by and it was winter.

That's Erin Saunders, Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications and Investor Relations,

I kind of glimpsed something between trees. And I went home and pulled up the map. [00:05:00] And apparently for 17 years, I've been living less than two miles from a giant quarry. I, I had no idea. And I don't, I don't think people realize that if you can't see it, you can't smell it, you can't hear it. And there are the trees and the berms and, and everything.

To Erin Sanders, the quarry next to the school was almost invisible. Piedmont reckons their mine will have a similar visibility.

As we’re mining, there obviously is a potential for dust to be generated and created. We will be using water suppression to minimize and control dust as our dust control suppression system.

The same, Monique says, holds true for the chemical processing plants which convert spodumene into lithium.

So we have a ton of dust collectors around our chemical process where those dusts will be captured, and then we have an air permit that minimize what we can emit. So all of those are captured with our dust control systems. We have wet scrubbers that will all manage the dusts that come from our process.

[00:06:00] Erin also describes their conveyor belt system, which will transport blasted rock from the pits to the concentrator plant.

We're also going to invest millions of dollars in an enclosed, uh, conveyor belt system. As you probably know, trucks are what can kick up dust, you know? So to minimize the number of trucks, we're going to use that conveyor system.

It also helps on noise, as well. You’re not having haul trucks going around on public roads. We can have electric conveyor belt systems going through our property.

That's Emily Winter, Exploration Geologist and Community Relations Specialist. 

So, forest buffers, electric conveyors to haul blasted ore, and dust suppression systems. These are the strategies that Piedmont says will make their mine near invisible.

But Lisa Stroup, a cattle rancher and former mine employee living close to Piedmont's property, has a different projection. On the wide porch [00:07:00] which wraps around her house on the ranch, I ask,

They told us that, you wouldn't be able to tell it’s there.

Really?

She seemed, almost, at a loss for words.

Okay, just look this way. You see all these trees? There is a hill, right? A natural hill full of trees. It is a humongous forested area. That's almost two acres between us and the mine. 

That's the stone quarry managed by Martin Marietta.

And this entire property, our home, our trees, even back up here was coated in dust. I don't buy it. I don't buy it. I don't see how they can do that when the industry leaders can't. 

Lisa is suggesting that if Martin Marietta, an experienced mining company, couldn't fully control their dust, how could Piedmont, as a new mining company, claim to be able to control it so well?

And you know, we saw how hard they worked to try. It wasn't that they were just [00:08:00] not trying, they were pumping thousands of gallons of water spraying down this ore as they're extracting it and hauling it, doing the best they really could to minimize it. I hate to think what it would've looked like if they hadn't, but there was still dust. There was still noise, you know, even after they stopped blasting and they were just hauling the aggregate from the mine.

I was working third shift inside my home. All the windows closed. All the doors closed. I can hear their mine trucks, I can hear their conveyor belt and the be end and the, you know, when they dumped the load, the crash of the boom when it landed back down, I could not sleep. It was absolute torture.

Lisa lives less than a mile away from the Martin Marietta quarry. At the time of writing, the closest house to Piedmont's site is just 318 feet away.

The former miner we spoke with last episode, who requested anonymity, actually [00:09:00] worked at the Hallman Beam lithium mine, which became Martin Marietta's quarry. When Piedmont arrived in town, he realized he was living next to their purchased land and decided to sell his house after realizing what this proximity would mean.

They had bought every place around me.

You know, you can't live around in the noise. Hm. You know? You know what I'm saying? Just can't. I know. I used to work in that one right over there when I was 18 years old. 

It's true that dust suppression systems do work to minimize the amount of dust kicked up by mining operations. It's also true that many mines aren't noticeable to someone driving by them. We don't know what Piedmont's mine will look or sound like.

What we do know is that residents of the area are struggling to find out, and their homes and livelihoods are on the line.

Part Two: The Stomach

Piedmont proposes to build two processing plants to extract the lithium from its surrounding rock, and then convert it into a battery grade [00:10:00] material. As with dust and noise, Piedmont also stresses how this process would be as clean as possible. They suggest it will be a departure from the older model of dirty, chemical intensive, and polluting mines. 

Here's Monique:

I will talk about some of the historical means of getting to this final product. Traditionally, producing lithium hydroxide has been used with a sulfuric acid leaching process, and so that’s the traditional means which creates toxic waste, it’s hazardous to work around.

Most hard rock lithium mines still use acid leaching, which dissolves out the lithium from the rest of the rock to collect it into a usable product. Leaks and drainage from these acid processing activities have damaged surrounding environments. So instead, Piedmont intends to move to a different process altogether.

The technologies that we’re looking to use actually uses steam. We will do the transition from spodumene to lithium carbonate using pressure.

Monique is referring to Piedmont Lithium's [00:11:00] use of the Metso Ototec conversion process. This process uses soda ash and other alkalines, along with pressure, to leach out the lithium and convert it into battery-grade lithium hydroxide. It employs alkalines instead of sulfuric acid.

So these are some of the things that we’re doing, and we’ve taken these approaches to have a more sustainable operation. Obviously, we want to minimize how much toxic waste we’re generating. We want to make sure the operations are safe for those that have to work around it.

In fact, the CEO of Piedmont claims that this process helps... 

to make our operations the world's most sustainable lithium project. We've shifted our chemical plant process to be entirely sulfate and acid free. That makes it better for us. It makes it better for the neighborhood and everyone else, and from an emissions perspective, it's far superior.

This all sounds pretty compelling. A clean and safe chemical system. But in their narrative of cleanliness, what does Piedmont emphasize, and what do they downplay?

If you ask Lisa Stroup, she [00:12:00] sees elements of concealment, having already done research into Piedmont's original 2021 mine permit application. 

You read in the report, there's gonna be tanks of sulfuric acid and diesel fuel and whatnot at this concentrate plant.

They told us that they were not going to use the sulfuric acid. 

Well, they either lied to you or they lied in their permit application because it is in the permit application. And this is another misleading thing that Piedmont has a tendency to do. 

Let's pause for a moment. If you look at the section of the mining permit that Lisa's talking about, you see that Piedmont writes that they'll store, among other things, some frothers and floculents and, sure enough, “sulfuric acid.”

It's right there. Piedmont also lists some other reagents used in the concentrator plant, which is the plant that removes some of the excess rock around the lithium. They list hydrofluoric acid and kerosene. [00:13:00] Curiously enough, in the reagents for the lithium hydroxide conversion plant, which is the plant that actually converts the lithium ore into battery grade lithium hydroxide, the permit lists both sulfuric acid and hydrochloric acid.

So how could we hear from Piedmont that there was no sulfuric acid, even though the application includes it?

They were talking about the hazardous toxic chemicals that would be on site and would be utilized for the concentrate mine operation, not the conversion, but the concentrate mine area. They're only taking you to the end and saying, no, we're not using acid. Okay, so go back and look at the, the mine permit applications specific for the concentrate mine process.

Let's clarify this. Lisa draws a distinction between the concentrator process, which collects the lithium, and the conversion process, which turns it into usable lithium hydroxide. She says that Piedmont claims their [00:14:00] conversion process doesn't use sulfuric acid, and that they use it in their concentrator process without much advertisement.

In our conversation with Piedmont, too, we hear them talk about their new conversion process, and we don't hear them mention the other processes involved in concentration. 

Here's Monique:

Because, again, we’re not using sulfuric acid. We’re using pressure leaching and so the natural pH is very different than a normal, traditional wastewater that you get for traditional lithium hydroxide conversion.

“Lithium hydroxide conversion.” She draws attention to this conversion process without bringing up the concentrator.

A more recent document, from June 2022, nuances this distinction when giving another description of Piedmont's chemical processes. Here, most of the chemicals in the concentrator process are consistent with the initial 2021 mining application, except that Piedmont doesn't list sulfuric acid among them like they did in 2021. [00:15:00] It's the same story with the conversion plant. No sulfuric acid.

That's because they list a third chemical sub-process that we didn't hear about in our conversation with Piedmont: a separate “byproducts production" process. This part takes some feed from the main concentrator process and extracts feldspar and quartz to then sell. It's here where Piedmont lists the sulfuric acid, and the hydrofluoric acid, and the kerosene. 

In a later email from September 2023, Piedmont gave another answer, that, “Some sulfuric acid may potentially be used for cleaning purposes in the on-site wastewater treatment and the crystallizers.” A summary of that correspondence is available on the Mining for the Climate webpage at https://bluelab.princeton.edu.

So, is the chemical process of this mine really cleaner than other mines? Probably, in many respects. The METSO technique does have potential, and it likely would mean the elimination of a lot of sulfuric acid.

[00:16:00] But, we found the discrepancy between the first descriptions that Piedmont gave us about their chemical process, and their mining documents and later comments would show different mechanisms, particularly telling.

How does this choice of framing contribute to the image that Piedmont's mine is cleaner than the rest? Is their plan as simple or as clean as they tell people publicly? Is it as clean as what people demand from the energy transition? 

Part 3: The Blood of the Mine

Most mines use water to extract minerals and wash away unwanted particles. Piedmont will use a considerable amount of water in these processes, but before the company uses the water for mining and refining, they need to address a more immediate challenge.

As machinery digs ever deeper into the mine's four open pits, it will quickly encounter rock below the water [00:17:00] table, meaning rock that is saturated with water. To prevent its pits from flooding with this water, Piedmont will suck it out, at 2,125 gallons per minute. 

The issue is Piedmont's mine would not be the only place drawing water from the ground. Most nearby residents use well water because there isn't a municipal water system in the area. Could Piedmont deplete these residents' wells? And how does that affect the image of the clean mine that Piedmont projects? 

Here's Monique again:

There will be minor impacts to the water table and the immediate areas we know for sure. How far those expand are what the studies will tell us. But if you think about water table, and I’m sure you all are knowledgeable and understand this, but a water table is not like a bathtub where you put a plug in and it’s all gonna drain out. With the geology that we have, there are fractures and seams and different ways that water moves within rock. Once we open one area, it doesn’t necessarily impact the full groundwater level or table in a certain region. It is very much based on the geology underneath the ground. And so our studies will help us understand that better.

[00:18:00] In Gaston County, the bedrock is highly impermeable, meaning water only flows through bedrock in minuscule fissures and cracks.

Monique's assessment of the impact to the surrounding area follows from a couple of Piedmont studies conducted on possible groundwater depletion.

Some of these studies didn't go exactly as planned, as some of their permit application documents show. In one study in which Piedmont tested maximum potential for pumping water out of the ground, the test pump they installed didn't have enough power to sustain a full test. Heavy rainfall in addition to Hurricane Michael shortened that study and prevented Piedmont from installing a new pump, which cut the data gathering process short.

Regardless, the study found that beyond the mine site, predicted depletion of nearby wells from their mining activity would average 6 feet, with a minimum of 0 feet and a [00:19:00] maximum of 39 and a half feet. To try to mitigate this potential impact, Piedmont came up with a plan.

Here's Monique:

So I’ll address the impact to neighbors first. So one of the things that we had to do was create a well mitigation plan. So if we impact a neighbor, what are we gonna do? We’ve offered three solutions. One, we’ll dig ‘em a deeper well. Two, we will connect them to municipal water. And our third — is kind of our intermediate is — we’ll make sure they have water during a period in which we’re getting them the one of the options we have, whether that’s through various means that makes it available and easy for them to obtain. That’s our mitigation plan in those impacts.

To the governing bodies that are overseeing Piedmont's permit application, this might sound reasonable, but following their previous interactions with Piedmont, residents we spoke with aren't reassured. When we talk with Tom about possible water depletion before we sit down with Lisa, he actually calls her up to show us her read on the situation. [00:20:00] 

She seemed skeptical.

Piedmont's solution to that is they will hire an outside representative and if they can prove that Piedmont did the damage, then they may either bring in bottled water…

On their mining permit, Piedmont offered to supply water tanks to affected households.

Or they may dig a new well. Well that's really fruitless. If the groundwater is contaminated, what good is a new well?

Lisa's referring to water contamination. Groundwater level isn't connected to water contamination. So this is a separate issue that we'll come back to later. Anyway, Tom says to Lisa:

You remember the two other options that they provide as solutions?

Third one was they would connect you to municipal water.

Then, Tom prompted one final option, which Piedmont didn't bring up to us.

And the nuclear option is if all else fails in good faith… Oh. Or they would purchase the property, which would be worthless if you have no access to water. [00:21:00] Which is their end goal because you know, so many property owners don't want to relocate and don't want to sell like us, we're a beef cattle operation. We have over 200 head of cattle.

We also have grain and food and fiber crops that we plant. It's more than just our house that's here. It's our business, it's our livelihood. And where are we gonna find another 400 acres to farm?

Piedmont's water mitigation plan could reduce the severity of the possible impact to residents' water supply. However, these residents are angry that Piedmont suggested these solutions without consultation, and that the solutions they present don't reflect residents' lifestyles or protect their dignity.

Part Four: Keeping the Pulse

It's not always clear how a mine's body works, so systems must be kept in place to monitor its functioning.

A question [00:22:00] crucial to environmental justice is, who does the monitoring? Who keeps the data? And what are the consequences if something goes wrong?

Piedmont plans to install monitoring systems in nearby rivers to detect any impact to water quality or quantity. The company would then be in charge of reporting any potential issues.

We’re gonna have monitoring wells around our property, so the reality of it is we will know before a neighbor knows primarily that there will be an impact cuz we’ll be measuring the levels of that water continuously to understand if there’s any impacts on our property boundary before it leaves our property. So there will be continuous monitoring of all water — on property, off property — as we go through our process to ensure that there’s no contamination of water in sources.

If Piedmont monitors effectively, it would help protect nearby residents and their drinking water. But Lisa's not convinced that this would be the case. Here's her in our conversation with Tom.

It's my [00:23:00] understanding that the way it is set up now, the biggest portion of control the state has, and the biggest, you know, argument that we will have is in this pre-permit phase. Once they, sign off on the approved list of okay, you've agreed to these terms, it is then up to Piedmont to, create the samples and generate a report. However, it is purely Piedmont's word. From my understanding, unless there is a violation of some sort, the state themselves do not test those parameters.

Lisa isn't the only one looking into Piedmont's monitoring system.

They're gonna tattle on [00:24:00] themselves. Right.

That's Locke Bell, one of the residents we spoke with last episode.

Hey professor, can I grade my own paper and just turn in what I made? Hey, if I could have done that, I probably would've done better in school. Yeah.

Locke was looking through the monitoring plan in Piedmont's mining permit and saw something that gave him pause.

In their application with the mining commission, it says that they'll have retaining ponds.

Piedmont would hold much of the water they pump out of their pits in a series of retaining ponds scattered around the mine.

So Piedmont will monitor their ponds. Okay? We don't need EPA. DuPont monitor what you're releasing. Duke Energy, which had the big coal. I don't know if you know about the coal ash. Y'all monitor yourselves. Exxon Mobil. Y'all, y'all, y'all monitor and report back.

Oh, all you people fracking. [00:25:00] We trust you to let us know.

But that's what they've got here is that Piedmont — on the toxicity, on the pollution, on everything — will monitor themselves and either do quarterly or annual reports. But you see what I'm saying? You would never ever anybody do that.

Piedmont says that they'll monitor their tailing pond pH and depth monthly, not quarterly or annually. But not even the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, is satisfied with that. In May 2023, DEQ, who is overseeing Piedmont's application process, asked why only pH will be tested, and why monthly testing instead of continuous monitoring is sufficient.

Responding to this concern in an email from September 2023, Piedmont stated that they will be, “evaluating other parameters that are tested for similar operations, and [00:26:00] will be providing an updated monitoring plan in our response.”

In the event that a well becomes contaminated from mine operations, Locke and Lisa are skeptical that Piedmont would let people know. And Lisa isn't sure how residents could verify Piedmont's monitoring or hold them accountable for water quality issues, especially given her community's remoteness.

So let's just say we have water, but they've contaminated it. No one tests the well water. It's up to each owner to test the well. And it can cost several hundred dollars every time you do and take several months for you to get the results.

You're paying for the testing. You're waiting for the analysis. That goes with any industry. It's not just this mine, it is a self-report.

Piedmont emphasized in their September 2023 email that, in the event of a contamination issue, they have, "highly experienced mining, engineering, and safety, health, and [00:27:00] environment professionals" on their team, and "a couple of hundred of the top consultants in these fields" to manage the project responsibly and sustainably.

Piedmont says, don't worry. Trust us. America has the tightest environmental restrictions of any country, you know. Trust us. But trust is very different than verify. We're trying to verify. We want truthful answers. We want them to treat people fairly and then be a good neighbor.

Trust versus verify. Piedmont asks its neighbors to trust their monitoring, but residents feel they have little room to verify Piedmont's data to hold them to account. Piedmont, to them, controls the knowledge of any potential well disturbances, and they imagine the company plans to keep it that way.

 Part 5: The Waste

Mines produce waste. A lot of it. In Piedmont's case, once the mine blasts [00:28:00] and hauls rock, once it dissolves and leaches its ore with a cocktail of chemicals, it's left with thousands of tons and hundreds of gallons of waste. In an area with sensitive streams, the safety of the mine's wastewater is a particular concern. Here's how Piedmont plans to manage this wastewater. 

When it comes to water from our processes, our chemical plant, all of our processed water that comes from that chemical plant will be sent to a wastewater treatment facility. So there’s not this let’s sit it in a pond and let go to the streams. It will be capture, pre-treated on site, and then sent to the municipal. At our concentrator plant, all of our processed water from the concentrator plant will go through the same process.

Monique is talking about sending pre-treated wastewater from the mine to the Long Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant in Gastonia, a few miles away. And as for the water which flows into the mine pits, either from seams in the rock or [00:29:00] from rain, this water would be pumped into the sedimentation retaining ponds that Locke mentioned.

We will house the water there. We will do testing, understand the quality of it, and then we will either treat it and then release it, or we will release it based on what our permits allow.

Piedmont would release the water from the sedimentation ponds into adjacent streams, not to the wastewater plant, based on their water permits. Here's Juan revisiting Piedmont's agreement with the Long Creek Municipal Treatment Plant.

And has the municipal treatment plant, do they have the capacity to deal with it?

So we’re working with them already. One of the things that we have to have in order to secure our mine permit is the local municipality has to agree that they can take our quantity and our load. They’ve agreed that they can take our quantity and load.

Do you have an estimate of what the quantity is going to be?

We’ve given them an estimate of our quantity of our water and the anticipated load that will go to them and that’s been provided to them and it’s also been in our mine application, our mine permit.

 [00:30:00] We noticed that Monique didn't tell us what this quantity of water is, or the anticipated load, in our meeting. She pointed us to the mining permit instead.

We didn't think of it too much in the moment, because if the treatment plant has agreed to take that load, and if they're pre-treating the water to make it safer as it travels to the plant, what could be the issue?

But Lisa and Locke seemed to think differently based on their research.

They have a letter that they have sent to the mining commission, cause I've read it, that says we have talked to the, I wanna say Long Creek or Catawba Creek, one of the treatment plants…

Piedmont's documents identified the South Fork Catawba as the ideal river to carry its wastewater to Long Creek.

And they have said that they can handle 0.284 million gallons a day. 

Piedmont put this as their peak wastewater flow on their mining documents.

[00:31:00] Therefore, mining commission, you need to accept this as we have outflow. It's eight miles away. When they did the original application, it said all the water will be dumped into municipal outflow. That's eight miles away.

Let’s be nice to 'em — six if you cut through the country. They don't have any right of ways to do it. So they have a letter and they submitted it saying, “Here's an agreement. Accept this as our having handled the issue of the disposal of the water.”

Locke reacts to their plan in such a way because, so far, Piedmont has not published a full plan of how it will transport its water from the mine pits all the way to the treatment plant. 

And where Locke saw an attempt to gloss over the logistics of transporting water that far away, Lisa saw environmental danger inherent in the position to pump it into the South Fork Catawba River.

 [00:32:00] These freshwater streams that our children play in, that wildlife drinks from, they're here for everyone's enjoyment, but they could flush it down the streams, processing an affluent channel in the stream, the six miles to the uptake, or eight miles, however, whatever the distance is to the uptake… 

Piedmont proposes to release its wastewater into the river and have a treatment plant downstream take it up and process it. That would happen at one of the Long Creek's locations, either in High Shoals, a town a few miles north of Gastonia, or at Apple Creek Business Industrial Park, on the northern edge of Gastonia.

So in the meantime, you have this influx of pretty much wastewater with caustic, toxic constituents floating down our streams. It's coming right through our property, through our fields. It's accumulating.

You have the former mine and you know, they've [00:33:00] had spills and leaks and you know, things that happen. There's no mine site that is 100% perfect. There are always things that happen for different reasons. You know, it happens in every industry. Something breaks, something leaks. The difference is when it leaks outside in the soil and into the ground, it's in your water now. How do you clean that up?

Lisa's characterization of the toxic chemicals is extreme, especially since Monique specifically told us that their wastewater wouldn't have any hazardous materials, and that they're taking a lot of precautions to pre-treat the water to ensure it's safe. So what could allow Lisa to make these claims?

Well, as we began to look into Piedmont's permit application, the reason for her alarm came into focus. Because as the North Carolina DEQ has pointed [00:34:00] out, Piedmont hasn't actually provided the specific load characteristics of their wastewater, and they haven't disclosed specifically how they're pre-treating that water.

Let me take a moment to explain. In their correspondences with Monique and others, the DEQ has repeatedly requested for Piedmont to give them more detail about their plans. I'll save you the long story about the many exchanges between state agencies and Piedmont about the wastewater plan. But in a nutshell, these agencies ask Piedmont about the characteristics of their wastewater that Piedmont will send to the local wastewater treatment plant. And Piedmont's answers don't satisfy them.

At one point, DEQ asks for clarification on the specific liquid waste Piedmont will discharge. They ask this because Piedmont has only said that they will tailor their wastewater profile to meet the requirements set out by the treatment plant. But because the plant hasn't released these requirements, Piedmont hasn't actually [00:35:00] finalized what their liquid waste will be.

So, two years after their initial request, Piedmont has not given DEQ a detailed answer about what exactly they would pump into the river to send to the treatment plant. and they also haven't given a clear answer on how they'll get the water to the treatment plant. Those improvements will have to be determined by Two Rivers, not Piedmont Lithium. 

Which means that no one can say with certainty exactly what Piedmont will be pumping into the water, and exactly how that water will travel to the treatment plant. Even so, an assistant state mining engineer at North Carolina's DEQ, who's overseeing Piedmont's application, expects this issue to be resolved in the next round of comments.

But in the meantime, here's what we know. First, given the information shared by Piedmont, it's impossible to prove Lisa is entirely correct about her concerns with the toxics in the wastewater. Second, as long as Piedmont has not [00:36:00] provided enough evidence to residents, or even to the Department of Environmental Quality, no one can definitively prove that she's wrong.

This lack of clarity about Piedmont's wastewater, even if resolved soon, creates an uncertain knowledge environment that allows Lisa to question the project's cleanliness.

But this lack of clarity might also have another result.

From our conversations with Piedmont, we wondered if they used this up in the air plan to support the opposite opinion, that their process will be cleaner.

When all their information remains hypothetical, does that allow them to smooth over hard questions about their waste?

Even with the dearth of information that she feels Piedmont has provided, and perhaps because of it, Lisa continues to call out what she sees as Piedmont's behind-the-scene discrepancies. She uses her fire to light up the information that she sees [00:37:00] Piedmont keeping in the dark.

So that's kind of become my mission to point that out and to say, well, look, in this permit they're saying X, Y, Z, but on their website to their you know, potential stock owners, they're saying this. Which one is it, and how does that change the permit? 

Mines have always tried to remain hidden from sight. What can look like a simple tunnel at the surface, or a break in the rolling hills, can actually lead to a labyrinth of passages, chambers, and twisted stairways leading deep underground.

There is power in the act of hiding, and the act of unearthing, the body of a mine. 

But does the idea of a mine move beyond its physical borders and environmental impacts? Could we extend its influence to people's dreams and aspirations for the future? 

That's next, in Mining for the Climate.

 [00:38:00] Mining for the Climate is a co-creation of Nate Otjen and Juan Manuel Rubio, and it's a production of Blue Lab at Princeton University.

For their support and expertise, we thank at Princeton, the High Meadows Environmental Institute, the Humanities Council, and the Office of the Dean of Research, as well as Kouvenda Media.

This episode of Mining for the Climate was written by Alex Norbrook and Juan Manuel Rubio, and it was hosted by Alex Norbrook.

Sound design was by Juan Manuel Rubio.

Our research and production team includes Max Widmann, Alex Norbrook, Grace Wang, Nate Otjen, and Juan Manuel Rubio.

Music for this episode was by Purple Planet. Find it at purple-planet.com.

Additional music tracks are from Shake that Little Foot and Pryor Meadows.

Mining for the Climate was made possible by funding from Blue Lab, the High Meadows Environmental [00:39:00] Institute, and the Office of the Dean for Research at Princeton University.

We would like to express our gratitude to the following people for their generosity and kindness. Amir Adaryani, H. L. Beam, Locke Bell, Ian Bigley, Rebecca Buck, Chad Brown, Brian Dalton, Wyatt Gjullin, Larry Neal, Monique Parker, Adam Parr, Thea Riofrancos, Erin Sanders, Lisa Stroupe, Emily Winter, and Tom.

At Blue Lab, we especially thank the lab's director, Allison Carruth, along with Barron Bixler, Maggie Poost, Jayme Collins, Jessica Ng, and Mario Soriano.

At the High Meadows Environmental Institute, we thank Emily Ahmetaj, Stacey Christian, Kathy Hackett, Nathan Jessee, Ryan Juskus, Zack Kaado, Heidi Mihalik, and [00:40:00] Laura Matecha.

And at the Effron Center for the Study of America, we give special thanks to NicQuwesha Toliver.