In an annual meeting on June 2, General Motors' board of directors recommended its stock owners vote against a measure to conduct a human rights report on the mining efforts in Northern Nevada.
The mining in question is happening near Thacker Pass, otherwise known as Peehee Mu'huh in the Northern Paiute language. It's located about 30 miles from the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone reservation.
The operation, owned by Lithium America, is projected to extract enough lithium from the ancestral land to produce roughly a million GM electric vehicles a year. An independent analysis found that nearly 80% of lithium reserves in the U.S. are within 35 miles of Native American reservations.
Only 15 percent of GM shareholders voted in favor of the measure, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing. A majority vote wouldn't have guaranteed that GM would have launched the report.
“As women of faith, we feel that it is important to stand with people that have already been harmed, to call out current harms that may be happening to them, and just speak out for future generations,” said Sister Susan Francois of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace, which put forth the measure and owns shares in GM. The earnings from those stocks fund the Sisters' mission to support those in need.
If no action is taken at GM, the Sisters may file the measure again before next year's meeting.
Nevada tribal members have vocalized their concerns about the Thacker Pass mine for at least a decade. “We understand that this energy transition is important, and some mining is needed," said Fermina Stevens, an enrolled member of the Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone, as well as the executive director of the Western Shoshone Defense Project, a nonprofit that advocates for the preservation of ancestral territories. "But really not to the detriment of communities, the land, and especially the water."
