Lithium Nevada CEO Alexi Zawadzki is confident the government review complies with all applicable federal laws.

It was “based on nearly 10 years of baseline environmental studies that were conducted through strict adherence to state and federal standards and with many years of extensive coordination and consultation with local stakeholders,” he said in an emailed statement.

The lithium deposit is believed to be one of the U.S.' largest. The mine is projected to produce 1,000 jobs in construction and 300 permanent jobs, generating $75 million in state and local tax revenue over a decade.

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I also would consider quite favorable, with emphasis on the word: "after", the following exerpt from this same article:

The EPA acknowledged that after the National Environmental Protection Act public review process ended, Lithium Nevada submitted a new mitigation plan Dec. 16 that it maintains could substantially decrease long-term impacts.

So, I don't know that the final impact of articles like this one is completely negative, since it also gets out the message of the response of the company.  The information about the lawsuits isn't really new, since we have seen this information posted here and by the press previously, but I am very pleased to see Zawadzki's response to all of this and, especially glad to see that over 2 1/2 months ago, before the smoke rose about the lawsuits, Lithium Nevada took a positive preventive step to ameliorate a possible future adverse event.  I would say the Zawadzki was prescient in this instance and that sort of preventive measure will provide some penetrating  ammunition in any subsequent litigation.  Hopefully we will hear more about this ammended "new mitigation plan" filed on 16 December in the near future with an additional PR from the company and/or the long anticpated DFS, which itself would provide more detailed information about all the mitigating steps concerning all environmental issues that affect the development of Thacker Pass.

So far, I am impressed by this early move from Zawadzki.  I  am much more positive about this forward move than about the backward moves of LAC regarding the production Goal Post, but in fairness the company is under assailment by the litigious opposition and the company and the world has had the devastating effect of the pandemic which undoubtedly has slowed what would otherwise have been a more accelerated progress toward completion of the project at Thacker Pass and toward production at the Cauchari-Olaroz facility. 

The possibility of lawsuits, of course, was something anticpated and documented in the lengthy Annual Report recently released by LAC.   Okiedo