Emergency protection sought for Nevada toad endangered by gold mines

Edvard Pettersson

(CN) — The Center for Biological Diversity on Wednesday sought emergency protection for a rare toad species whose habitat in Southern Nevada is under threat by seven proposed gold mining projects.

Specifically, the center filed a petition with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Amargosa toad under the Endangered Species Act.

The species lives only along a 14-mile stretch in Nevada's Oasis Valley, a unique wetland along the Upper Amargosa River, the nonprofit said. The toad's survival depends on consistent groundwater discharge in the river.

But the availability of groundwater to sustain the wetland is now threatened by the gold-mining projects surrounding Oasis Valley, the center warned. Those projects include the North Bullfrog Gold Mine, currently under environmental review, as well as the Expanded Silicon Project, which has been described as the biggest greenfield gold discovery in the United States in recent decades.

Modeling suggests these mining projects could cause significant and widespread drawdown of groundwater levels across Oasis Valley, according to the center's emergency petition. That could potentially lead to a decrease in spring discharge and a gradual loss or degradation of the toad's habitat.

“Oasis Valley is set to become the epicenter of a vast new gold-mining district, putting huge stress on the delicate aquifer that sustains the Amargosa River and threatening rare species like Amargosa toads who don’t live anywhere else in the world,” said Krista Kemppinen, a senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Fish and Wildlife Service really has to act now to give this embattled species a fighting chance at survival.”

Previous attempts to have the Amargosa toad listed as endangered in 1994 and 2008 were denied, largely because there were already community-led conservation efforts in the Oasis Valley. But the prospect of mining operations sucking up more groundwater requires more drastic action, the center argues.

“While these well-intentioned efforts by the local community and partners have had some successes, the threat of groundwater drawdown from gold mining poses an existential threat to the Amargosa toad,” Kemppinen said. “Only the Endangered Species Act can prevent its extinction.”

There are currently about 2,000 Amargosa's toads in total. They face other threats, including from livestock, invasive species, off-road vehicles, highway construction and water diversion that has left parts of the river dry.

Amargosa toads are quiet, brownish toads, the center said, about 2 to 3 inches long. They have evolved to survive in Oasis Valley, in one of the few locations where the Amargosa River has a reliable flow of surface water.

In other Nevada toad news, the Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday issued a proposed designated habitat for the endangered Dixie Valley toad. The proposed habitat includes 930 acres of occupied wetland and upland in Dixie Meadows in Churchill County, Nev., and encompasses the entire range of the species.

The imperiled Dixie Valley toad was given a lifeline in 2022 when the feds provided it with protections under the Endangered Species Act. The species is under threat from a geothermal energy project adjacent to its sole habitat. Geothermal energy production has been shown to dry up nearby hot springs — and if the Dixie Valley toad’s hot springs dry up, the species will almost surely go extinct.