Piedmont Lithium gets cold shoulder in Gaston County

This map shows the location of the proposed 1,500-acre Piedmont Lithium mine. (Map: Piedmont Lithium mining permit application)

Locke Bell and Warren Snowdon hiked through a Gaston County forest, its foliage still full despite the lateness of the year. It was 2021, and they and some friends had spent the afternoon traversing creeks and streams and cliffs, and paying their respects at a family cemetery.

“Oh my God, right through there,” Bell said, pointing through a clearing. “That’s at least a 150-year-old tree. The three of us can’t reach around that. That thing is huge.”

A magnificent tree. A 19th-century tree. A tree whose roots spread like tentacles and whose boughs fanned toward the sun.

The forest borders 3,600 acres of land owned by Piedmont Lithium, which wants to mine about half of it for spodumene, an important mineral source of lithium. The publicly traded company plans to extract the lithium from the spodumene, which is abundant in this part of the state. The company would then convert it to lithium hydroxide, a key component of electric vehicle batteries, at a plant onsite. The company plans to start mining in 2027.

Yet even in the name of clean transportation, extractive industries like lithium mining still pose environmental risks. In Gaston County, arsenic naturally occurs in the rock, and residents are concerned that the cancer-causing chemical will be released during Piedmont’s mining operations. Those same operations would release greenhouse gases — 330,000 tons per year, or equivalent to emissions from 66,000 gas-fueled passenger cars — state records show.

And despite its grand economic promises — $3.9 billion in cumulative economic output, 428 mining-related jobs, and $45 million to local and state tax coffers — Piedmont Lithium has few friends in Gaston County. 

Mining companies often chip away at public opposition by dividing and conquering a community. They win over some landowners and elected officials with pure marketing, and still others with money: contributing to election campaigns and buying property from people who are land rich but cash poor.

In Gaston County, some residents near the mine have sold their land, but far more people vehemently oppose the project. They fear their drinking water wells will become polluted, run dry, or both. They are concerned about the noise, light, blasting, dust, the permanent corruption of the landscape, the risk of fire, especially if lithium hydroxide comes into contact with water.

Piedmont Lithium has likely lost those people for good. That leaves the Gaston County Commissioners, a defensive line between Piedmont Lithium and the Department of Environmental Quality, which has granted every mining permit application it’s reviewed in the last 53 years, save for four.

For a mine to be built, the county commissioners have to rezone the land. And last week, the commissioners, all of them Republican, were at best suspicious, and at worst, hostile toward the company, which made its first appearance before the body in two years.

“We’ve tried to work with you guys,” said commission chairman Chad Brown. “This project is based on a lot of promises. This is the worst economic development rollout I’ve ever seen.”

The commission had asked the company CEO, Keith Phillips, to attend the meeting. He was a no-show, however. Instead, he sent Erin Sanders, senior vice president of corporate communications and investor relations, and Monique Parker, vice president of safety, environment and health, to take the heat.

Left: Erin Sanders, vice president of corporate communications and investor relations at Piedmont Lithium, with Monique Parker, vice president of safety, environment and health. (Screenshot: Gaston County Commissioners meeting, Aug. 8, 2023)

“These people have very valid concerns,” said commission Vice-Chairman Bob Hovis. “I challenged the CEO to come and speak face-to-face. It’s offensive to us [that he’s not here].”

The last time Piedmont Lithium spoke before the county, the company was on shaky financial footing. It had long promised investors it would obtain county approval for the mine, but its shares plunged nearly 20% after Reuters reported at the time that it had repeatedly delayed seeking county approval. After losing money on their investments, shareholders filed a class action lawsuit against the company for the alleged misrepresentations. That litigation is ongoing.

“Piedmont Lithium is a different company than the one that appeared before you in 2021,” said Sanders, trying to assuage the commission last week. The company now owns a stake in three lithium mining operations in Canada, Australia and Ghana, as well as a proposed lithium hydroxide manufacturing plant in McMinn County, Tennessee, about 260 miles west of Gaston County.

“A lot of questions we couldn’t answer in 2021, and we didn’t communicate properly prior to that,” Sanders went on. :We want to correct those errors. We will be responsible. We will mitigate your concerns. That’s our goal tonight and we appreciate the opportunity.”

Residents concerned about mine’s effects on water quality, quantity

Snowdon and Bell traipsed down to a creek, which moseyed through Snowden’s property. Snowden had previously hosted state aquatic biologists “because we were curious about the health of our creek,” he said.

There were abundant crayfish and other aquatic life, bellwethers of a clean stream. “They said, ‘that’s a great sign’,” Snowdon recalled. “This is a really, really healthy area.”

Snowdon would like to keep it that way.

Mining uses millions of gallons of groundwater per day — water that once pumped, also must be disposed of, along with any contaminants. Piedmont plans to reclaim some of the water to suppress dust and to use in other mining operations. The rest will be discharged into the Long Creek sewer system, operated by Two Rivers Utilities and the City of Gastonia. From there, the wastewater flows into the South Fork of the Catawba River.

But the very geological formations that make Gaston County a hotspot for lithium also make it a hotspot for naturally occurring arsenic, both in the rock and in the groundwater. Piedmont will be responsible for ensuring no contaminated groundwater escapes its basins and enters creeks or private drinking water wells, especially during flooding.

“We anticipate there will be arsenic in the water,” Parker told the commission, “but we could use various methods to treat it, depending on the concentration. If we find arsenic, we’ll return the water cleaner than when we found it.” 

“If you say so,” Commissioner Allen Fraley said.

Piedmont will be required to pretreat its wastewater before sending it to the Long Creek plant. From there, the discharge would flow into the South Fork of the Catawba River.

However, state records show the Division of Water Resources is concerned about the chemical content of Piedmont’s wastewater and its effects on the utility. Piedmont could have to pretreat for benzene, phosphorus, fluoride, lithium, sulfate and chloride, among other chemicals. The final requirements would be detailed in a permit between the utility and the company. Yet both parties are counting on the flow of the Catawba River to “dilute the wastewater to acceptable stream standards,” state records show.

Piedmont itself needs clean water for its chemical processing. The company will tap into Cherryville’s municipal water line, which must be extended to the mine, at Piedmont’s expense.

Residents might have to tap into public water if their private wells run dry. As the pits are mined, they will fill with groundwater. To access the rock, Piedmont would pump as much as 3 million gallons of water from the pits per day. Nearby residents are worried that will siphon water from their drinking water wells, potentially draining them dry.

Although Piedmont’s own studies show no “widespread” drying up of wells, the company did identify 10 properties that could be affected. 

“We’ll have monitoring wells around mining property,” Parker of Piedmont Lithium told the commission. “We’ll know if we have a drawdown issue.”

If a well runs dry, Parker said the company will provide alternate supplies, such as bottled water, in the short-term. Within 45 days, Piedmont will drill a new well or if municipal water service is within a “practical distance,” will connect the resident to that line and pay for the tie-in fee. The residents will pay the monthly utility bill, though.  

Parker could not tell the commission the number of wells that are within a mile of the mining site. “Many aren’t registered,” she said. But she said the company will go door-to-door for a more accurate count.

“That door knocking should have already been done,” Fraley responded.

Residents closest to the mine are concerned that blasting, which the company says will occur once or twice per day, could crack their foundations or otherwise damage their homes. Piedmont officials told Gaston County Commissioners that vibrations could be felt 2,000 feet away from the blast, “but farther away it quickly dissipates.” (At a rock mine in Snow Camp, residents living within 1,200 feet of the quarry’s property boundary — and well beyond the blast site — reported damage to their ceilings and walls after the explosions.)

“We’re not going to hurt anybody’s property,” said Stuart Brashear, Piedmont’s blasting consultant. “But we want to get to zero perception.”

What’s next?

Piedmont Lithium continues to lose money, recording a $125 million deficit as of June 30, and expects to operate in the red “until commercial production is achieved,” according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company wrote that it has “incurred net losses and utilized cash in operations since inception and we expect to incur future additional losses.” However, it has enough cash “to fund our operations and meet our obligations as they come due for at least one year.”

In addition to raising cash and securing financing, the company wrote, “our long-term success is dependent upon our ability to obtain certain permits and approvals, develop our planned portfolio of projects, earn revenues and achieve profitability.”

The NC Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing Piedmont Lithium’s permit applications. However, without Gaston County’s rezoning approval, it will be difficult for the company to proceed. (Piedmont Lithium could appeal a county or state denial in court.)

In May, Piedmont managed to clear one hurdle, using cash: The City of Cherryville removed itself from the fray, relinquishing its zoning jurisdiction over the mining property. In return, Piedmont Lithium paid $1 million to the city for parks and recreation projects and pledged $10 million over 20 years, starting with the first shipment of lithium hydroxide from the local mine. The payments would be made in annual installments of $500,000, according to a community development agreement between the city and the company.

Cherryville officials said they had little recourse but to make the deal. Its zoning ordinance doesn’t explicitly regulate mining, Mayor H.L. Beam told Wise News in May, and it’s unlikely that the city could legally thwart Piedmont Lithium’s plan. Instead, Beam continued, “we’re letting Gaston County handle that. It’s going to be on them.”

NC Newsline coverage of other mines:

• Hamptonville, in Yadkin County and Pleasant Garden, in Guilford County  were both proposed granite mines. County officials in each jurisdiction rejected the rezoning.
• Snow Camp, in Alamance County (rock aggregate): There was no zoning in this part of Alamance County. DEQ granted the mining permit; residents contested the decision in court. They lost but did secure a few concessions from the company.
• Raleigh, in Wake County (rock aggregate): DEQ denied the mining permit, only the fourth such action since the Mining Act of 1971. Wake Stone, the applicant contested the decision and won. A judge ordered DEQ to issue the permit.
• Prospect, in Caswell County. (rock aggregate): This is one of the most complex mining cases in the state, and stems in part from the lack of zoning in this part of the county. DEQ issued the mining permit to Carolina Sunrock, but community members are fighting the mine in the local courts, arguing the county illegally granted the company vested rights.

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