This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

That’s what coming – a potentially major battle between supporters of lithium deposits in Eastern Oregon and supporters of sage grouse habitat.

The two occur in the same place on a remote stretch of the Oregon-Nevada border.

According to Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) — a former lobby client of mine and the best news outlet in the state from the standpoint of solid journalism — at least three companies have staked mining claims in some of the best remaining sage grouse habitat in Oregon.

Why?

Those companies want lithium, which is major ingredient in new-gauge batteries, which are used in many new electric cars — as well as in golf carts, I add as a golfer who wants a lithium-battery cart of my own.

OPB says multiple companies are issuing bold statements about the region’s lithium prospects to lure investors.  Meanwhile, the Biden administration is making a push to build a stand-alone battery supply chain in the U.S., further filling the mining industry’s sails.”

The coming battle also could play out in the California desert near where I lived during the winter.  In the Salton Sea east of Palm Springs, companies are hoping to start mining lithium from that body of water.  Again, there are huge deposits of lithium under water.

Despite the prospect of fierce land-use battles, I emphasize this piece of good news.  In Eastern Oregon and the California desert, mining would provide jobs for hundreds of workers – and both areas could use the economic good news of new jobs for persons who may now be unemployed.

Here are a few excerpts from the OPB story:

“Katie Fite crouched behind some waist-high sagebrush, and her dog Bell nestled in the plant’s cozy cavity to shield from howling winds.

“It was the first Saturday in April, peak mating season for sage grouse on a remote stretch of the Oregon-Nevada border.  From where Fite and her dog sat, they could see more than a dozen male grouse displaying their tail feathers and issuing their signature zip-popping call to bring all the girls to the yard.

“All around the lek — the flat, open areas where sage grouse congregate during mating season — were wooden stakes marking where mining companies may one day scrape away this crucial habitat to get at the minerals contained in the cake-soft earth of the McDermitt Caldera.

“The old super-volcano straddling the state line is laced with some of the highest concentrations of lithium in the United States, making it a prime target for miners and prospectors looking to feed a growing hunger for batteries to store renewable energy and power electric vehicles.

“It’s also some of the country’s best remaining sage grouse habitat, which has declined precipitously in the past century.”

“There’s still hope for sage grouse here, unlike many other areas,” said Fite, who’s monitored sage grouse for decades and now serves as public lands director for the conservation group Wildlands Defense. “But it’ll be a death knell for sage grouse out here if industrial mega-mining for lithium takes place.”

Just a few years ago, the McDermitt Caldera was off-limits to new mining claims to protect sage grouse.  But rule changes under the Trump Administration opened the door to extractive industry, and industry walked in.

OPB continues:

“The U.S. is heavily reliant on foreign imports of raw materials used in batteries, including lithium.  That leaves the supply chain, and thus the country’s transition off fossil fuels, vulnerable to geopolitical conflicts like the U.S. trade war with China and Russia’s war on Ukraine.

“’Clearly, the U.S. needs guaranteed domestic supply,’ said Lindsay Dudfield, executive director of Jindalee Resources Limited, an Australian company exploring a large lithium deposit in Oregon’s Malheur County. ‘And so you’ve seen bi-partisan support for the development of critical minerals projects in the United States growing.’

“Companies touting southeast Oregon’s mineral potential, including Jindalee, are several years away at the earliest from developing mines if they get to that point at all.  Any mine would require state and federal approval that could face legal challenges.

“But conservationists like Fite say the damage to sage grouse habitat has already started with exploratory drilling tearing up patches of sagebrush, and that any new mining would be devastating.

“’This would represent a total, tragic loss,’ Fite said.  ‘And I believe it has to be stopped.’”

So, the battle is just around the corner.  For my part, I can understand both points of view.  The economy is suffering, especially in rural areas of Oregon and California, so it makes sense to emphasize job creation.  But, at the same time, advocates convey concern about the environment, including for various kinds of animals that live off the land.

It strikes me that middle ground would be possible if both sides come to the debate with an open mind – and if neither side disparaged the other.  That’s often difficult in politics these days.

And, of course, the old saw still applies – we’ll see and time will tell.