Court hearings are under way in a lawsuit challenging one of the Imperial Valley’s first lithium projects. Two environmental justice organizations are suing Imperial County officials over their decision to greenlight the Hell’s Kitchen Project, a geothermal energy plant that would collect dissolved lithium particles from searing hot water deep below the valley. The project is being built by Controlled Thermal Resources, one of several energy companies racing to set up lithium operations near the Salton Sea and tap into the region’s massive underground lithium reserves. But the environmental organizations Comite Civico del Valle and Earthworks say county officials didn’t look hard enough at how much water the plant would use, whether it would pollute the valley’s air and how it could affect tribal cultural resources.

Other Salton Sea article:

• Imperial Valley Press: Land of Extremes: Valley of Discovery: Geology in the Imperial Valley