Mojave mining lawsuit filed

Environmental groups sued the Interior Department on April 15, saying federal officials unlawfully cleared mining work at the Colosseum Mine inside Mojave National Preserve. (earthjustice.org) The suit was filed by the National Parks Conservation Association, represented by Earthjustice, against the department’s 2025 decision to let Dateline Resources revive industrial activity at the site. Dateline is an Australian company that acquired the mine in 2021. (earthjustice.org) (datelineresources.com.au) Interior said on April 8, 2025 that the mine could keep operating under an existing Bureau of Land Management plan and cast the project as part of a push for domestic rare earth production. The agency called Colosseum “America’s second rare earth elements mine.” (blm.gov) The legal fight turns on a basic question: whether a mine approved before Mojave National Preserve was created in 1994 can restart under a 1985 operating plan. The plaintiffs say the answer is no because the preserve is now part of the National Park System and new mining activity needs fresh park review. (npca.org) (earthjustice.org) That dispute has been building for years. Earthjustice said the National Park Service told Dateline between 2021 and 2024 that no new operations could proceed until the agency approved a new plan addressing the effects of reopening the mine. (earthjustice.org) The groups say work already underway has scarred the site through drilling, bulldozing and road building in the Clark Mountain area. They also say the company caused more than $200,000 in damage and should not have been allowed to rely on an expired environmental review. (earthjustice.org) (npca.org) The mine itself is not new. The National Park Service says Colosseum expanded in the 1980s and 1990s, produced more than $100 million in gold and silver at its peak, and was decommissioned in 1993 after reclamation work. (nps.gov) The land around it is unusually sensitive. Earthjustice and the National Parks Conservation Association say the Clark Mountain region holds the second-highest concentration of rare plants of any California mountain range and provides habitat for desert bighorn sheep. (earthjustice.org) (npca.org) Dateline has pitched Colosseum as both a gold mine and a rare earth project near Mountain Pass, the only operating rare earth mine in the United States. That makes the case a test of how far the Trump administration can push critical-minerals policy inside protected park land. (datelineresources.com.au) (blm.gov) The lawsuit asks a federal court to block the approvals and halt the work. For now, the fight is over whether a mine shut down in 1993 can come back under rules written before Mojave became a national preserve. (earthjustice.org)