Skip to content
August 30, 2025
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • tiktok
MILLENNIUM NEWS 24/7

MILLENNIUM NEWS 24/7

Bridging The Community’s World Wide

  • Home
  • IP TV LIVE
  • PODCAST
  • U.S.News
  • LOCAL ELECTION
  • State News
    • Alabama
    • Alaska
    • Arizona
    • Arkansas
    • California
    • Colorado
    • Connecticut
    • Delaware
    • Florida
    • Georgia
    • Hawaii
    • Idaho
    • Illinois
    • Indiana
    • Iowa
    • Kansas
    • Kentucky
    • Louisiana
    • Maryland
    • Massachusetts
    • Michigan
    • Maine
    • Minnesota
    • Mississippi
    • Missouri
    • Montana
    • Nebraska
    • Nevada
    • New Hampshire
    • New Jersey
    • New Mexico
    • New York
    • North Carolina
    • North Dakota
    • Oregon
    • Pennsylvania
    • Rhode Island
    • South Carolina
    • South Dakota
    • Tennessee
    • Texas
    • Virginia
    • Washington
    • West Virginia
    • U.S. Virgin Islands
  • Politics
  • World News
  • Sports
  • Entertainment
  • Weather
  • Business
  • Health News
  • ADVERTISEMENT
  • About Us
  • Contact us
Live TV

Native groups sit on a treasure trove of lithium. Now mines threaten their water, culture and wealth

TUSAQUILLAS, Argentina  — Irene Leonor Flores de Callata, 68, treks along a bone-dry riverbed, guiding a herd of llamas and sheep through stretching desert.

Flores de Callata’s native Kolla people have spent centuries climbing deep into the mountains of northern Argentina in search of a simple substance: Fresh drinking water.

Here, in one of the most arid environments in the world, it’s a life force that underpins everything.

In rainy months, the sacred lands surrounding their small adobe town of Tusaquillas well with water. In the dry months, families hike miles under the beating sun, hopeful their livestock can sip from a small plastic container, fed by a hose running high into the distant mountains.

Today is a lucky day. Their blue container is brimming with fresh water.Bu t communities like hers increasingly worry that their luck may run out. That’s because the parched waterways surrounding their town are intrinsically connected with spanning white salt flats below, subterranean lagoons with waters jam-packed with a material that’s come to be known as “white gold” – lithium.

In the “lithium triangle” – a region spanning Argentina, Chile and Bolivia – native communities sit upon a treasure trove of the stuff: an estimated trillion dollars in lithium.

The metal is key in the global fight against climate change, used in electric car batteries, crucial to solar and wind energy and more. But to extract it, mines suck water out of the flats, tethered to the lives of thousands of communities like Flores de Callata’s.

As the world’s most powerful increasingly look toward the Triangle, the largest reserve of lithium on Earth, as a crucial puzzle piece to save the environment, others worry the search for the mineral will mean sacrificing that very life force that has sustained the region’s native people for centuries.

“We will lose everything,” said Flores de Callata. “What will we do if we don’t have water? If the mines come, we’ll lose our culture, we won’t be left with anything.

zndreds of years after Spanish explorers arrived in South America in search of riches, a new gold rush is on. And the indigenous people of the so-called “lithium triangle” are worried about losing their age-old way of life. (AP video: Victor R. Caivano)

At the same time Flores de Callata’s town and thousands of others across the “lithium triangle” have lived quietly off the sparse food and water their lands offer, the price for lithium skyrocketed in 2022.

Between 2021 and 2023, the price for one ton of lithium in U.S. markets nearly tripled, reaching a high of $46,000 a ton last year, according to a United States Geological Survey report. In China, the main customer of the region’s lithium, a ton of the metal went for a whopping $76,000 at its peak last year.

Leaders, mining executives and companies from across the world began to turn their heads. From the U.S. and China, they looked to the region’s barren deserts both as a source of wealth and an engine to power the transition to green energy.

U.S., President Joe Biden has pushed for a shift to more sustainable energy sources, like wind and solar, and aimed to have half of all new vehicle sales in the U.S. – around 8 million cars a year – be electric by 2030. All require lithium.

In late February, Biden’s top diplomat Antony Blinken underscored the importance Argentina’s lithium in a visit to the South American country.

“One of the most important to our shared future – in fact, one of the most important to the entire planet – is clean energy,” Blinken said. “Argentina is poised to play a critical role in building supply chains for critical minerals that will drive the economy of the 21st century, particularly things like lithium.”

The high demand surged global lithium production, but in recent months prices have significantly dipped due to a short-term oversupply in the metal and overestimates in electric vehicle purchases. Yet global consumption of the lithium only continues to rise.

The “white gold” they seek is contained in the hundreds of salt flats, or salares, speckling the region.

From afar, they look like fields of Arctic snow, but below are deep wells of salted groundwater packed with minerals. Unlike other forms of mining, lithium here is extracted not from rock, but rather from the brine water pumped from the salt flats.

The problem is that the salt flats also act as an essential part of a highly biodiverse ecosystem, say scientists like Ingrid Garcés, a hydrologist from Chile’s University of Antofagasta.

About Author

Habib Habib

See author's posts

Post navigation

Previous Hur transcript reveals Biden presidency’s profound and mundane moments
Next As Texas’ largest-ever wildfire nears containment, Panhandle braces for “extremely critical fire weather conditions”

Related Stories

Court finds Trump’s tariffs an illegal use of emergency power, but leaves them in place for now

Court finds Trump’s tariffs an illegal use of emergency power, but leaves them in place for now

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers worry he can’t get a fair trial and request gag order for top US officials

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers worry he can’t get a fair trial and request gag order for top US officials

Trump blocks $4.9B in foreign aid Congress OK’d, using maneuver last seen nearly 50 years ago

Trump blocks $4.9B in foreign aid Congress OK’d, using maneuver last seen nearly 50 years ago

Entertainment

Julia Roberts’ ‘After the Hunt’ stirs #MeToo debate at Venice Film Festival 1

Julia Roberts’ ‘After the Hunt’ stirs #MeToo debate at Venice Film Festival

Rodion Shchedrin, the celebrated Russian composer, has died at age 92 2

Rodion Shchedrin, the celebrated Russian composer, has died at age 92

James Cameron on two decades of making ‘Avatar’ and the future he sees for movies 3

James Cameron on two decades of making ‘Avatar’ and the future he sees for movies

Katy Perry testifies that she’s seeking ‘justice’ at trial over $15 million mansion 4

Katy Perry testifies that she’s seeking ‘justice’ at trial over $15 million mansion

Lil Nas X charged with attacking police officers as he walked naked on Los Angeles street 5

Lil Nas X charged with attacking police officers as he walked naked on Los Angeles street

Pennsylvania’s Chautauqua is a summertime haven for lifelong learners 6

Pennsylvania’s Chautauqua is a summertime haven for lifelong learners

Mariah the Scientist’s ‘Hearts Sold Separately’ mixes love potions and pensive emotions 7

Mariah the Scientist’s ‘Hearts Sold Separately’ mixes love potions and pensive emotions

Top News

Court finds Trump’s tariffs an illegal use of emergency power, but leaves them in place for now

Court finds Trump’s tariffs an illegal use of emergency power, but leaves them in place for now

Texas governor signs new voting maps pushed by Trump to gain five GOP seats in Congress in 2026

Texas governor signs new voting maps pushed by Trump to gain five GOP seats in Congress in 2026

Father of 8-year-old boy killed in Minneapolis church shooting wants him remembered for his love

Father of 8-year-old boy killed in Minneapolis church shooting wants him remembered for his love

Minneapolis, a series of shootings and the grim realities of a tough summer

Minneapolis, a series of shootings and the grim realities of a tough summer

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • tiktok
Editor: Nur M Tofader, Office: 250 Park Avenue, 7th Floor, New York, NY 10177 & Tell: 718 893 0002 (Office), 7188441300, +1212 401 6266, e-mail: Info@millenniuamtv24.com, e-mail: Info@millenniuamnews24.com, Copyright © Millennium News 24/7 | DarkNews by AF themes.