HikeArizona.COM

That 'clean' electric car battery material has to come from SOMEWHERE.
https://www.mining.com/us-to-fast-track ... c-project/
May 8 2023 -- South32’s Hermosa project got a major boost on Monday when the Biden Administration announced the project would be added to the new Fast-41 program (FAST-41 was signed into law by Obama in December 2015). This program will accelerate the permitting process by up to 50%.
South32 expects to make a final investment decision on the “Taylor” (part of Hermosa) deposit in the second half of 2023. The inclusion of Hermosa in Fast-41 will likely favorably impact the decision to move forward with a $1.7 billion-dollar investment. The Taylor deposit is expected to have a nameplate throughput capacity of 4.3 million tons per year over a 22-year resource life.
South32 has received permission from the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to run up to 4,500 gallons of water per minute through one of its two water treatment plants, then dump that water into Harshaw Creek, a tributary to Sonoita Creek, more than 6.4 million gallons of water flowing into the Harshaw on a daily basis.

Manganese is pretty interesting; it helps batteries store more in a small space is less volatile, making them safer. It also has some more primary uses in regards to cobalt, specifically, that make it interesting, and I don't believe there is a real domestic source for it as of now.
At the end of the day, we can't put a windmill on the car so the energy has to come from somewhere and basically every reputable study shows that electric pays off over ICE after three-ish years (obviously dependent on multiple factors) so having the raw material come from the states is generally safer from a geopolitical standpoint and human rights perspective, at least. There's some obvious NIMBYism that comes in then it's in areas you play in, of course, but that's par for the course.

I think it's weird that you didn't post the link to the actual text you posted (at least, multiple quotes appear here) that explains better the details of the issues/questions posed re: water but it can be found here for interested parties https://theintercept.com/2023/06/30/bid ... patagonia/

As with anything, it's complicated.

edit: I'm actually kind of curious now. Was the original post generated by AI? It seems to pull direct quotes from multiple sources but trying to appear as a single source. If there was a single source, I'd really be interested in that, too, because it seems like they may have tried to generate it via AI?

6.4 million gallons per day converts to about 9.9 cubic feet per second. So that's a little babbling brook, not a big river.