"A federal court temporarily blocked the sale of more than 2,000 acres of public land in and around a polluted former copper mine to a multi-national petroleum company on Thursday while a lawsuit against the sale is decided in court.
In April, the Bureau of Land Management approved the direct sale of 2,062 acres of public land near the Anaconda Copper Mine site in Lyon County — and the underlying mineral rights — to the Atlantic Richfield Company (ARC).
Several environmental groups — the Great Basin Resource Watch, Prayer Horse Inc., and Taboosi Dikudu NO’Obatu Numma Cooperative — responded by suing the federal government to prevent the sale, which was slated to go through after July 27, 2026.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Miranda Du ruled the lawsuit raised serious questions about whether the sale complied with federal land disposal requirements and if BLM failed to take a “hard look” at the impact of future mining on the site before approving the sale of public land to a private company."
Jeniffer Solis reports for the Nevada Current July 20, 2026.
