The Brief

How many ways can you cook an onion? Sure, you can chop and saute it… but how about roasting its skin until it turns black and then pulverizing it until it turns into a powder to be used as a seasoning?

That kind of thinking has led Lauren and Phil Pretty, the brother-and-sister owners of Heritage in Long Beach, to earn a Michelin Green Star for sustainable practices two years in a row, one of just 291 restaurants across the globe.

In the U.S., we throw away more than 30% of the food we buy, which translates into roughly 92 billion pounds of waste, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Much of that ends up in landfills, producing significant amounts of greenhouse gases and exacerbating the climate emergency.

A good chunk of that waste comes from restaurants. This is why the efforts of a new crop of chefs and cooks, like the Pretty siblings, remain so essential to the future of fine dining.

The zero-waste philosophy 

Heritage is small restaurant housed in a craftsman-style home on 7th Street, one of Long Beach’s busiest thoroughfares. It has a quaint yet upscale feel, with a sleek modernist kitchen and dining area, feeling like you are in someone's dining room.

The exterior of Heritage Restaurant in Long Beach on Sept. 4, 2024.

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The Prettys, who grew up in Long Beach, base their kitchen on zero-waste principles. This means everything — from food to packaging — should be used, and nothing should be thrown away.

According to Phil Pretty, who’s been cooking professionally for 20 years, it’s all about creativity.

From left, siblings Lauren, 33, and Phillip, 44, Pretty, in their restaurant Heritage in Long Beach on Sept. 4, 2024.

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“We're taking one ingredient and manipulating it four to five different ways rather than having five different ingredients,” he said.

It’s allowed him and his team to evolve in their abilities as cooks. “We can now rely on less is more," he said. "There are generally only three things on the plate. But within those three things, there's a lot of depth in how we work and how it gets to the plate.”

What does zero waste look like on the plate? 

Using a tasting menu model, which runs $150 a person, gives the duo a certain level of control.

Pretty uses the example of a recent shipment of a pork set, which typically contains an array of cuts of meat. Part of that set goes towards their pork shoulder dish, which is roasted whole to ensure they don’t waste excess meat.

This is followed by pork belly that’s cured and smoked.

Cucamelon vines grow throughout the Heritage Farm in Long Beach . The cucumelon is used in their Kanpachi Crudo dish.

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The Souvide Beet with fermented plum, beet tops, beet jus, is one of the restaurant's most zero-waste dishes.

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Then, a batch of onions is chopped to make jam with the pork belly. A second batch of onions is cut in half and cooked using the sous vide method (immersion cooking), causing them to curve into themselves. Those act as casings, which are then stuffed with the jam.

The remainder of the onion pieces, the middle parts of the vegetable, are then cooked down with cream and blended to create a soubise, a classic French sauce used as a base for the rest of the dish.

That kind of inventive thinking plays into Heritage's bottom line. The average cost percentage for a fine-dining restaurant is usually around 35% of its overhead. However, food costs at Heritage “hover around 28-30%, well below the average,” Phil Pretty said.

Betting the farm

Heritage's sustainable footprint goes far beyond the restaurant. The Prettys also founded Heritage Farm, a small plot of land up the street from the restaurant. The land is used primarily for growing herbs in large quantities for the kitchen, along with a few spaces for seasonal crops such as 1,500-year-old cave beans, an heirloom bean native to the southwest of the U.S., and tomatoes, passion fruit, and figs.

“We just planted a third fig tree, so we now have fig leaf ice cream on the menu. We'll use all the leaves first, then the figs will come into season, and then we'll start using the figs as well,” Lauren Pretty said.

Executive Chef Philip Pretty preps a fig leaf ice cream.

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The Grilled Lamb Rack with leek, artichoke, foraged mushrooms and lamb sauce.

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For the siblings, working toward sustainability also means supporting the local economy.

“I like to keep the money in the city as much as possible, and I like to keep the money in the family as much as possible,” Phil Pretty said. “Our goal was always to cut out the middleman in any way, shape, or form.” They’ve hired a full-time driver (Lauren’s husband Thomas) who visits the local farmers’ markets and does local runs to cheesemonger Oh La Vache, along with another local dairy purveyor.

Creating a local supply chain means the restaurant isn’t dependent on larger suppliers, who often use huge semi-trucks to deliver their products. That’s the norm for many restaurants in the U.S. and leaves a significant carbon footprint, from exhaust fumes to a constant supply of single-use packaging.

Making cents

However, the zero-waste kitchen is only one aspect of how Heritage earned its Green Star. Shortly after opening, the city of Long Beach asked if Heritage was interested in participating in the Green Business Network program, which involves steps to help Heritage become Green Business Certified. The certification process is granted after following a series of recommendations from an outside consultant.

The interior of Heritage Restaurant feels as if you are in someone's dinning room.

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According to Lauren Pretty, passion fruit grows at the Heritage Farm in Long Beach without pesticides.

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Lauren Pretty said she started with an office at the restaurant, properly sorting the trash using two trash cans, one for recycling and one for landfill, and has become even more skilled since then.

From an operations perspective, she said, she looks at everything from on-site paper products to printer paper, toilet paper, and paper towels. The same goes for cleaning products used, such as soaps and cleaning products, using hydrogen peroxide instead of bleach.

“You have to use chemicals to clean the restaurant. We're just making sure that we're making good choices when it comes to products like that,” she explained.

Ultimately, “it’s about taking the time to make small changes that don't cost anything to make your business more environmentally friendly,” she said.

Erik and Lyle Menendez may get another chance at parole — and a bit sooner than expected.

The brothers were convicted of murder for the August 1989 shotgun killings of their parents in their Beverly Hills home. They’ve been held in prison for more than three decades.

On Monday, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation revealed the brothers had been granted a parole suitability hearing tentatively scheduled for March 2027. Previously, the state had determined they would not get another parole hearing until August 2028.

The Menendez family issued a statement Monday, expressing appreciation to the Parole Board for recognizing the brothers’ efforts to change themselves and help others in prison.

“For almost 40 years, Erik and Lyle have worked to take responsibility for their actions, confront and heal from the unimaginable abuse and trauma they endured, grow as individuals, and dedicate themselves to serving others,” the statement read.

It continued: “Through efforts such as helping to establish a hospice program and creating Green Space, they have sought to build an environment that reminds people serving life sentences that their lives still have meaning and that, regardless of their circumstances, they can choose each day to grow, heal, accept accountability, and contribute something of value to the world around them.”

Background

Erik Menendez was 18 years old at the time of the murders. He’s now 55.

Lyle Menendez is now 58. He was 21 in 1989.

The brothers were tried twice in the 1990s in connection with the killings of their parents Jose and Kitty Menendez. The brothers claimed they were sexually abused by their father, a wealthy business and former music executive, and that their mother had been complicit.

The first trial ended in a hung jury and a mistrial.

The defense argued that the brothers believed their lives were in danger at the time of the killings, and that their actions were not murder but imperfect self defense, meaning they genuinely believed the danger was imminent even if they were wrong.

In the second trial, the sexual abuse evidence was limited, and the jury reached a verdict.

The brothers were sentenced to life in prison without parole.

A chance at parole

After they spent decades in prison, the brothers' asked the court for a hearing that would give them a chance at getting out. A judge later resentenced each of them to 50 years to life, making them eligible for parole.

Last August, the brothers were denied parole for three years.

Parole commissioners said they took into account the brothers’ positive actions while in prison as well as their ages at the time of their crimes. But the commissioners also found each sibling would still pose a danger to the public if released, despite their efforts at rehabilitation.

It’s not clear why parole authorities moved up the brothers’ tentative parole suitability hearing date, but family members said they were grateful.

The family said in the statement that the move brings them “one step closer to a future with [the brothers] that once seemed impossible.”

Tropical Storm Marie dumped around an inch of rain in the Southern California region over the Labor Day weekend. Forecasters say we might see minimal rain on Tuesday in the region, and temperatures are expected to rise for a hot and humid week ahead.

Coastal flood and high surf advisories are in effect for Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange and San Diego counties until Tuesday 11 p.m.

Officials with the National Weather Service warned beachgoers that there was an increased risk of drowning in the ocean.

“Rip currents will be widespread and very strong, potentially pulling swimmers and surfers out to sea,” the advisory read.

They also advised beachgoers to remain out of the water or, if they do go in, to stay near occupied lifeguard towers and away from rock jetties.

Effects of Marie

Southern California felt the effects of the tropical storm on Sunday particularly along the coast. In Long Beach, one person was injured after being hit by a piece of plywood while prepping their home for the storm.

Long Beach Fire Department Capt. Jack Crabtree told LAist that 12 garages and two homes in the city flooded. City lifeguards and Fire Department personnel rescued three surfers, he said.

Waves pushed Long Beach’s water taxi, the Aqua Link, into the Alamitos Jetty. The Fire Department’s Marine Safety Division pushed it back onto the water, Crabtree said.

In Newport Beach, Adam Yacenda, lifeguard battalion chief for the Fire Department in Newport Beach, told LAist the department had conducted 187 rescues over the weekend as of Monday morning.

The majority of those rescues — 177 — happened Saturday.

Even so, he said, “the rain was a nice reprieve,” from most long weekends, when the department is usually much busier. He said many people stayed away from the beaches. The red flag surf warnings were also a deterrent.

Because of the high surf advisory, Yacenda advised beachgoers to stay out of the water through Tuesday. But for those who plan to get into the water anyway, he recommended speaking with a lifeguard who can provide advice on some locations that are safer than others.

Further south in San Clemente, high surf damaged the Metrolink Pacific Surfliner track. Service was paused from the Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo station in Orange County to the Oceanside stop in San Diego County while crews made emergency repairs.

Two beach parking lots are closed in Seal Beach because of flooding concerns.

What’s ahead

Rose Schoenfeld, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told LAist there is a small chance of thunderstorms Monday and Tuesday afternoon.

 ”We're not completely out of the woods for any precipitation, but should be much more isolated, generally more minimal,” she said.

Schoenfeld said she expects a warming trend to start Monday and continue through the week.

 ”By Wednesday when temperatures will be peaking, we're looking at temperatures even at the coast, 90s to maybe around 106,” she said. “That's pretty warm.

"And then if you add on top of that the tropical humidity that we still will have lingering in the area, we're looking at a pretty significant heat event, especially for those near the coast without air conditioning,” she continued.

Because of the humidity, low temperatures later in the day won’t be as cooling as they would be otherwise.

A federal judge in Los Angeles is weighing whether to place new restrictions on immigration agents arresting people without warrants — a decision that could shape enforcement across Southern California. That decision, expected any day, echoes a fight already playing out in the Central Valley, where farmworkers had won a court order that shielded them for more than a year.

On Aug. 24, a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel put that Central Valley injunction on hold.

That order had blocked Border Patrol from the race-based stops and warrantless arrests that swept through Bakersfield in January 2025, when agents fanned out through farm towns as part of "Operation Return to Sender."

For Rosa, a 37-year-old farmworker from Oaxaca, Mexico, news of the raids arrived by text message. She was working a grape field near Bakersfield on Jan. 8, 2025, when word spread that immigration agents were sweeping the town. Her son was at school. She remembers wanting to go to her son and fear freezing her and other parents in place.

"We just wanted to reunite with them and know they were OK," Rosa said in Spanish.

She said her son called her asking if she was OK and he warned her: "... things are happening. The school has started telling the kids that [immigration agents are] everywhere, and I want you to take care of yourself.'"

What happened in Bakersfield matters in Los Angeles now because the same tactics — and some of the same lawyers — are at the center of the case pending before U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong. United Farm Workers and the American Civil Liberties Union, who won the Central Valley injunction, are also representing plaintiffs in the L.A. case.

What happened in Bakersfield

“Operation Return to Sender” took place before the new Trump administration even began, and it set the tone for immigration enforcement actions to come. Around 60 Border Patrol agents moved into the Central Valley in a show of force. After the three-day operation, Department of Homeland Security officials issued a statement claiming to have arrested 78 people.

Of those arrested, all but one person had no criminal history, according to court documents filed in the case.

In a Facebook post, Border Patrol called the operation an “overwhelming success.” Federal officials made statements signaling the agency intended to return to Bakersfield and deploy the same tactics throughout California.

Lawyers representing several people caught up in the raids and the United Farm Workers called the operation disruptive and unlawful.

In a lawsuit in February 2025, they asked the courts to put a stop to tactics used during “Operation Return to Sender” saying “agents indiscriminately arrested people…, including people with pending immigration applications, no criminal history, established residences in the community, steady employment, family in the United States, or other community ties mitigating any purported flight risk.”

They argued those tactics violated the Constitution, immigration law and the Department of Homeland Security’s stated policies.

The raids shook the Central Valley “to its core,” the plaintiffs argued. “Agricultural fields were deserted and school attendance dipped, as farmworkers and their families feared being profiled by Border Patrol Agents.”

In April 2025, District Court Judge Jennifer Thurston, who serves the Eastern District of California, made two key findings: that the plaintiffs were likely to win their case, and that the practices described in the lawsuit threatened irreparable harm to people living in the district. To stop that immediate harm, she issued a preliminary injunction barring Border Patrol from using those tactics there until the lawsuit could be resolved.

That order stood until the ruling late last month when, more than a year and four months after it was put in place, a panel of judges on the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals put the injunction on hold. The federal government did not defend Border Patrol’s conduct in the Eastern District, but instead argued the plaintiffs’ allegations did not describe an imminent threat of harm, so they lacked standing to call for an injunction. The 9th Circuit said the lower court must now address the issue of standing.

The 9th Circuit’s decision strips the Eastern District of the injunction’s protections, but Mayra Joachin, an attorney with the ACLU of Southern California, said it does not give the government free rein.

“The order itself does not give Border Patrol any license to violate the Constitution or federal law,” Joachin said. “The government does nonetheless still need to comply with the law when conducting stops and arrests.”

The order also recognizes the lower court can issue new forms of relief in response to new allegations of harm, Joachin said. “We will be monitoring to see what happens, and we will be prepared to return to court in the event that we see any unlawful stops or arrests.”

LAist asked DHS officials about the stay and how that might change their enforcement actions in Bakersfield. We also asked whether they'd challenge a similar injunction in the L.A. region.

The emailed response did not directly address those questions but said:

“ICE has authority for lawful arrests where authorized under 8 USC 1357. Law enforcement officers use ‘reasonable suspicion’ to investigate immigration status and probable cause to make arrests consistent with the statute and the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court has already vindicated us on these practices.”

What this means for other litigation

Similar lawsuits to the one being fought out in Bakersfield have been filed in districts across the country, including one in the Central District of California which covers Los Angeles and parts of Southern California. U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong in Los Angeles is now considering issuing a preliminary injunction setting limits on immigration officers' practice of arresting someone without a warrant.

The case before Frimpong was brought in July 2025 by five people and three organizations: the Los Angeles Worker Center Network, United Farm Workers, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights. The plaintiffs quickly secured a temporary restraining order that same month that barred immigration agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they were violating immigration law and from relying on their race, spoken language or occupation as a basis for the stops. The U.S. Supreme Court voted to stay that order in September 2025.

Joachin said the decision by the Supreme Court has, in part, led the court to speed up the discovery process, so the plaintiffs have been able to take depositions from federal immigration officials.

“Through those depositions, as well as other evidence that we’ve uncovered through the government, it has confirmed what we understood to be the nature of these operations,” Joachin said. “Which is that they are indeed unlawful, lacking any information about the person that they're stopping before they proceed to the stop, and also unlawful with regards to conducting arrests without warrants and any assessments of escape risk.”

Joachin and other attorneys on the case said they are hopeful Frimpong will issue an injunction regarding those warrantless arrests soon.

Fear spreads through the Central Valley

At the height of the raids in Bakersfield, Erika Navarrete, vice president of the United Farm Workers, said she heard stories of people across the Central Valley sleeping in fruit orchards to avoid contact with immigration authorities.

“People would speak in hushed tones — 'Don't be scared, come out, they're gone, they're gone,’” Navarrete told LAist in Spanish. “But many people didn't want to come out; they waited because they didn't trust the situation — they just didn't trust it.”

The lawsuit, which is ongoing, alleges Border Patrol agents subjected plaintiffs and people to three unlawful acts:

• Stops based on race and occupation, rather than grounded in evidence of legal status, which violates the Fourth Amendment protecting people from unreasonable search and seizure.
• Warrantless arrests conducted without an individualized determination that the person violated immigration law and was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained, as required by immigration law.
• Coercing people to accept voluntary deportations without fully understanding their right to an immigration court hearing, which violates the Fifth Amendment protections of due process.

Those same tactics are described in the lawsuit against ICE and DHS in the Central District. UFW is also one of the plaintiff organizations in that lawsuit.

Navarrete said that fear lingered for months after the January raids, slowing work in the fields and disrupting daily life throughout the region.

“Our people didn't want to leave their homes; they didn't want to go to the store. I mean, they weren't living their daily lives,” she added.

Erika Navarrete, vice president of the UFW, has been helping farmworkers and their families deal with the raids' aftermath.

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Navarrete said she still gets goosebumps when she thinks about how the raids impacted children in the area.

“If they saw any white van or white car . . . or vehicles that didn't have California license plates or whatever, they’d immediately ask, ‘Mom, is that la migra?’ Is la migra going to take us away?’"

Other kids would tell Navarrete they had a backpack ready so they could go with their parents if they were deported.

Preliminary injunction provides some relief

In issuing the now-on-hold injunction in April 2025, Judge Thurston wrote: “The evidence before the court is that Border Patrol agents under DHS authority engaged in conduct that violated well established constitutional rights.”

Despite public statements indicating they planned to come back to Bakersfield, Border Patrol never returned with the same kind of large-scale operation.

In July 2025, when Border Patrol agents staged a raid at a Home Depot in Sacramento, the government was required under the court order to provide documentation to the plaintiffs.

“Having carefully examined the entire record, including the recorded footage of the Sacramento action, the court finds that Defendants have again detained people without reasonable suspicion for doing so,” Thurston wrote in her order enforcing the preliminary injunction.

Federal agents submitted 11 forms, known as I-213s, documenting the circumstances of the arrests in Sacramento. Thurston determined that those forms “rely on unsupported assumptions, hunches and generalizations.”

During the proceedings, federal agents admitted to retroactively modifying at least two of the forms “to reflect descriptions of the circumstances that are flatly incorrect,” Thurston wrote in the order, which required immigration officials to improve the way they document arrests.

The “clear lesson,” according to Joachin, “is that injunctions work.”

“While one would expect federal agents to comply with the law, we know that they're not,” Joachin said. “When we see immigration agents asked to comply with the law, the number of stops and arrests significantly plummet.”

The injunction, while it was in place, didn’t completely ease the fears of community members. Immigration officials have continued to arrest people in the months since. But in small, important ways, it did provide a return to some kind of normalcy for the people in Bakersfield.

Leticia, who's been a farmworker for over two decades, takes a break with her daughter at a park in Bakersfield.

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Leticia, a 40-year-old mother of four, said she stayed home from work from January until May.

Leticia has since returned to work harvesting carrots, a physically grueling job that requires her to be on her knees most of the day. She said that while parties were canceled last year, she now planned to celebrate a baptism with friends the weekend after speaking with LAist.

Where things stand in Los Angeles

In July 2025, attorneys representing five individuals and three organizations filed a lawsuit against the federal government in the Central District, which includes Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California, alleging a similar pattern to the raids seen in Bakersfield.

“The tactics challenged here — including widespread racial profiling, suspicion-less stops, and warrantless arrests without determination of flight risk — bear the unmistakable hallmarks of ‘Operation Return to Sender,’” the complaint states.

Lawyers representing plaintiffs in both cases say the issues in the case carry national implications.

While the case continues to move through the Eastern District, the court recently ordered the federal government to turn over documents showing national DHS policies that plaintiffs argue informed the raids in Bakersfield and, by extension, Los Angeles.

“We haven't seen what they've produced yet in response to that order,” said Bree Bernwanger, a lawyer with the ACLU who is representing plaintiffs in both cases. “We expect to see and be able to put into the record evidence of what we all know these agencies have been doing nationwide since the early raids in Bakersfield.”

In August, attorneys held a press conference ahead of a hearing for Vasquez Perdomo v. Mullin, the lawsuit filed in the Central District of California.

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Similar to the situation in Bakersfield, high-profile confrontations with large groups of immigration agents have died down in Los Angeles, but Joachin, who is also representing the UFW in the Central District case, said officials are still arresting people using tactics that violate the law.

“There continue to be roving patrol operations,” Joachin said. “The only difference is that now they're stopping a fewer number of individuals, and they are still stopping individuals based on perceived characteristics of whom they presume to be undocumented.”

A masked man in plain clothes pointed a rifle at Rev. Tanya Lopez, the senior pastor at Downey Memorial Christian Church, when she witnessed an arrest in her parish’s parking lot last June.

Lopez said the threat of indiscriminate enforcement has spread fear throughout Los Angeles.

“It’s been so heavy,” Lopez said. “Whether or not you’re undocumented, these raids, these stops have been without a doubt conducted to racially profile people.”

Frimpong issued one preliminary injunction in the case in July 2025 barring immigration agents from stopping people without reasonable suspicion that they were violating immigration law, but the U.S. Supreme Court paused that order in September.

Frimpong is now considering issuing another injunction, this one aimed at curtailing warrantless arrests.

(Third from the right) Rev. Tanya Lopez participated in a rally outside a federal courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.

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Lopez said she is now, like many other people in Southern California, eagerly waiting on the judge’s decision. Earlier this summer, she attended a hearing in federal court, clad in a clerical collar and stole.

“While it doesn’t undo the harm and all of the trauma that’s already been inflicted, [the lawsuit] represents one step towards accountability and the long road towards justice,” she said.

“I think we’re learning that it’s up to us as people, right? We, the people, have to essentially hold agencies — our government, even law enforcement — accountable,” Lopez said. “It has impacts for all of us.”

Three years after Gov. Gavin Newsom proclaimed Imperial County's "Lithium Valley" to be a game-changer for California's economy and alternative energy transition, little has changed.

The southern end of the Salton Sea contains rich sources of lithium, a mineral used for electric car batteries, cellphones and other electronics. A few years ago California politicians raved about prospects for extracting the critical mineral from desert aquifers.

But lithium resources remain untapped, as plans to mine them falter amid legal challenges and funding problems.

The Hell's Kitchen project by Controlled Thermal Resources has been delayed by lawsuits arguing that the company neglected to address its environmental impacts. Last month an appeals court sent the environmental review back to Imperial County to correct deficiencies regarding water and air quality effects.

The appellate decision validates residents’ questions about the project, Luis Olmedo, executive director for one of the plaintiffs, Comite Civico del Valle, said in a statement to CalMatters.

“Do we have enough water to support these projects over the long term?” he wrote. “What happens to our communities if Colorado River supplies are reduced? And what happens to our air as less water reaches the Salton Sea? The Court of Appeal made clear that those questions deserve credible and well supported answers.”

Lauren Rose, communications officer for Controlled Thermal Resources, said the company is reviewing legal options and would not comment because of ongoing litigation. Two other lithium projects are in various stages of development, but none are near full operation.

Newsom’s office didn’t respond to CalMatters’ questions about lithium development, but referred them to the California Energy Commission.

“Though efforts to develop the resources have been slower than anticipated – largely due to global lithium markets and prices – progress is being made, with developers securing funding to advance projects,” said Niki Woodard, communications director for the commission.

Imperial County Supervisor Ryan Kelley said the setbacks aren’t surprising; lithium mining is technically tricky and procedures to extract it from thermal aquifers are new.

“It’s not an easy thing to work with,” he said. “It’s a hot resource with a lot of solids in it, and that’s why the lithium is there. So we’re still very optimistic and encouraged by the companies that are still proceeding.”

The buzz over Lithium Valley

In 2023, Newsom visited the Salton Sea to promote the region as a global center for lithium mining and battery production that would drive a worldwide transition to zero-emission vehicles.

“We’ve been all-in on Lithium Valley, building up a global hub for clean energy and making sure that local communities benefit from this once-in-a-generation opportunity,” he declared.

The Salton Sea is a hypersaline lake in an active volcanic zone that includes five small lava domes, boiling mud pots and underground reservoirs of hot, mineral rich water. Geothermal plants tower over the desert floor with arrays of tanks, pipes and cooling towers that turn steam from the thermal aquifers into electricity.

Those aquifers also contain the highest concentrations of lithium of any geothermal brine in the world, according to the California Energy Commission. The federal Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory found that there’s enough lithium to make 375 million batteries for electric vehicles, more than the number of cars on the road in the U.S. now.

Developers propose extracting lithium and other minerals such as zinc and manganese from the brine, through a closed loop system they promise will be cleaner and safer than hard rock mines in Australia and China, or evaporation ponds in South America.

For years California politicians were giddy about prospects for a domestic source of the key mineral. In 2021 the state convened the Lithium Valley Commission, which offered recommendations on mining and marketing the mineral, and addressed economic and environmental issues involved in its extraction.

In 2022 Newsom promoted the plan with former President Joe Biden, and directed more than $100 million toward research and development of lithium extraction.

Community groups raise concerns

As companies geared up to start lithium production, environmental advocates put the brakes on plans for Hell’s Kitchen, which would extract up to 300,000 metric tons of lithium carbonate per year and generate almost 50 megawatts of geothermal energy: enough to power tens of thousands of homes.

Comite Civico del Valle, a social justice organization, and Earthworks, an energy and mining watchdog group, challenged the Environmental Impact Report for the project in 2024. They argued that the company neglected potential problems with air quality, water use, hazardous materials and tribal cultural resources.

In January, 2025, a judge rejected their claim and gave Controlled Thermal Resources the go-ahead for Hell’s Kitchen, ruling that the company had met legal requirements for environmental review. Rodney Colwell, CEO of Controlled Thermal Resources, told CalMatters at that time that he expected to start construction shortly, but said the lawsuit put the project at risk and disrupted its financing, setting it back a year or more.

In August an appeals court reversed parts of that decision. It ruled that the project’s environmental documents don’t prove that the Imperial Irrigation District can supply water to the project for 50 years, nor account for possible cuts to Colorado River water supplies.

It also found that the environmental review didn’t address how water use could affect air quality by drying out the Salton Sea lakebed. The court kicked the environmental review back to Imperial County, ordering it to remedy those deficiencies.

“What we see is a big win for the people and environment of Imperial County,” said Jared Naimark, western senior mining manager at Earthworks.

He said the appeals court vindicated complaints that the project didn’t clearly identify its water source.

“They can't just say, we'll figure that out later,” Naimark said. “They need to show their work on where that water is going to come from now, and analyze the impacts of it.”

How lithium development affects people in Imperial County

Although the appellate court concluded that the company properly consulted with local tribal representatives, they want more of a say. Kwaaymii tribal elder Carmen Lucas is calling for protection of key sites, including mudpots that tribes consider the heartbeat of Mother Earth.

“From the beginning I have made it clear that I’m not opposed to development,” she said. “I am asking that it be done in a balanced way.”

She’s pushing to place the Salton Sea area known as the Southeast Lake Cahuilla Active Volcanic Cultural District on the National Historic Register. While that designation doesn’t necessarily limit development, it would affirm the region’s value.

“It’s clear to me that Washington is looking at California’s desert as a wasteland,” Lucas said. “There's a beauty in the desert, and it opens the door for creativity and imagination.”

The county is reviewing the appellate ruling and deciding its next steps, Bari Bean, the assistant executive officer for Imperial County, wrote in a statement to CalMatters.

In the meantime workers who trained for jobs in the upcoming lithium industry are sidelined, as facilities where they hoped to work are stalled.

San Diego State University opened an $80 million STEM facility in Imperial County to train workers to “reap the benefits of the ‘white gold,’” SDSU president Adela de la Torre wrote in CalMatters. “But unless progress in Lithium Valley accelerates rapidly, these students will graduate into an empty local job market,” she warned.

Last year the Trump administration slashed federal clean energy commitments and Congress eliminated federal tax credits for electric cars, leaving lithium development uncertain.

And the Imperial County Board of Supervisors adopted a controversial plan for splitting up lithium tax revenue that reserves most of the money for the county, while dividing remaining funds between local cities based on size, instead of how close they’ll be to lithium facilities.

What happens next?

Despite legal delays, the Hell’s Kitchen project has plodded forward with some notable changes to its business strategy. Last year the Army Corps of Engineers extended permitting deadlines for the project under a designation called FAST-41.

Then in January Controlled Thermal Resources announced a new venture to supply geothermal power for data centers, signalling that it may be shifting its focus from lithium mining to powering artificial intelligence.

Shortly after that it merged with a U.S. firm, Plum Acquisition Corp. to become a publicly traded company and accelerate the first phase of construction for Hell’s Kitchen.

Two other projects are also in the works. Berkshire Hathaway’s CalEnergy operates 10 existing geothermal plants at the Salton Sea and recently completed a pilot of direct lithium extraction, then converted it into battery-grade lithium compounds, Christina Fleming, senior vice president at Berkshire Hathaway Energy Renewables, told CalMatters in a statement.

It plans to launch a demonstration plant in Calipatria by the end of the year and operate it through 2027. Then it will decide whether to build a full-scale commercial project, which could produce 90,000 metric tons of lithium per year: enough for 11 million EV batteries.

A third company, EnergySource Minerals, has permits for a lithium facility called Project ATLiS in the Imperial Valley. Company officials didn’t provide a timeline for the project, but said it’s moving ahead and could bring millions of dollars in tax revenue and hundreds of construction and operations jobs.

“We are actively engaged with all stakeholders to move this project forward as quickly as possible,” said CEO Eric Spomer.

Imperial County aims to streamline and standardize lithium development by creating a Lithium Valley Specific Plan and Program Environmental Impact Report, which would establish a planning and environmental framework for future development.

“I wish we had something of the commodity being produced today, but if it’s going to be produced in the years to come, that’s a good thing,” Kelly said. “And it will be done in accordance with all of the rules and regulations of the state of California, which are not as easy as other states and other regions of the world.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.