Issues with mining lithium to meet the US' needs

The US needs to mine more lithium, but the mines raise issues.

I know of three kinds of issues about operating a mine of any kind:

• Archaeological sites, including art. These are part of the heritage of humanity; mines must not run a risk of damaging them.
• Natural ecosystems. In the past, miners disregarded the danger of pollution from the mine, and lobbied governments to get out of their way and let them neglect the pollution issue.

  The result was, naturally, that mines have polluted many areas. Whenever a mine shut down, it dumped the burden of cleanup on the public.

  We must develop a new, cleaner method of mining, which we could call zero pollution mining, and require mines to use it. A mine must set aside funds for future shutdown costs each year it operates, in an account it cannot withdraw money from, at a rate set by the an environmental agency.

  If that makes the extracted mineral more expensive, so be it. The cost of avoiding the need for future cleanup, and carrying out whatever part can't be avoided, should be part of the price of the mineral.

• Someone considers that patch of land to be sacred,

  If adjustment to the plan will make some people happier, let's do so. But this is a secondary issue, not as important as preventing global disaster.