… Over the past few years, mining proponents and companies have been working on new technologies to help extract lithium from the Salton Sea. But calls for rapid lithium development have revealed competing views of what that extraction could or should look like. … For the relatively impoverished area surrounding the Salton Sea, the rush for lithium comes amid water woes, disputes about labor conditions, and concerns over tribal sovereignty. … In the Salton Sea region, companies plan to use what they say is an innovative mining method called “direct lithium extraction.” The process is akin to treatment methods used to remove metals from water supplies, where the water is pumped through a device called an ion exchange column. … What this means for the Imperial Valley is unclear, but any strain to the freshwater there could threaten the region’s limited water supply.