RENO, Nev.— The Center for Biological Diversity and the Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Tribe filed a legal intervention today to protect the endangered Dixie Valley toad from a Nevada power plant that could drive it to extinction.

The intervention asks a U.S. District Court judge to allow the groups to argue against a lawsuit brought by the geothermal company Ormat that would strip Endangered Species Act protections from the rare amphibian.

“It’s appalling that a geothermal energy company would thumb its nose at independent scientists, and that’s why we’re fighting back,” said Patrick Donnelly, Great Basin director at the Center. “This industry-backed lawsuit ignores what scientists have been clear about from the start. Ormat’s power plant puts the Dixie Valley toad in the crosshairs of extinction.”

Dixie Valley toads live in a single hot spring-fed wetland of just a few hundred acres in Churchill County, Nevada. After a petition and litigation from the Center, the toads were protected under the Endangered Species Act in 2022.

The toads face the threat of extinction from Ormat’s proposed Dixie Meadows Geothermal Project, just outside their habitat, which could dry up the springs the animals rely on for survival. Independent scientists commissioned by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service unanimously agreed that the geothermal project poses the risk of extinction to the species.

In 2025 Ormat sued the Service, attempting to remove protections for the toads. Today’s motion, if approved by the court, would grant the Center and the Tribe the ability to join the Service in defending the toads against Ormat’s lawsuit.

“We’ve been standing with our Tribal partners to fight for this toad for almost a decade,” said Donnelly. “Ormat’s cynical lawsuit flies in the face of established science and is based on flawed legal interpretations. We won’t back down in our fight to save the Dixie Valley toad.”