I wouldn’t be to concerned. It is a hit job, as douginil said. This is how they start. Make comparisons to horrible operations like the Chinese use and leave readers to infer only about the possibility of that happening with Elk Creek. Of course nothing is close in methods or reality but I wouldn’t be surprised to see some give it the old radical try regardless.
I would ignore this article. I would guess that the author has no real understanding of NioCorp and he probably was handed the "hit job" article to publish to try to sway opinion. Much of the news industry publishes the narrative they are given...to a large extent that's how it works (has worked).