A Nevada-based company is one step closer to being allowed to construct Oregon’s first modern-day gold mine.
On Monday, the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries announced it has finished compiling multiple state permits that, if finalized, will allow Paramount Gold to move forward.
Since 2017, Paramount Gold has been planning to use cyanide to extract gold and silver out of hundreds of acres of Eastern Oregon’s rolling desert hills, about 22 miles south of Vale in Malheur County.
The Nevada-based company Paramount Gold has proposed a gold mine at Grassy Mountain south of Vale, Ore.
Paramount Gold / Courtesy of Oregon DOGAMI
Before it can move forward, Paramount, through its subsidiary Calico Resources, needs approval from both state and federal regulators.
The consolidated permit issued Monday by DOGAMI is a draft that could still be revised based on public input. It outlines the parameters that Paramount would have to follow to prevent the mine from harming people or the environment — such as ensuring chemical byproducts don’t leak into drinking water and avoiding disorienting sage grouse with loud noises and bright lights.
People can review the draft permit on DOGAMI’s website, where they can also find instructions for providing public comments. State regulators are also hosting a public hearing in Vale on Jan. 29.
“We are really interested in how the public is going to engage and respond to these draft permits, and I want to highlight that we welcome all feedback,” said Sarah Lewis, DOGAMI program manager of mineral lands reclamation.
Paramount executives celebrated the draft consolidated permit.
“This is a landmark achievement for both Grassy Mountain and the State of Oregon,” Paramount chief executive officer Rachel Goldman said in a statement.
Paramount is also awaiting a decision from federal regulators as it undergoes environmental review.
On Monday, a spokesperson with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management said the agency plans to announce a decision in January.
In federal documents, Paramount says it will mix ore and cyanide in large tanks, then store the resulting slurry waste in lined ponds. The wastewater will be reused throughout the mining process.
When the mine eventually closes after about 8 years of operation, Paramount plans to bury the remaining waste so it looks like a hill. Oregon regulators say the company is required to reduce the landfill’s cyanide levels “to the lowest practicable level.”
Paramount says it will use leak-detection tools to ensure chemicals don’t ooze out of the landfill.
Most active gold mines in the U.S. use cyanide to dissolve precious metals from ore, and many of those mines are in Nevada.
That state sits at the center of the North American Great Basin, a geological region extending into Oregon, Utah, Idaho and a sliver of California. Millions of years of tectonic history have left deposits of gold underneath this region’s mountains and valleys.
Meanwhile, another company, Australia-based Jindalee Resources, is eyeing southeastern Oregon for its deposits of lithium, a metal that’s critical to creating new batteries for electronics and vehicles.
Jindalee plans to explore an area near the Nevada border, about 140 miles southeast of Paramount’s planned gold mine. That exploratory work also risks encroaching on sage grouse, a vulnerable bird species whose populations have plummeted in recent decades.
