Oregon geology agency seeks $306,000 USGS grant to inventory and assess historic mine waste

The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries asked the Natural Resources Subcommittee for Ways and Means on May 6 for permission to apply for a $306,000 U.S. Geological Survey Earth Mapping Resources Initiative (Earth MRI) Mine Waste grant to inventory and assess historic mine waste sites in northeast and southwest Oregon.

The request, presented by Jason McClary, program manager for the Geological Survey and Services program at DOGAMI, would fund mapping, geochemical sampling and characterization of legacy mine waste sites and contribute data to a national inventory. "A critical mineral is a metallic or non metallic element that is essential for modern technologies, economies, or national security," McClary said while describing the federal program’s goals.

Dogami told the subcommittee the work would be divided into three priorities: build a national mine-waste inventory used by state, federal and tribal land managers (priority 1); conduct site-specific characterization to evaluate resource potential and remediation needs (priority 2); and send two staff to an annual Earth MRI workshop (priority 3). McClary said the agency intends to use existing DOGAMI resources — mine location data, lidar, high-resolution aerial imagery and historical records — to map and describe historic mine-waste sites across the Blue Mountains in Baker and Grant counties and to characterize waste at Nickel Mountain in Douglas County.

McClary said DOGAMI’s statewide mineral information layer (MILO) currently documents about 25,000 historic mining-related sites statewide and that more than 2,000 of those sites are documented in Baker and Grant counties. He said the scale of sites ranges from small prospect pits visible only in lidar to large historic operations. The agency told the committee that determining whether tailings contain recoverable concentrations of critical minerals requires geochemical and mineralogical sampling: "Before we actually do know the answer to that question, we have to actually do the geochemical investigation," McClary said.

Kendra Beck of the Department of Administrative Services Chief Financial Office told the subcommittee DAS recommends approval. A Legislative Fiscal Office staffer also recommended approval. A committee member moved to adopt the LFO recommendation; no objections were raised and the motion passed by voice vote. The application has no required state match, DOGAMI will charge its full indirect rate and the agency did not request an expenditure limitation. McClary said the final proposal is due to USGS by May 15 and, if funded, DOGAMI would begin the project in August 2025.

The subcommittee’s approval allows DOGAMI to submit the federal grant application; it does not commit state funds or guarantee award of the grant.