A Nevada company has reached another permitting milestone and is moving forward with plans to build a large gold mine in Eastern Oregon, south of Vale near Lake Owyhee.
Paramount Gold has submitted its operations plan for the proposed Grassy Mountain Gold Mine to the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. By the end of November, the agency will tell the company whether it can start preparing an environmental impact statement — a document that kicks off a review process where the mining proposal will face regulatory and public scrutiny.
It’s a big step for what would be the first chemical process gold mine in Oregon.
Paramount CEO Rachel Goldman said in a press release that even with inflation driving up costs, the plan “outlines a profitable operation creating significant value to the surrounding communities, job creation and ultimately increasing stockholder value.”
The Oregon Legislature established a permit application process for chemical mines in the 1990s, but in 2017 Paramount Gold became the first company to start an application, according to Sarah Lewis with the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries or DOGAMI.
