Straddling the Nevada-Oregon border, the McDermitt Caldera is full of pockets of highly valuable lithium that have attracted the interest of several mining companies, including, most recently, HiTech Minerals, a U.S. owned subsidiary of the Australian company Jindalee Resources.
HiTech has been exploring their property claims on publicly-owned land in Oregon since 2018 under a Notice of Intent filed with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), according to HiTech Minerals Vice President of Exploration and Development Brett Marsh.
Marsh said in an email that the Notice process restricts exploration to a 5-acre area at a time and the company is looking to expand on the exploration project, approximately 20 miles west of McDermitt, NV in southwest Oregon, to fully understand the materials that are present and the BLM will manage the larger exploration with a Exploration Plan of Operation that also requires HiTech conduct the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process.
“This plan allows us to explore more completely and define the potential ore body more efficiently, but also because we undertake more detailed environmental and social baseline studies, we can also operate with much less risk to the environment, because we know more about it,” explained Marsh.
This step in the process is highly preliminary and any sort of full-blown mining operation is quite a ways off, but the Vale, OR BLM recently held a public meeting in McDermitt to explain the scope of the proposed project to the community.
“The BLM has held public meetings at McDermitt to explain the proposed project and gather feedback which, if substantive, will be used to identify areas of concern for us to address as part of the NEPA process,” said Marsh.
HiTech currently utilizes a home purchased in McDermitt as well as office space leased from the McDermitt Fire District and plans to expand their facilities pending the outcome of the proposed processes, according to Marsh.
“We consistently attempt to hire local personnel and our contractors who stay in McDermitt or Winnemucca contribute significantly to hotel, food, and fuel services. It is likely as the project grows, even as an exploration project, we’ll need to expand our facilities…So, as we grow it’s likely that we’ll need to invest in additional facilities, which would likely be built within McDermitt,” he explained.
At present, HiTech has just over 60 holes drilled into the ground with 550 yards between them that are used for collecting samples of materials in a proposed project area of about 7,200 acres. Because the holes are so far apart, according to Marsh, it is really unknown what could be between them.
“The process from exploration to mining in the U.S. requires many levels of permitting in addition to the increase in geologic definition required to reduce project risk. As one could imagine, if we were to attempt mining between our widely spaced holes there would have very little confidence in what would be encountered. Therefore, it takes a significant amount of investigation and exploration to progress from an exploration project to a mine,” said Marsh.
“Worldwide, about one out of every 1000 exploration projects make it to become a mine. There’s no guarantee that our McDermitt project will ever become a mine (we’re hopeful and optimistic), but we need to fill in the gaps between our current holes and complete several engineering, environmental, and social analyses to become more confident.”
In a press release from the Vale, OR BLM office, it says that the expanded exploration drilling would occur each year from “July 1 to November 30 for up to five years and concurrent reclamation of the disturbances would occur after each drill season” if the proposed plan is approved.
According to Humboldt County officials, Marsh and representatives from HiTech and the BLM are going to be in Winnemucca on Aug. 21 to present more information to the Humboldt County Board of Commissioners at their regular meeting.
The BLM press release also states that the public will have another opportunity to make comments on the plan before the proposed plan is officially approved, with the current comment period closing Aug. 30. Scoping comments can be submitted to BLM_OR_VL_LithiumHiTech@blm.gov or: Attn: McDermitt Exploration Project, c/o BLM Malheur Field Office, 100 Oregon St., Vale, OR 97918. More information can be accessed at http://www.jindalee.net/ and
https://www.blm.gov/press-release/public-input-sought-proposed-lithium-exploration.