[0:06] You guys are so well behaved.
[0:09] Quiet down before our meeting starts at
[0:11] 8:30.
[0:16] » I thought maybe I was late this morning
[0:17] because everyone was here on time. So,
[0:20] >> like some friendly chitchat.
[0:32] » [clears throat]
[0:33] >> depending on which you look at it. So, um Paul is our is recording. He's our
[0:40] AV assistant today. So, Paul, we'll go
[0:43] ahead and start recording if you can.
[0:46] >> Thank you. Recording has started.
[0:50] >> All right. Thanks, Paul. I'm Elisa
[0:52] Richards, chairperson for the Utah
[0:54] Geological Survey Board, and I'd like to
[0:55] call this meeting for the Utah
[0:57] Geological Survey Board to order. It is
[0:59] now 8:30 a.m. on August 12, 2026. This
[1:04] meeting is held [clears throat] both in
[1:06] person and virtually with Google Meet in
[1:08] compliance with Utah's open meeting
[1:10] laws. This meeting is being recorded in
[1:12] its entirety. The recording is
[1:13] classified as a public record. And the
[1:16] following board members are in
[1:17] attendance. Elisa Richards, Ken Fleck,
[1:20] Becky Hammond, Neil Bert, Riley
[1:21] Ringerhoff, Michael Hansen, Rich Gordon,
[1:24] and Andy Bettingfield from
[1:27] zero board members are absent. That's
[1:29] great. The following individuals
[1:31] representing the UGS geological survey
[1:33] and the Department of Natural Resources
[1:35] are in attendance. Darling Battalion,
[1:37] Stephan Herby, W Seymour, Cheryl Wing,
[1:40] Mike Vanderberg. I know we had a couple
[1:42] more come in, but I think you're going
[1:43] to introduce us introduce them to new
[1:46] stuff. I know that's exciting. We're
[1:48] always excited to meet new staff. And
[1:50] then do we have any other guests?
[1:54] >> My name is Lacy.
[1:56] >> That's right. Okay. Welcome, Lacy. And
[2:00] um we welcome all visitors and
[2:01] interested persons. As a courtesy to
[2:03] everyone participating in this meeting,
[2:05] at this time we ask for all cell phones,
[2:07] pagers, and other electronic devices to
[2:10] be turned off or um changed to silent
[2:12] mode. Board motions and votes will be
[2:14] reflected in the minutes and recorded by
[2:16] individual board member. And let's now
[2:18] proceed with the agenda.
[2:20] >> Thank you, Madam Chair.
[2:24] If we could get our slides to change.
[2:34] Now what?
[2:39] Sorry. Excuse me. My presentation is
[2:41] being
[2:44] [snorts]
[2:47] okay. Sorry about the delay. First item
[2:51] is action items for the Okay. I um I'd
[2:57] like to uh call a motion to approve the
[3:00] minutes from the April 15 26 uh board
[3:03] meeting. Who would like to formally
[3:08] first? And who will send somebody
[3:09] second? Okay, first and second. Thank
[3:11] you. All those in favor of approving the
[3:14] minutes from the UGS board meeting April
[3:16] 15, 2026, say I.
[3:19] >> I. Any opposed say no.
[3:22] >> All right. It's a unanimous decision
[3:24] that the UGS board meeting minutes from
[3:25] April 15, 2026 have been approved.
[3:29] [clears throat]
[3:32] Next item is approval of projects.
[3:37] >> All right. Um,
[3:40] oh, okay, there we go. There's our And
[3:42] we've been we've been seeing a lot of
[3:43] those come across our desk. This is
[3:44] great. I would also like to have a
[3:46] formal approval of all of the projects
[3:48] that we have reviewed since our April uh
[3:51] board meeting. All of those uh I'd like
[3:54] to have a motion to approve those.
[3:56] >> So moved.
[3:56] Ken and a second.
[3:58] >> I second.
[3:59] >> Becky, thank you. Um let's go ahead and
[4:03] have a vote. All of those who formally
[4:05] approve the contract proposals from the
[4:07] April meeting say I.
[4:10] >> I. Any oppose? Say no.
[4:13] Those all of the contract proposals
[4:15] since our April board meeting have been
[4:18] unanimously approved.
[4:20] And we're off. Thank you, chair. this
[4:24] just watching these totals here. It's
[4:26] quite a significant amount of potential
[4:29] new income um to UGS and new project
[4:33] work. Um some of these are quite large.
[4:36] This multi-state
[4:38] um
[4:40] uh geothermal. So, which kind of leads
[4:44] to our next agenda topic, which is
[4:48] opportunity to introduce a couple of our
[4:50] new staff members. So um looking at our
[4:54] project workload um particularly in the
[4:57] energy and minerals group and the
[4:58] groundwater and wetlands group we were
[5:02] very thoughtful um but have made the
[5:04] decision to hire some additional
[5:07] temporary staff. These are you know
[5:09] minimum probably couple year uh roles
[5:12] for them. So if I can take a moment I'd
[5:15] like to introduce Eton. So Eton has just
[5:18] joined our energy and minerals team.
[5:20] who's going to be working with Steph
[5:22] Mills.
[5:23] >> Um
[5:25] hang out back here. Yeah. So, um on the
[5:28] intrusive face map, do you want to just
[5:29] introduce yourself and a little bit
[5:31] about your background?
[5:32] >> Yeah. Uh so, I just graduated from
[5:34] University of Arizona where I did my
[5:37] dissertation on order closets in the
[5:39] Paradox Basin, not too far from here. Um
[5:43] I have a little bit of experience in
[5:45] industry as well working for lithium
[5:47] America's and Exxon Mobile
[5:51] short stints but uh I'm here to work
[5:53] with stiff mills and the rest of the
[5:56] energy and minerals group on the
[5:58] intrusive base map project and then help
[6:00] out a little bit with the uh BHP expport
[6:03] project as well. So put my education to
[6:06] work see.
[6:09] >> Yeah. So, welcome. And you started
[6:11] couple three weeks ago.
[6:13] >> End of June.
[6:14] Okay. So, a month. Great.
[6:17] Yeah. Really happy to have a on board.
[6:19] And then Stephen H. I
[6:22] >> Hello. Hello. I'm Stephen. I'm a Utah
[6:24] native here. Um just joined in the as
[6:27] the wetlands group. I'm working on a
[6:29] project right now with just stern where
[6:31] we're looking at the different laws that
[6:32] protect wetlands throughout the state as
[6:35] well as um developing more monitoring
[6:37] protocols with wetlands here in the
[6:40] state. Um my background um I have a
[6:42] master's degree in environmental science
[6:44] where I worked with the division of air
[6:46] quality actually um passing some some
[6:50] rules with them. Um, and then I've also
[6:53] worked as an environmental consultant
[6:54] with wetlands.
[6:58] » To be here.
[6:59] >> Yeah, thank you. Really happy to have
[7:01] you on board too as well. So, this was
[7:04] an example where I think we were looking
[7:06] for someone at kind of a lower level and
[7:08] were able to hire in somebody with more
[7:10] expertise and experience and so really
[7:13] happy to have both of you guys on board.
[7:15] So, welcome to UGS. And is this a good
[7:18] time maybe to just go around and do
[7:20] introductions? We do have a couple new
[7:22] people. We're still waiting for Brian to
[7:24] join us. Um, actually, we do have one
[7:27] more, I think. Well, we have a couple
[7:29] more staff news things, but maybe we'll
[7:31] just take a minute and do introductions.
[7:34] >> Sure. Um, or we can wait till Brian gets
[7:37] here. Is Brian gonna make it?
[7:38] >> No, he is. Sorry. Did you see my text
[7:40] message?
[7:41] >> I'm sorry. What?
[7:41] >> Did you see my text?
[7:42] >> No.
[7:43] >> Okay. So, he he did text me saying he
[7:45] had a family conflict this morning. So,
[7:47] but he will be here just a little bit
[7:49] later.
[7:49] >> A little bit later. So, we'll just move
[7:51] things around in our agenda.
[7:53] >> Okay. I was trying to text you telling
[7:54] you I was on the way and that Brian was
[7:56] on the way and sorry, we didn't
[7:58] >> I was probably working on setting up and
[8:01] chatting here. Okay, that's fine. So,
[8:03] we'll maybe we'll wait till Brian gets
[8:04] here and then we'll do introductions.
[8:06] I'll just keep going with staff news.
[8:08] Um, do you guys remember Martha Hayden?
[8:11] One of our longest, if not one of our
[8:14] longest serving
[8:17] members. Do you want to say a few words
[8:19] about Martha?
[8:20] >> You know Martha has again she had 43
[8:23] total years of state service. Uh she
[8:26] came to us when the paleo program was
[8:28] incorporated into UGS. Before that she
[8:31] was with doing paleo stuff but with
[8:34] state history. Um her time here she has
[8:37] done she's basically been the heart of
[8:39] the paleo program. She's built a
[8:41] one-of-a-kind paleo site and resource
[8:44] database for the whole state that is
[8:46] used by Settla, BLM, private folks all
[8:50] over the state to manage these
[8:51] resources. She also
[8:54] was one of the instigators and then main
[8:56] contributors to Utah Friends of
[8:58] Paleontology. That's a really active
[9:00] volunteer group. They've done all kinds
[9:02] of stuff for paleo in the state. She she
[9:06] was involved in that for I think close
[9:08] to 40 years.
[9:10] Um yeah, so she finally retired. Um we
[9:15] wish her well in her retirement, but
[9:17] yeah, it's it's going to be kind of hard
[9:18] to replace this. She's left us those
[9:21] important legacy pieces of a really
[9:23] strong Utah paleontology and then this
[9:25] one-of-a-kind data set of paleo sites in
[9:28] Utah. Um, so in the future, and I'm not
[9:31] sure if you have a slide on this, but we
[9:33] actually have a Paleo job open that has
[9:35] just closed that we'll do a hiring
[9:37] process for because she is the first of
[9:39] the Paleo folks who's going to retire
[9:42] over the next couple years. So, we'll do
[9:43] some rolling openings to replace those
[9:46] folks.
[9:47] >> Yeah, I don't really have a slide for
[9:48] this. So, um, the Paleo Group and Stefan
[9:52] have really kind of built out a
[9:53] succession roadmap. Um because coming on
[9:57] the heels of Martha retirement, Don
[9:59] DeLau, our assistant state
[10:01] paleontologist, is also planning on
[10:03] retiring at the end of the year and he
[10:06] and Jim Kirkland are like, you know, big
[10:08] brother, little brother. And so it's
[10:11] going to be tough to see Don leave. Um,
[10:15] and so what the paleo team is looking
[10:17] for is in replacing Martha, we're really
[10:20] looking for that next level of, you
[10:23] know, a paleontology,
[10:25] you know, kind of leader, co-lead for
[10:27] the state. And that job position has
[10:30] been opened and I think just closed,
[10:33] >> recently closed. We have 76 or 78. We've
[10:36] got a bunch of strong applicants. We'll
[10:38] go through a multi-stage hiring process.
[10:42] We'll hope to make a decision probably
[10:44] early or middle of September and then
[10:46] see when we can get somebody in the
[10:47] door. Um, we're being kind of
[10:49] open-minded in terms of skill sets.
[10:51] There are some things that we certainly
[10:52] need like the ability to prep fos cells
[10:54] and do field work, but we're really
[10:56] trying to find the right person for the
[10:58] next couple decades in the program and
[11:00] start that turnover process.
[11:03] So, if you're a paleontologist out there
[11:05] in the world and you see this job
[11:06] opening here in Utah, it's really a kind
[11:09] of a worldass opportunity to come work
[11:11] for a state geological survey that has
[11:13] incredible paleontology resources and
[11:16] Jim and Don have really laid and Martha
[11:19] really have really laid the foundation
[11:23] um for who comes next in this role. It's
[11:25] a It's a great opportunity and
[11:27] paleontology for me personally as
[11:29] director is something that I think we
[11:31] should really be leaning into. I I think
[11:34] we could do more by our paleontology
[11:36] resources in Utah. So,
[11:39] um so yeah, we said farewell to Martha.
[11:42] She had a heck of a retirement party,
[11:44] too. She has a
[11:45] >> She did. Yeah, she has a lot of
[11:46] >> She has a big network out there.
[11:48] >> She is well loved. Yes,
[11:50] >> she was. Um service awards. We have two
[11:54] service awards to celebrate. Uh well
[11:57] actually we have a number of service
[11:58] awards to celebrate. Um Star Soul I know
[12:02] one of our uh executive assistant um who
[12:08] along with Cheryl just carries a huge
[12:10] load for UGS with almost 90 people. We
[12:14] have a lot of administrative
[12:15] responsibilities and you know they do so
[12:19] much for us. Um, Star's been here for,
[12:22] it's hard to believe, but for 20 years.
[12:24] Um, Cheryl's got her beat by what, a
[12:27] couple, eight,
[12:29] >> eight, almost 20 years.
[12:31] >> Oh my gosh. So, we're really lucky to
[12:34] have that kind of institutional
[12:35] knowledge and longevity for us. Um, she
[12:39] helps our team out every day. And then
[12:41] Steph Carney, um, our lead editor, uh,
[12:44] who combs through all of our
[12:46] publications and survey notes, articles,
[12:49] um, and does a great job for us. She's
[12:51] written our style guide. Um, she takes
[12:54] great care of all of our publications.
[12:58] Some five-year service awards. Uh,
[13:00] Jackson Smith is part of our geologic
[13:03] information and outreach group. He for a
[13:06] long time has been focused on education.
[13:09] um particularly earth science week and
[13:12] that kind of thing. We've asked our GIO
[13:14] team to do more in terms of public
[13:17] outreach. So he's really helped us move
[13:19] into conference planning um outreach for
[13:23] our geologic hazards as we publish maps
[13:25] and really need to connect with local
[13:27] communities. So he's been kind of a
[13:29] go-to guy for me in those efforts as
[13:32] well and I really appreciate him. He's a
[13:34] great communicator. Um Troy Duncan is um
[13:38] a geo tech I believe um in our hazards
[13:43] group and has also really been expanding
[13:46] her capabilities. She's a drone pilot
[13:48] now. She's helping with landslide stuff.
[13:51] She recently pitched a proposal to us
[13:53] and did a great job. She's kind of
[13:54] building the budget um for that. Um so
[13:58] she's been here for five years. And then
[13:59] Kayla Smith is in our energy and
[14:01] minerals group. Mike, do you want to say
[14:03] a word about what Kayla's working on?
[14:06] uh she's slotted under our geothermal
[14:09] geopysics team. So does a lot of
[14:12] geoysics fieldwork, gravity, TN mg
[14:17] um and then also takes that data, does a
[14:20] lot of the processing and
[14:22] interpretation.
[14:23] Uh she's a drone pilot, does a lot of
[14:26] drone work, drone based LAR,
[14:32] Jess.
[14:37] » Thank you.
[14:39] And then 10 years for Jen Miller, our
[14:42] lead graphics designer and publications
[14:45] manager, um who again is an integral
[14:48] asset for everything that goes out the
[14:51] door. She she makes it look good. Her
[14:53] team makes it look good. Uh she does our
[14:56] calendar
[14:58] um survey notes. We're working on an
[15:00] annual report. So um again, just a huge
[15:05] integral part of our work. We talk a lot
[15:08] about the science that we do. We often
[15:10] don't talk enough about the people who
[15:13] are kind of behind the scenes um making
[15:15] that science accessible to everybody
[15:18] that we reach. So appreciate
[15:22] And then 15 years for two of our
[15:24] geoccientists, Adam Hiscocock. Adam
[15:26] Hiscocock is in our geological hazards
[15:28] group. He is one of our lead earthquake
[15:31] scientists. Um both field and in terms
[15:34] of publication, he supported the Utah
[15:36] Seismic Safety Commission kind of as the
[15:38] commission secretary. He's recently
[15:40] stepped into a role with the Utah
[15:43] Earthquake Engineering Research
[15:45] Institute. Again, as a secretary, he's
[15:47] pretty connected out there. Um great
[15:49] field geologist. we recently promoted
[15:51] him to a senior geologist. Um, and I
[15:55] think he's on a Colorado River trip
[15:57] right now. And then Christian Hardwick,
[16:00] who's been leading, you know, leader in
[16:02] our energy and minerals team. He's
[16:04] really leading out on our geohysical, I
[16:06] mean our geothermal work. Um,
[16:09] anything else you want to add about
[16:10] Christian? Um Christian has a huge
[16:14] breadth of knowledge when it comes to
[16:16] geophysics, surface geophysical
[16:18] techniques. He many of those 15 years he
[16:23] was kind of working behind the scenes in
[16:24] the geothermal world before geothermal
[16:27] exploded the last few years.
[16:28] [clears throat]
[16:29] And a lot of that foundational work is
[16:32] being used today by geothermal companies
[16:35] in Utah. Like Furbo is drilling in the
[16:38] Black Rock Desert based on work that
[16:40] Christian did 10 years ago. Um and so
[16:44] it's nice to see him kind of more
[16:46] elevated now and he's been extremely
[16:50] successful in getting very large DOE
[16:54] funded projects. He was instrumental in
[16:56] us getting the very large geothermal
[16:58] building block from the legislature. So
[17:02] yeah, he's really [clears throat]
[17:04] stepped up and it's fun to see him
[17:06] finally get some recognition for all the
[17:08] work he's done many years.
[17:10] >> Yeah, geothermal is having a moment kind
[17:13] of like critical minerals. So um
[17:16] [clears throat]
[17:16] and and again you know Christian's uh
[17:20] project workload has become
[17:23] um robust enough that we're additionally
[17:26] looking to hire someone to support him
[17:29] in that role as well. So
[17:37] » geothermal geopysics
[17:40] person hopefully soon
[17:45] So again, you know, these new hires that
[17:47] we've made are really intentional. You
[17:50] know, we've looked at our staff
[17:52] bandwidth. We've looked at the amount of
[17:54] grant funding that has come in to be
[17:57] able to execute that work. We're really
[17:59] careful about hiring and that work, you
[18:02] know, has long legs. Those, you know,
[18:04] budget numbers are pushing out two to
[18:06] three years. And we really do want to be
[18:08] intentional about hiring. So, you know,
[18:10] the addition of Stephen of Eton of the
[18:14] geothermal project geologist
[18:16] um and our our paleontology replacement,
[18:19] you know, have been pretty well thought
[18:21] out here. But, um we're also excited to
[18:24] add to our team geothermal the
[18:26] geothermal work that is out there, the
[18:28] minerals work that is out there, the
[18:30] groundwater and wetlands work that is
[18:32] out there. You know, that is what the
[18:33] state is asking from us and the funding
[18:36] is out there. So, let's do the good
[18:38] science and bring the people in to to
[18:41] get it done.
[18:43] Uh, next in my slide deck was um
[18:47] welcoming Brian Summers, the executive
[18:49] director of the Utah Mining Association.
[18:51] So, he'll be here. He's just running
[18:53] late. So, if you don't mind, should I
[18:56] just continue with [laughter] the
[18:58] director's report?
[18:59] >> Yes.
[19:00] >> Thank you. So, we'll come back to that
[19:02] when I arise and we'll do introductions
[19:05] when it gets here, too. Okay. So, I'll
[19:07] just
[19:08] >> Have you hired the uh the new mapping?
[19:12] >> He did. Yeah.
[19:12] >> Oh, that's right.
[19:13] >> Yeah. He doesn't. So, we hired uh David
[19:16] Kenova. It was a lengthy process, very
[19:19] competitive. Um he's he'll be joining us
[19:21] after completing his PhD.
[19:24] Uh he's he's got mapping skills at
[19:28] various scales, regional uh
[19:31] cross-sections,
[19:33] strategraphy. He's an interesting
[19:35] candidate. Um he's a he's a native of
[19:38] the inner mountain west. Went to Fort
[19:40] Lewis College I think initially and then
[19:43] has did a master's did a masters and
[19:46] then he's completing a PhD in kind of
[19:48] salt tectonic stuff
[19:50] >> in Spain.
[19:51] Yeah.
[19:52] >> He'll be joining us in early October.
[19:56] And his the goal his focal his focus
[19:58] area will be the Utah's west desert
[20:00] basically. And the point of getting him
[20:03] here now is to overlap with Don Clark
[20:06] who will be retiring in the future.
[20:09] >> Yes. So that big big scale mapping,
[20:11] right? So one of the things I was really
[20:14] intrigued about with David Kenova as a
[20:17] potential hireer is he spent some time
[20:19] as a USGS map editor. Is that his role?
[20:23] >> Mappings and publication skills are just
[20:27] incredible. Like his maps are beautiful
[20:29] products. like he understands that and I
[20:32] think having him come into our mapping
[20:34] and even our GIS team may level us up a
[20:37] bit right in terms of what we do and and
[20:40] what we're able to produce. So it'll be
[20:41] exciting to see I think he's going to
[20:43] integrate into our mapping team really
[20:45] well.
[20:49] » Speaking of publications then um let's
[20:54] go through them because it's been a busy
[20:56] time since we last met. uh survey notes
[20:59] came out recently and we actually are
[21:02] working on our next issue of survey
[21:04] notes right now. That will be the last
[21:07] uh September issue of survey notes I
[21:10] think that we'll do. We're going to
[21:12] start reducing the number of survey
[21:14] notes and putting out an annual report
[21:16] in December I believe is our target. And
[21:20] that's really a document that we can tee
[21:22] up for the legislature um to kind of
[21:26] showcase what UGS has been working on
[21:28] through the year and help the
[21:30] legislature understand our role and how
[21:33] we put the money that they give us to
[21:35] use. Uh statewide inventory of Utah's
[21:39] significant mine waste features. So this
[21:42] was a large compilation took kind of a
[21:45] super team of GIS
[21:48] um folks as well as Claire Decker to put
[21:50] together all of the mind waste features.
[21:53] Mike, is that like a single map with a
[21:55] supporting document?
[21:58] So that's um that's basically a GIS
[22:01] compilation of all the we use
[22:03] significant mine waste features in the
[22:04] state and we paired that with as much um
[22:07] mineral occurrence data that we have so
[22:10] that we can there's a lot of disclaimer
[22:12] language in the report but so that we
[22:14] can provide a very high level um
[22:17] inventory of where mine waste is and
[22:19] what could potentially be in it for
[22:21] people who are interested in it for a
[22:23] whole variety of reasons. So Claire did
[22:25] a great job on this. I think this will
[22:27] be one of our one of the foundational
[22:29] data sets that we kind of use and that
[22:31] we get asked for quite a lot. So, we're
[22:33] very excited to have more fun.
[22:36] >> We will be very interested.
[22:37] >> Yeah. Okay. I [laughter] didn't even see
[22:39] that. I'm looking at the back of my head
[22:41] most of the time.
[22:44] » Awesome. A pilot study to eval to
[22:47] evaluate measurement of evapo
[22:49] transformation in fragmite stand
[22:52] farmington bay. So if you follow the
[22:54] great salt lake news, eggies is an
[22:58] invasive reed. It has taken over tens of
[23:02] thousands of acres probably along the
[23:05] edge of the great salt lake and it
[23:06] consumes a great deal of water. And so
[23:10] one of the issues with trying to get
[23:12] water to the Great Salt Lake is that
[23:13] these stands of fragmitees are in the
[23:15] way. Um, and so, uh, our our groundwater
[23:20] wetlands teams have been installing
[23:22] these really cool flux towers. They're
[23:25] called Eddie co-variance towers. This is
[23:28] something that Paul Inc. Brandt has been
[23:29] leading out. They're super technical.
[23:31] Um, there is a nationwide flux network
[23:34] that the data gets kind of shared out
[23:36] to. Um but installing one in a stand of
[23:39] fragmitees allowed them to try to get a
[23:42] better handle on the actual
[23:44] evapotranspiration rate of fragmitees
[23:47] which is tied to how much water it
[23:49] actually consumes. Um it's a managing
[23:52] fragmitees and treating it has been a
[23:55] inter agency effort. It's forestry fire
[23:58] and state lands. It's wildlife
[24:00] resources. It's our information on the
[24:02] data side. And so this data really
[24:05] matters to the uh efforts to treat and
[24:09] eradicate fragmitees. Um the TLDDR
[24:13] version of this is it does use less
[24:17] water than we thought. We thought it
[24:18] used four times the amount of water as
[24:21] maybe a more typical wetland vegetation.
[24:24] It's more probably in the range of two
[24:26] to three times as much water. Um but
[24:30] that's still a lot. I think the actual
[24:32] data point was 36 inches a year of water
[24:36] that it consumes which if you look at
[24:38] how dense a stand of fragmitees is and
[24:40] there are photos of these stands in this
[24:42] report that's still a lot of water. So
[24:45] in my book uh for restoration of the
[24:47] great salt lake fragmitees is public
[24:49] enemy number one. Um and this study will
[24:53] go a long ways I think to try to help um
[24:56] manage it.
[24:58] And then here come the state map
[25:00] deliverables. Right. You want to kind of
[25:03] go through these Mills Junction. This
[25:05] was Emily's
[25:07] and Adam's map.
[25:10] >> Yeah. So, so we uh in the board the
[25:13] descriptive packet we I describe our
[25:16] this the full trench of deliverables
[25:18] basically that we
[25:19] >> we provided USGS at the end of June. We
[25:22] delivered on time for the third straight
[25:24] year. We published more of our maps than
[25:27] ever before. Uh we also included more
[25:29] digital data than ever before. Um so
[25:33] let's see. We started off with Mills
[25:34] Junction. That's in Tula Valley.
[25:36] Includes a bunch of the Great Salt Lake.
[25:38] It's basically all lustr deposits.
[25:41] There's one little piece of bedrock and
[25:42] smolder basin fill, but it's all lustr
[25:44] deposits from very, very young up
[25:46] through Bonavville age. Uh let's see,
[25:49] north part of Real Creek. This was a
[25:51] trainer quad for Keely. She did a great
[25:53] job on this. Uh this includes part of
[25:55] Castle Valley in the Sand Flats wreck
[25:58] area. Um it it actually is a nice map
[26:01] for hazard stuff going forward. This is
[26:03] a this is a well-loved and used area.
[26:06] This will help folks manage that area.
[26:08] Uh then we had a kind of a cleanup map
[26:11] on Santa Quinn. This was a piece of work
[26:14] that Adams had out there for a while. Um
[26:17] I'm a contributor on there as well. And
[26:19] then Ron Harris from BYU. It's a really
[26:22] cool map. Um complicated severe
[26:25] structure was fault stuff. Bonavville
[26:29] and some volcanics. Um Old Jetto. That's our first map for the Navajo
[26:35] Nation. So that's down just east of
[26:38] Monument Valley. This was we went down
[26:40] to them and asked what they wanted. We
[26:41] did this map to help them with water
[26:43] resources. That's uh Matthew's first map
[26:47] down there. We also have a we had a
[26:49] press release that just came out
[26:50] yesterday afternoon that shared with the
[26:53] USGS and the Navajo Nation about this
[26:55] map because it's unique. So kind of some
[26:57] national level press on that one.
[26:59] >> Are we going to see that on our channel?
[27:01] >> We are. Yeah, we'll talk about that. We
[27:02] we're basically going to do a field
[27:05] review of that map on that first day of
[27:06] the field trip. Um the next one, the
[27:10] geologic map of Bryce, that's another
[27:12] wonderful map. It'll it'll help folks
[27:14] manage the resources down there. It's
[27:16] already really popular. It's been like
[27:18] our most downloaded map and one of our
[27:20] most downloaded publications since it
[27:22] came out. It's got a great
[27:23] cross-section, great pictures, strap
[27:25] columns. It's a neat map.
[27:27] >> Geological hazards that were mapped as
[27:28] part of this that should really help the
[27:30] park managers as well. So,
[27:33] >> but a gorgeous map and that that also
[27:35] will build into a piece of work that we
[27:37] hope to complete in the next fiscal
[27:39] year, which is a revised geologic map of
[27:41] the whole park of Bryce.
[27:43] Um, geez. [clears throat] Wow. This is a
[27:47] stack.
[27:47] >> Yeah. Uh, this first one is a outside
[27:51] publication.
[27:53] Um,
[27:55] so was one of our
[27:57] was somebody a contributor on this from
[28:01] Um, so Christine and Scott are at USGS
[28:05] here in town water
[28:08] science center. Um, and the Great Salt
[28:11] Lake Solenity Advisory Committee, Andrew
[28:15] and Elliot participate on that.
[28:18] >> Sorry,
[28:18] >> I didn't realize this was in the middle
[28:19] state map. So,
[28:21] >> that's okay. Um, Woodland was another
[28:23] one. That's one of Lauren's quads. So
[28:26] now we have new mapping that covers
[28:28] basically the areas that are most likely
[28:30] to be developed in Summit County coming
[28:32] up. One of the adjoining quads has been
[28:35] consistently used by con consultants.
[28:37] The woodland quad's really cool. It's
[28:40] got kind of the tip out of the south
[28:41] flank fault that bounds the really neat
[28:45] structure, some cool strategraphy,
[28:47] volcanics. Warren did a great job. It
[28:49] also has that quad's really cool. It's
[28:51] got these what look like really old
[28:53] glacial deposits. of things that are uh
[28:56] pre kind of B lake age they're way up
[28:58] high we're working on some uh some folks
[29:01] from University of Minnesota trying to
[29:02] get those dated could be a cool story
[29:05] there summit quad uh that includes part
[29:08] of the Powan Valley and adjoining
[29:10] uplands that's a map that t that's been
[29:12] rolling around for a little while Tyler
[29:14] finally published
[29:16] let's see north Ogden that's another one
[29:18] that's been rolling around that's got
[29:20] some really complicated uh severe belt
[29:23] structures And then a bunch of
[29:25] Bonavville stuff, Wasach fault stuff and
[29:28] big liquefaction features too. So it'll
[29:31] be real important for hazard kind of
[29:33] mitigation stuff.
[29:36] >> Awesome. Could you remind me the term
[29:39] interim applied to all these? What does
[29:41] that
[29:42] >> So we Well, that actually builds into
[29:44] something else that we're working on in
[29:46] mapping. It's kind of revising how we
[29:48] publish or map the actual publication
[29:50] titles. We use interim. We've used that
[29:52] to say that this isn't final. We It has
[29:54] known issues that we didn't address yet.
[29:56] And sometimes those are outstanding lab
[29:58] work. Sometimes there's known problems
[30:01] that we haven't figured out yet. We
[30:03] don't feel that it's final. And that's
[30:04] why it's an OFR. We are looking at kind
[30:06] of changing this and going to more of a
[30:08] versioned map series. So if you look at
[30:10] the quality of these interim maps,
[30:12] they're every bit equivalent to our old
[30:14] final maps. That makes sense. So there's
[30:17] really no re, you know, we'll probably
[30:19] move into a mode where we're not doing
[30:20] as many open file maps in the future.
[30:22] We're doing a map series map that then
[30:24] gets versioned and updated as like lab
[30:27] data comes in or we figure out a given
[30:29] area.
[30:30] >> Okay. And the OFR that's like your first
[30:33] um draft.
[30:35] >> Yeah, it's the first draft.
[30:37] >> Okay.
[30:37] >> Yeah. But like I say, these these first
[30:41] drafts these days, these have all those
[30:42] are DM. So they all have full digital
[30:44] data. the quality of these products is
[30:47] it's in many times greater than what we
[30:49] were doing like 15 years ago for our
[30:51] final publications. So, it's time to
[30:53] it's an instance where we I think we
[30:55] need to adjust our publication series a
[30:57] little bit to fit what we're actually
[30:59] doing.
[31:00] >> Is there a timeline associated with
[31:02] that? So, you identify something as an
[31:04] OFR report. Are you trying to get it
[31:07] finalized within like five years, 10
[31:09] years?
[31:09] >> That's one that's one of the issues.
[31:11] >> Question.
[31:12] >> That's a great question. So for these
[31:14] for maps to meet our contract
[31:16] requirement, we just have to publish.
[31:18] They don't care whether it's an OFR, map
[31:20] series or whatever we want to call it.
[31:21] We just have to publish. So that leaves
[31:24] us in a position when we publish these
[31:26] things. It's hard to come back to them,
[31:28] right? It's hard to get money for it.
[31:29] Many of these OFRs need a small amount
[31:32] of work. They need like a few weeks of
[31:34] work. It's hard to get money for that.
[31:36] And thereby, it's also hard to plan for
[31:39] it. You know, it's hard to say, oh this
[31:41] year versus two years or five years or
[31:43] whatever.
[31:45] >> A lot of it comes to edge mapping too,
[31:46] right? Where you're trying
[31:48] [clears throat]
[31:49] >> that's one of the fundamental issues in
[31:50] here too. You know, does this make sense
[31:52] versus the
[31:55] >> but we are we are actively working on
[31:57] revising the publication
[32:00] s what what we call publications via map
[32:03] series or OFRs to account for this in
[32:05] the future. There's always a lot of maps
[32:13] » and these things are always works in
[32:14] progress. That's why I want to go to
[32:16] this idea of version maps. So it'll be
[32:19] version one, version two, version three.
[32:21] They're never really fully done. There's
[32:23] always things you can you can improve.
[32:25] So
[32:26] >> So do you know or even keep track of how
[32:30] this level of production of maps stacks
[32:32] up against other states? Yeah, I have an
[32:34] idea of that. Um, I mean that's that's a
[32:37] whole other topic. We're kind of in the
[32:39] top uh Colorado map really good about
[32:43] >> Yeah, we're in the top like four. We're
[32:45] in the top four or five in the country
[32:47] nationally in terms of map production
[32:49] map quality. Um,
[32:52] >> which is a that's a big deal because
[32:54] we're up against some organizations that
[32:56] are much larger than ours like
[32:57] California.
[33:03] » Okay. Well, perfect timing before we
[33:05] move to the next topic because Brian
[33:08] Summers has been able to join us. So,
[33:11] um, I thought we'd take a minute to
[33:14] introduce Brian and then we can do
[33:16] introductions maybe while we try to load
[33:20] your slides for you. Um, so why don't we
[33:26] start with you?
[33:27] >> Uh, hi everybody. I'm Brian Summers from
[33:29] the Pris Mining Association. So, I've
[33:32] worked with a few of you before, but I'm
[33:33] very happy to be here and I appreciate
[33:35] the invitation. Thanks for being
[33:37] flexible with my schedule, too. I had
[33:39] some extra dad duties this morning that
[33:41] I hadn't anticipated. So,
[33:45] >> absolutely fine.
[33:46] >> So, yeah, really glad you could join us.
[33:51] Uh Brian, I'm you know me, I'm Rich for
[33:55] go way back from the dog and board, but
[33:58] uh I'm now on the UGS board representing
[34:01] the [snorts] metals mineral industry.
[34:03] >> Awesome. [clears throat]
[34:05] >> And I'm Andy Bettingfield, um managing
[34:07] director of energy and minerals. Sibla
[34:10] has a non voting place on this board and
[34:12] so I fill that seat.
[34:15] >> I'm Ken Fleck. I'm a retired coal
[34:17] geologist formerly from Energy West
[34:20] Mining Company down in
[34:24] Price
[34:26] Drop. Yes,
[34:29] >> Mike Vandenberg here at UGS, head of the
[34:32] energy group
[34:35] at UGS. I am the finance manager.
[34:38] >> Elisa Richards, the board chair, the CEO
[34:41] of the National Energy Foundation.
[34:44] I'm Cheryl Wing. I'm with you, Jess. I'm
[34:45] the administrative assistant secretary.
[34:51] » I'm Neil Burke. I'm a hydro geologist.
[34:55] My role on the board is the groundwater
[34:57] section.
[34:59] >> I'm Becky Hammond and I'm a retired
[35:02] geologist
[35:04] and I represent scientific interests on
[35:07] the board.
[35:10] >> Michael Hansen. an engineering geologist
[35:13] works at
[35:14] civil and geotech engineering.
[35:18] >> And I'm Stephan Kirby. I'm the deputy
[35:20] director geological survey.
[35:22] >> Then
[35:24] I'm Stephanie Mills. I help with
[35:26] critical minerals in the survey. Sorry,
[35:28] I was also late. I also had unexpected
[35:30] kid duties this morning. We're in the
[35:32] same boat.
[35:34] While we get Brian's presentation
[35:36] loaded, do you guys want to just take
[35:37] like a little break or something? And
[35:39] then
[35:43] we want to do our
[35:46] >> This won't be our formal break. Just
[35:48] quick break.
[35:58] » Um,
[36:14] » so do you have the calendar?
[36:21] » [laughter]
[36:26] » Yeah, it should actually [laughter]
[36:31] » um there's a lot of peritting challenges
[36:33] because they're on the back
[36:35] side of wildlife refuge and the front
[36:37] side of
[36:40] >> Sorry, everyone online, if there's
[36:42] anyone online, we're breaking
[36:52] infrastructure. So that's
[36:55] maybe
[37:21] Yeah,
[37:23] the problem when you go with a very
[37:25] strong market polyc
[37:30] is processing facent.
[37:45] » [clears throat]
[37:54] » department,
[38:00] right?
[38:00] >> Huh?
[38:16] probably
[38:30] » my brother
[38:45] Love American
[38:50] Warrior.
[39:04] very busy.
[39:07] Those are the only
[39:36] I'm not a geologist.
[39:38] [laughter]
[39:42] I've been around
[39:59] » and that's where I'm not
[40:13] And basically
[40:23] we don't need space to work.
[40:27] We're not going to take
[40:34] » [laughter]
[40:45] » It's
[40:46] the technology
[40:51] all that
[40:54] you know that last bill that bill last
[40:57] year
[40:58] the My name is
[41:36] No.
[41:53] » He was really great to us.
[42:06] aren't
[42:08] just a
[42:19] doing a great job.
[42:28] » All right.
[42:40] Go ahead and call back to order.
[42:50] » We'll come back to our meeting. Um,
[42:53] again, we're really happy to have Brian
[42:55] here. Brian was part of my interview
[42:57] panel when I was interviewing for this
[42:59] job. And one of the questions I asked
[43:01] him was what do you need from EGS and
[43:03] what do you need from from me in
[43:06] particular? I'm really happy that he's
[43:08] been able to
[43:11] um you know visit our board and share a
[43:13] little bit about you Utah Mining
[43:16] Association. There is time for
[43:18] discussion after this. Um one of the
[43:21] topics to discuss is we will be
[43:23] recruiting
[43:25] that represents industrial minerals. So
[43:27] we can have a little chat about that.
[43:29] Andrew Ruffy, who is our industrial
[43:32] minerals lead, unfortunately, is on a
[43:35] field trip with legislators. Um,
[43:40] took the state plane down somewhere. I'm
[43:42] not sure where. Um, so yeah. So, sorry
[43:46] he can't be here. We'll continue that
[43:48] discussion, but I guess I'll turn it
[43:49] over to Brian who's prepared a
[43:51] presentation for us. Thank you.
[43:53] >> Well, again, thank you for the
[43:54] opportunity to come and present. Um, so
[43:57] I I talked to to Darlene and Stephanie a
[43:59] little bit beforehand about what to
[44:02] present and to be honest, this is I do a
[44:03] lot of presentations and this one I
[44:05] haven't quite known how to prepare for
[44:07] because I haven't worked with uh the UGS
[44:09] board, I'm sure, as much as I I should
[44:11] have. Um, and so something I thought
[44:13] might be useful is just to to give you
[44:16] guys a sense. I get asked to do a lot of
[44:18] presentations, especially on kind of the
[44:19] state of the mining industry and what's
[44:21] happening in mining. Um, and so I
[44:23] thought what I'd do is just do a very
[44:25] abbreviated version of uh the
[44:27] presentation that I, you know, tend to
[44:29] give out in in public. Um, I'm not gonna
[44:31] I'm going to go through some of these
[44:32] slides very quickly because frankly a
[44:34] lot of them are based on data that you
[44:35] guys have produced and so you don't need
[44:37] me to talk to you about what critical
[44:39] minerals we have or whatever. Um, so but
[44:42] I thought that it might be just an easy
[44:43] way to sort of start the the
[44:45] conversation and then um, as mentioned,
[44:47] I'd love to have some, you know,
[44:49] discussion and and answer any questions.
[44:51] And I'm I'll have some questions for you
[44:53] as well. So if that's okay. Um, again,
[44:56] [clears throat] I'm going to go through
[44:56] this pretty quickly. So uh, if you do
[44:59] want me to stop on something, please
[45:00] don't hesitate to just, you know, uh,
[45:02] type up and let me know.
[45:05] >> Sorry. Uh, I shouldn't be presenting.
[45:07] So,
[45:08] >> well, you can just just Oh, yeah.
[45:10] Maximize your
[45:11] >> max.
[45:12] >> Yeah. And then you'll be able to see.
[45:15] >> Sorry.
[45:17] >> Where am I going here?
[45:20] >> Just say cancel and then go up to the
[45:23] Yeah, the window thing. There you go.
[45:25] about that. Thank you.
[45:36] » Just Sorry, I'm just looking for a way
[45:38] to maximize the screen here and minimize
[45:40] the
[45:42] >> I think if you hit the three dots
[45:44] towards the middle.
[45:46] >> Yeah, that one. Then go up to full
[45:48] screen.
[45:51] >> Thank you.
[45:52] >> Yeah, he's a little
[45:54] Okay. Um,
[45:56] so usually when I give presentations, I
[45:59] kind of t start by talking about Utah's
[46:01] mining history. Um, you know, I'll
[46:03] always mention this is my favorite part
[46:04] of the capital. When you go into the the
[46:06] cycle realm in the rotunda and you see
[46:07] General Connor, there's a panel of
[46:09] General Patrick Connor inaugurating
[46:11] mining in the state, commercial mining
[46:12] in the state in 1863. Um, there's two
[46:15] beautiful paintings in the governor's
[46:17] office of the Bingham Canyon Mine by HLA
[46:20] Culmer, who was a very famous Utah
[46:21] artist. Um, we actually had these
[46:24] removed for a show at the Utah Museum of
[46:27] Fine Arts a number of years ago, and
[46:28] that was incredibly controversial
[46:29] because it's the only time that they've
[46:31] been out of the governor's office. Um,
[46:33] obviously, if you go up to the cap,
[46:35] you'll see Daniel Jaclyn, he's finally
[46:36] back on his perch in the the courtyard
[46:38] there. Um, after all the construction,
[46:42] and of course, we always have to remind
[46:43] the governor that he lives in a house
[46:44] that was, you know, built with mining
[46:45] money in the Kern's mansion. Um, one of
[46:48] the the first um what I like to call,
[46:51] you know, economic development
[46:52] initiatives that was uh ever created by
[46:55] the territorial legislature way back in
[46:57] 1854 was actually a cash reward for
[47:00] anybody that could find uh coal within
[47:02] 40 miles of Salt Lake City. Nobody
[47:05] actually was able to claim this reward.
[47:06] you know, ultimately our coal was found
[47:08] a little bit further away from Salt
[47:09] Lake, but this was, you know, the
[47:11] recognizing very early on in our state's
[47:14] history how important minerals and
[47:16] especially energy minerals were. Um, and
[47:18] then of course we always have to remind
[47:20] people when they go to places, great
[47:21] places like Park City and Moab that
[47:23] those obviously started out as as mining
[47:26] towns and have really rich mining
[47:28] history. Um, and part of obviously what
[47:30] brings you uh people to Utah and mining
[47:32] is that we've got such an amazing uh
[47:35] mineral endowment. uh geological
[47:37] endowment here. You know, these are just
[47:38] some of the the minerals that are are
[47:40] being produced in Utah. Again, the
[47:42] critical minerals. I won't spend too
[47:44] much time on this because, you know, we
[47:45] have experts here that um I know I've
[47:48] stolen most of this from. Um one thing I
[47:50] do like to talk about is showing the
[47:52] mineral commodity summary that comes
[47:53] from the US Geological Survey. And
[47:55] obviously when I show this slide, nobody
[47:57] can actually read it, but I I always
[47:59] just say, you know, blue is bad on this chart, right? Blue means that
[48:02] we're import dependent for these
[48:04] important mineral commodities. Um and
[48:06] you know that's obviously a challenge
[48:08] for us. So you know 50% import
[48:10] dependence for 52 different mineral
[48:12] commodities, more than 50% import
[48:14] dependence and 100% for 16 different
[48:16] mineral commodities. So I mean that
[48:18] represents a real national security
[48:19] threat for our country especially
[48:21] because China is the leading import
[48:22] source for most of those minerals. Um
[48:25] and just you know to give one example of
[48:27] many you could give you know just with
[48:28] rare earth elements. How many rares go
[48:30] into things like an F-35 Lightning or an
[48:33] Arley B destroyer, Virginia class
[48:35] submarine? I mean, 9,200 pounds of
[48:37] rarers. I mean, that's what that's
[48:38] something that actually really blows my
[48:40] mind because I mean, as you know, rarers
[48:41] are, you know, usually used in fairly
[48:43] small quantities. So, to have to have
[48:45] 9,200 pounds in a Virginia class
[48:47] submarine is quite a thing. Um, and you
[48:51] know, the wonderful number that you guys
[48:52] have come up with that we host 50 to 60
[48:54] critical minerals. I know you guys have
[48:56] to uh you know do this every few years
[48:59] to update that number, but I love that
[49:01] we've got nice, you know, 50 out of 60.
[49:02] That was much better than the 48 out of
[49:04] 60 that I had come up with. So luckily
[49:06] you guys corrected me on that.
[49:08] [clears throat] Um [laughter] and then
[49:10] the way that I've sort of talked about
[49:11] this, which is slightly different than
[49:13] um you know, I know you guys take
[49:15] obviously a much more scientific view
[49:17] and I'm more of a you know, an advocacy
[49:20] guy, a marketing guy. Um, and so what I
[49:22] talked about is, you know, minerals
[49:23] where we have uh current production or
[49:25] what I what I call installed capacity.
[49:27] And so these are minerals that, you
[49:29] know, we have produced in the recent
[49:30] past where we actually have the
[49:31] facilities where we could be producing
[49:33] them again, even if we're not currently
[49:34] doing it. I think a really great example
[49:36] of this is venadium. Um, I mean, we
[49:38] haven't actually done a venadium run at
[49:39] White Mesa for Stephanie, what two or
[49:42] three years probably.
[49:45] >> Yeah. But I mean, we can produce
[49:46] venadium if we if we need to. [cough] um
[49:49] you know magnesium is a little more
[49:50] tricky right now but I mean we do have
[49:52] the facilities um to do that and so I
[49:54] mean this is what I like to talk about
[49:56] where again you know we have either
[49:57] current production or installed cap
[50:03] we have [clears throat] you know
[50:04] historical production or known resources
[50:06] and again I'm sure that the scientists
[50:07] in the room you know would equival
[50:12] to make the point that in many cases you
[50:14] know we we have produced significant
[50:15] quantities of these minerals in the past
[50:17] um or we have you known resources where
[50:20] you you could go out and produce them in
[50:22] uh you know in mining terms relatively
[50:24] short order because the resource has
[50:25] been proven. Um and you know I mean
[50:27] obviously indium is the one we always
[50:29] kind of point to with this although
[50:30] there's you know lots of examples of
[50:32] that. Um and then uh I talk about
[50:36] critical mineral projects you know we do
[50:38] have like the occurrences and everything
[50:39] else but I mean that tends to sort of
[50:41] you know distract a little bit from the message that hey you should come and
[50:44] invest your money here. Um, so I I will
[50:47] talk too about critical mineral projects
[50:49] that are currently in development in
[50:50] Utah. Um, and these are all in in
[50:53] various stages. So I mean there's you
[50:54] know things like uh you know copper
[50:57] projects that are much further along and
[50:59] you know and other ones that are
[51:00] definitely still more in in development
[51:02] or you know study phase. Um I haven't
[51:05] really figured out how to talk about um
[51:07] ionic. So I just kind of call that our
[51:09] poly metallic deposit because I don't
[51:11] know how else to talk about it. Um but
[51:13] you know it is pretty encouraging to see
[51:15] how this list has grown over the past
[51:16] few years as we've seen more interest in
[51:18] critical minerals and more investment um
[51:20] come both from the private sector and
[51:22] from government sources. Um this is a
[51:26] great thing that I totally stole from
[51:27] you of Kennot. Some of you I'm sure have
[51:29] seen this before. Um but this just shows
[51:31] that you know there is huge benefit in
[51:34] looking at our existing permanent
[51:35] operations because you know a lot of
[51:38] them have potential to develop a lot
[51:39] more minerals that they're currently
[51:41] producing. Um so this is actually a
[51:44] chart that um that Don Wellman who uh a
[51:47] lot of you guys know actually presented
[51:49] at our conference a couple of years ago
[51:51] and you know this has changed but um you
[51:54] know it shows like you know the critical
[51:56] minerals they're producing the ones that
[51:57] they could produce kind of in the near
[51:58] term and then things that they could do
[51:59] longer term um but you know a
[52:01] significant amount of minerals that
[52:03] could come out of just this one
[52:04] operation
[52:06] >> out of Bingham Canyon.
[52:06] >> Yeah. out of Canyon and and these all
[52:09] come from sort of different sources and
[52:10] so in some cases like the germanium and
[52:12] gallium I mean that's you know
[52:13] potentially from their smelter dust you
[52:16] have other things that could come from
[52:17] their acid mine drainage there's other
[52:18] things that they believe are in the
[52:19] tailings pile that that they could
[52:21] develop um and so you know different
[52:24] sort of parts of the process where these
[52:25] minerals could potentially fall out and be produced um but again a lot of
[52:30] this depends on you know on market
[52:32] conditions and investment and in most
[52:34] cases you know riotentto not going to
[52:37] make a lot of money on these uh critical
[52:38] minerals which is one of the real
[52:40] challenges. Um but you know if they have
[52:42] a company for example that comes to them
[52:44] like with a torum where they have a
[52:46] solar company and says hey we're we
[52:48] don't want to produce our toium in China
[52:50] anymore so we'd like for you guys to do
[52:51] it and we're willing to pay the price to
[52:53] make that happen. Um you know the
[52:55] defense department's always bugging them
[52:56] about certain minerals like reium and
[52:58] other things. Um, but there really does
[53:00] have to be, you know, the market
[53:02] conditions or an offtaker that is
[53:04] willing to pay the higher prices because
[53:06] obviously all of these can be produced
[53:08] more cheaply in China because they have
[53:10] no labor environmental controls. So
[53:12] that's exciting. Um, another great
[53:14] example that we like to uh talk about
[53:16] and again as mentioned there's a bunch
[53:18] of uh legislators and state officials
[53:20] that are going down to energy fuels
[53:22] today. Um but you know how energy fuels
[53:24] has been able to use their existing
[53:25] facility to start producing rares where
[53:28] again they're bringing in an outside
[53:29] mineral monocy. We've had to sort of
[53:31] talk about how we t you know talk about
[53:32] rares because we do have rares um you
[53:35] know present in the in the mineral
[53:37] endowment here but what's actually being
[53:39] produced on the rare side or you know
[53:41] from minerals that are being being
[53:42] brought from out of state. Um but
[53:44] they're using you know a feed stock of
[53:47] monzite that's being brought from from
[53:49] out of state and potentially overseas in
[53:51] the future. um to you know produce the rarers. Um [clears throat]
[53:56] and the the thing that I I love about
[53:58] this I mean this is such a great story
[54:00] where you know again they're they
[54:02] essentially stole what they were doing
[54:03] from the Chinese because the Chinese
[54:04] have been doing this for a long time.
[54:06] They said hey you know monocy it's got
[54:07] all these rarers but it's also got a lot
[54:09] of ingrain and thorium in it. We can
[54:10] deal with the radioactive elements and
[54:12] then you know isolate the rarers. At
[54:14] first they were sending all these to
[54:15] Estonia because that was the only
[54:17] facility outside of uh outside of China
[54:20] that had the ability to do the
[54:21] separation of the individual rares. But
[54:23] then they built those circuits on their
[54:24] own. Um and now they're you know have
[54:27] announced an expansion to where uh
[54:29] they'll be essentially have the ability
[54:31] to produce any of the rarers that are in
[54:34] uh uh in the moni which is basically all
[54:36] of them. You know they've been doing
[54:38] neodymium and crazymian for two or three
[54:42] years now. um you know they've just
[54:44] announced turbium asp and then with this
[54:46] expansion once that's up and running
[54:48] they can produce any of the rarest you
[54:49] know assuming again there's an offtaker
[54:52] so again a really great opportunity with
[54:54] a permitted operation that doesn't have
[54:56] to go through all of the you know the new permitting challenges that can
[55:00] come with a mining operation that I know
[55:02] you're all familiar with. Um I talk a
[55:04] little bit about you know some of the
[55:05] differences we've seen with this current
[55:07] administration that's very excited about
[55:10] producing critical minerals. There was
[55:11] just another event on Friday, actually
[55:13] last week, where the president announced
[55:14] another $3 billion of investment in the
[55:16] critical mineral sector. Um, this
[55:18] doesn't always come in the most um, you
[55:21] know, predictable or rational ways. Um,
[55:23] and I'll talk about that a little bit
[55:25] later, too. But um, it is great to see
[55:27] that the federal government has
[55:28] recognized that. I mean, this really is
[55:30] an economic national security issue for
[55:32] us to be so dependent on foreign
[55:33] producers for our critical mineral
[55:36] supplies. Um, you know, part of the the
[55:39] unpredictability of of what uh the
[55:41] federal government is doing, they have
[55:42] made some really significant investments
[55:44] in places like Mountain Pass, um, in the
[55:48] Antimony, the Stite Mine up in Idaho and
[55:51] others. Um, in some cases, I I sort of
[55:54] wish that they had made some different
[55:56] investments. I think, you know, Mountain
[55:58] Pass is a proven producer. Some of the
[55:59] other rare earth investments they've
[56:01] made are with what I would call very
[56:02] non-proven producers. Um, you know,
[56:04] luckily Energy Fuels did get a loan
[56:06] guarantee from the Department of Energy
[56:07] for $750 million, which is huge. Um, but
[56:11] some of the investments that have been
[56:13] made are really being made on the basis
[56:15] of, you know, producers saying that they
[56:17] can do something even though they don't
[56:18] really have a track record of doing
[56:20] those things. And that makes me a little
[56:21] bit nervous. Um, just me personally
[56:24] speaking, as Brian, I don't also love
[56:27] the equity stakes are being taken in
[56:28] some of these companies. Um, you know, I
[56:30] don't necessarily worry about it with a
[56:32] friendly administration, but at some
[56:34] point we'll have an unfriendly
[56:35] administration. And, you know, having
[56:36] government ownership and mining
[56:38] operations with an unfriendly
[56:39] administration freaks me out. Um, so,
[56:41] you know, it's it's been a little bit of a bumpy road, but we're in a much
[56:44] better place now than we were a few
[56:46] years ago. Um, this is part of the
[56:49] problem we have. Um, I stole this from
[56:51] Joe Mansion, um, who's, you know, no
[56:53] longer in the Senate, but, um, and this
[56:56] has actually been simplified a tiny
[56:58] little bit, but not much. Um but this
[57:00] was the you know critical minerals
[57:01] ecosystem um in the federal government
[57:04] according to senator former senator Joe
[57:06] Mansion. Um and and I mean all of you
[57:09] guys that have worked in you know in the
[57:11] federal government understand how
[57:12] complicated this can be. So these are
[57:14] all the different agencies and offices
[57:16] that have some touch point in the
[57:18] critical minerals and uh you know
[57:20] materials ecosystem. And so, you know,
[57:22] even with a friendly administration, I
[57:24] mean, getting through uh existing
[57:26] bureaucracy, a lot of this obviously
[57:27] was, some of this was set up by statute,
[57:29] some of this was set up by, you know, by
[57:31] rule and by, you know, the the creative
[57:33] ideas of bureaucrats in Washington. Um,
[57:36] and so, I mean, this is a very
[57:38] complicated ecosystem still. And that's
[57:40] part of why we're also seeing a little
[57:41] bit of disjointedness with investment
[57:43] coming in because there's so many
[57:45] different people that have touch points,
[57:47] frankly, so many different people that
[57:48] have checkbooks and little weird pots of
[57:50] money. And so that's why, you know,
[57:51] there hasn't been sort of a unified
[57:54] funding effort as much as we'd like
[57:56] liked to see that. Um but um this is
[57:59] again better than it was a few years
[58:01] ago, but still the federal government,
[58:04] so it's still very complicated.
[58:06] Um I also uh talked to to folks about
[58:10] what I call the Diamond Mountain
[58:11] problem. Um and I don't know if any of
[58:13] you guys know this story. This is
[58:15] something that I learned a few years
[58:16] ago, but um there is a mountain out in a
[58:19] basin that's uh that's called Diamond
[58:21] Mountain. And the reason for that,
[58:23] accord, if you know, if the the stories
[58:25] are correct, is that you know, back in
[58:26] the in the late 1800s, there were some
[58:28] very enterprising uh you know,
[58:30] entrepreneurs that decided that they
[58:32] were going to sell shares in a diamond
[58:33] mine in county uh to uh some some fairly
[58:37] sophisticated investors actually. I
[58:39] mean, people like Louis Tiffany of
[58:40] Tiffany & Company, the guy that founded
[58:42] the bank of California were actually
[58:43] stockholders in this uh in this diamond
[58:46] mine. Um, as I'm sure all of the
[58:48] geologists know, we don't have diamonds
[58:49] in New County or anywhere in Utah. Um,
[58:52] and so this was a toll scam. Um, you
[58:54] know, they actually would go out there
[58:56] and they'd like sprinkle broad diamonds
[58:57] just, you know, in very, you know,
[58:59] obvious places and they take people in
[59:00] on a train and then they blindfold them
[59:02] and they take them out to where they'd
[59:03] spread the diamonds. I mean, it was a
[59:04] whole, it was a total scam. Um, and I do
[59:07] worry a little bit that um, you know, I
[59:09] don't know that we have outright scams
[59:10] today, but we definitely have people
[59:12] that are overselling their operations
[59:13] and overselling the their ability to
[59:15] produce some of these critical minerals.
[59:18] Um, and my concern as the industry guy
[59:20] is that, you know, for every legitimate
[59:22] project, um, you know, if you have an
[59:24] illegitimate project that gets attention
[59:26] and gets funding, it's taking away from
[59:28] those legitimate projects. like I don't
[59:29] want you know the cylinder of the the
[59:31] mining industry to to materialize so
[59:34] that you know people say oh you know all
[59:35] these mining people are just a bunch of
[59:37] sinko salesman a bunch of you know
[59:39] garbage and they can't really produce
[59:40] any of this stuff and we should just go
[59:41] and be nice to China and whatever and so
[59:44] you know that's why it's very important
[59:45] for us to have good data um you know for
[59:48] us to to to make sure that the the
[59:50] fundamentals of any mining project you
[59:52] know whether that's those you know the
[59:53] geological data the you know the
[59:55] technological data for how they're going
[59:57] to produce and process these uh these
[1:00:00] critical minerals are are real so that
[1:00:02] you know we don't end up having people
[1:00:04] invest in things that you know are the
[1:00:07] modern day equivalent of diamond.
[1:00:10] Um another thing I talk about is that
[1:00:12] you know in the mining industry we
[1:00:14] really do need patient capital. Um you
[1:00:17] know nothing in the mining industry is
[1:00:18] like silicon slopes. You know you don't
[1:00:20] have somebody that starts a you know a
[1:00:22] mining company in their garage and then
[1:00:24] a year later they've got a billion
[1:00:25] dollar valuation. That's just not how
[1:00:26] mining works. Um, you know, most of
[1:00:28] these projects are very hard to get off
[1:00:30] the ground. Um, in many cases, you're
[1:00:32] going to have many, many years until you
[1:00:33] actually get to profitability. In many
[1:00:35] cases, the the margins are very, very
[1:00:37] small, although, you know, they can
[1:00:38] obviously pay off over time. So, it
[1:00:41] takes a different type of capital than,
[1:00:42] you know, what is generally used in the
[1:00:44] venture capital space, which is, you
[1:00:46] know, we want to invest in software
[1:00:48] companies. And again, we want to go
[1:00:49] from, you know, a billion dollar value,
[1:00:52] you know, from from ping pong table to a
[1:00:54] billion dollar valuation in like a year.
[1:00:56] And that just that does doesn't happen
[1:00:57] in in
[1:01:00] the mining sector. That being said, I
[1:01:01] mean, we are seeing some new investors
[1:01:03] come in. This is actually a picture from
[1:01:05] uh what's was the Lisbon Valley mount is
[1:01:07] now called Marion Copper One. And this
[1:01:09] was a mine that was acquired actually by
[1:01:11] some folks that came out of the Tesla
[1:01:13] world, out of the Tesla. um you know,
[1:01:15] lithium and and uh you know, and some of
[1:01:17] the other critical mineral supply chains
[1:01:19] and started their own company and
[1:01:21] actually have brought a little bit of
[1:01:22] you know, that Silicon Valley uh you
[1:01:24] know, investment ethos into the mining
[1:01:26] sector. And so this is actually an
[1:01:28] autonomous hall truck. You've got your
[1:01:29] little autonomous robot dog here. Um you
[1:01:32] know, that does some of the the site
[1:01:33] monitoring and other things. And so I
[1:01:35] mean it is very exciting to see this. Um
[1:01:37] they're using a lot of AI, a lot of
[1:01:38] machine learning, other things. you
[1:01:40] know, they build this huge control
[1:01:41] center that they actually call the
[1:01:42] bridge, which is hilarious because
[1:01:43] they're a bunch of bunch of nerds. Um,
[1:01:47] and you know, they have brought sort of
[1:01:48] that Silicon Valley ethos um, you know,
[1:01:50] into this the mind that, you know, have
[1:01:52] been operating very traditionally for a
[1:01:54] number of years and it's exciting to see
[1:01:55] those two worlds come together. Um, and,
[1:01:58] uh, you know, they're they're doing a
[1:02:00] lot of amazing work there. So, it really
[1:02:01] is a great example. But again, you know,
[1:02:04] these luckily these guys have been in
[1:02:06] the, you know, the mining and mineral
[1:02:07] space before and so they do understand
[1:02:09] that even though they want to move a lot
[1:02:10] quicker than we have traditionally in
[1:02:12] the mining industry, it's still not, you
[1:02:14] know, these these quick turnaround type
[1:02:15] of operations.
[1:02:18] Um, anyway, this is a little quote from
[1:02:21] Secretary Bergam that, you know, I
[1:02:23] always like to make the point that, you
[1:02:25] know, if you want to invest in mining
[1:02:26] and you want to actually produce these
[1:02:27] minerals, you need to invest in the
[1:02:28] states where these minerals actually
[1:02:30] exist. So, you know, when I see mineral
[1:02:32] investments going to, you know, places
[1:02:35] like Louisiana or Oklahoma, it always
[1:02:36] bothers me a little bit because those
[1:02:38] are, you know, it's fine if you want to
[1:02:39] do processing there, but I'd much rather
[1:02:41] do the processing and have those
[1:02:43] investments in the states where the
[1:02:44] minerals actually exist and where we
[1:02:46] have the the expertise in the background
[1:02:48] to produce them and the the regulatory
[1:02:50] environment. And so, that leads me into
[1:02:52] these last slides. You know, why do you
[1:02:53] want to invest in Utah? You know, 163
[1:02:56] years of commercial mining, we're top
[1:02:58] mining global jurisdiction. I mean the
[1:03:00] you know I used to be really excited
[1:03:02] about the Fraser Institute survey when
[1:03:03] we were number one but now we're not and
[1:03:05] so I think it's much garbage now but
[1:03:07] >> [laughter]
[1:03:07] >> um anyway those those bounce all over
[1:03:10] the place um but we do have a
[1:03:11] world-class modern mining industry here
[1:03:14] you know we've been a top 10 hard rock
[1:03:15] mineral producer for a number of years I
[1:03:18] don't know when the last time we were
[1:03:19] out of the top 10 is I'm sure one of you
[1:03:21] guys would know that but um you know
[1:03:24] been a top 10 mineral producer for a
[1:03:25] long time we've kind of fallen out a
[1:03:27] little bit on the coal side Um there's
[1:03:29] some production slowdowns, but we'll get
[1:03:31] back into the top 10 there as well. Um
[1:03:33] and then on the business side, a top
[1:03:34] state for business, you know, high
[1:03:35] rankings for economic outlook and
[1:03:37] quality of life, things of that nature.
[1:03:39] Um you know, a history of recruiting
[1:03:41] talent and businesses. We've got great
[1:03:42] research universities here. And then
[1:03:44] also a young population, which means
[1:03:46] that we have the potential for workforce
[1:03:48] growth in a way that other states don't.
[1:03:50] even though obviously we have a lot of
[1:03:51] workforce challenges with not as many
[1:03:53] people going into uh you know into the
[1:03:56] mining sector and into some of the other
[1:03:58] disciplines that feed into the mining
[1:03:59] sector as we need and that's something
[1:04:01] that we're working very hard on with the
[1:04:03] University of Utah and our other
[1:04:04] institutions of higher education here um
[1:04:07] and also you know we have a culture of
[1:04:09] collaboration here I think that you know
[1:04:11] the state government works very well
[1:04:12] with industry we try and work very well
[1:04:14] with our other states with uh the
[1:04:16] federal government um you know we do
[1:04:18] have a lot of of uh interstate
[1:04:20] collaboration here. So, I mean, you
[1:04:22] know, I have very close relationships
[1:04:23] with all the other mining associations,
[1:04:26] western mining associations. We actually
[1:04:27] just met a couple of weeks ago in
[1:04:28] Nevada. Um, you know, history of
[1:04:30] regional partnerships and also a great
[1:04:33] history of, you know, federal and state
[1:04:35] partnerships. And so, I think you guys
[1:04:37] just saw recently the announcement
[1:04:39] there's going to be a couple of mineral
[1:04:40] processing facilities out of the to Army
[1:04:42] Depot. We still know exactly what that
[1:04:44] looks like to be honest, but again it's
[1:04:46] just an example that you know we we can
[1:04:48] make sure that you know if the federal
[1:04:50] government does have a a project or goal
[1:04:52] that you know Utah can help to
[1:04:53] facilitate that. And so on that note
[1:04:56] that's one of the reasons oh well
[1:04:57] actually I'll get to this. These are
[1:04:59] some of the things we've done over the
[1:05:00] last few years to try and expand the
[1:05:02] mining industry the exploration tax
[1:05:03] credit infrastructure tax credit
[1:05:06] expanding at TIFF and inland port
[1:05:08] project areas. We want to make sure that
[1:05:10] there are investment incentives that are
[1:05:12] targeted specifically for the mining
[1:05:14] industry and other heavy industries and
[1:05:16] not just the ones that have been there
[1:05:17] traditionally. Um, you know, like ETIF,
[1:05:20] for example, ETIF is an economic job
[1:05:22] creation tax credit that's been in use
[1:05:25] in Utah for a long time, but we've been
[1:05:26] able to expand it so it's more useful in
[1:05:28] the mining industry. It's more useful in
[1:05:30] rural areas. um and just make sure that
[1:05:33] again we're we're providing the
[1:05:34] investment uh opportunities for Utah so
[1:05:37] that that capital can come here versus
[1:05:39] other places.
[1:05:41] So um I want to just end by talking
[1:05:43] about this is the the governor's mission
[1:05:46] critical critical minerals policy
[1:05:48] framework. Um so this was a great
[1:05:51] example of uh something that had been uh
[1:05:54] happening for a long time with a lot of
[1:05:55] partners. Um you know we we've had lots
[1:05:58] of discussions with the governor's
[1:06:00] office and with the legislature with a
[1:06:02] lot of different agencies including the
[1:06:04] UGS um you know world trade center AUI a
[1:06:07] lot university of Utah a lot of partners
[1:06:09] have been talking about how do we really
[1:06:12] uh put together a a framework so that
[1:06:14] Utah can take a leadership position on
[1:06:16] the critical minerals front. Um the
[1:06:18] governor kind of took this and gave it a
[1:06:20] fancy name and um you know some nice
[1:06:22] graphics and so this is uh essentially
[1:06:25] what is in the governor's mission
[1:06:27] critical uh that you know we we have um
[1:06:31] increased permitting efficiency that you
[1:06:33] know we increase our permitting uh
[1:06:36] turnaround by uh you know 50% to less
[1:06:38] than 18 months where you can go from
[1:06:40] submitting a permit to actually having
[1:06:42] that permit uh
[1:06:45] um [clears throat]
[1:06:45] granted. um that we're capturing 20 to
[1:06:49] 25% of the US domestic mineral crit
[1:06:52] critical mineral demand um which you
[1:06:55] know I think given our our mineral
[1:06:57] resources it's not you know it's it's a lift but it's a I think a re goal
[1:07:02] um that we're retaining more of the
[1:07:04] economic value of that that we're not
[1:07:05] just mining state that we also become a
[1:07:07] processing state that we become you know
[1:07:09] a manufacturing state on the mineral
[1:07:11] front um again energy fuels is a great
[1:07:13] example of this where you know not only
[1:07:16] they going to be doing the processing
[1:07:17] for rare earth. But they also just
[1:07:18] announced that um you know they've
[1:07:20] acquired a an Australian uh rare earth
[1:07:24] alloying company and they're going to be
[1:07:26] creating an alloying facility here in
[1:07:28] Utah and we'd love to then see you know
[1:07:30] the manufacturing for rare earth magnets
[1:07:32] and other things also follow along
[1:07:33] there. Um and then also that we're a
[1:07:36] leader in innovation. Um and so I want
[1:07:38] to talk a little bit about the mind
[1:07:40] center. I'm sure many of you have heard
[1:07:41] about this. So this was created in some
[1:07:43] legislation that was passed in the last
[1:07:46] session uh HB24
[1:07:49] from Senator Milner. Um and this created
[1:07:51] a number of things on the critical
[1:07:52] minerals front. First it created a
[1:07:54] critical minerals council so that we'll
[1:07:55] have statewide coordination on critical
[1:07:57] mineral issues and we've got
[1:07:59] representatives from the legislature and
[1:08:01] from industry and academia and DNR and
[1:08:04] other state agencies on there. But it
[1:08:06] also created um there's also some
[1:08:07] accelerated permitting and other things
[1:08:09] like that. But it also created what's
[1:08:11] called the mine center. So this is
[1:08:12] minerals for industrial, national and
[1:08:13] economic security. And what we're
[1:08:16] envisioning with this, this would
[1:08:17] actually be a processing uh test bed and
[1:08:20] scale up facility. Um so you know so
[1:08:22] obviously there's a lot that's happening
[1:08:24] you know with the universities and you
[1:08:26] know being able to sort of test
[1:08:28] processing new processing on on kind of
[1:08:30] a bench scale. Um, but we want to be
[1:08:32] able to get from, you know, that kind of
[1:08:33] kilogram level up to, you know, a
[1:08:36] multiple ton per day level to where we
[1:08:38] can actually, you know, have industry
[1:08:39] come in and and create design criteria
[1:08:42] for processing projects so that then
[1:08:43] they can go and and justify those making
[1:08:45] those investments for standalone
[1:08:48] facilities at their at their operations.
[1:08:51] Also, there's the potential to, you
[1:08:52] know, modularize some of these things to
[1:08:54] where, you know, you could have some of
[1:08:55] these processing technologies that you
[1:08:57] can put in, you know, shipping
[1:08:58] containers and and, you know, get out to sites very quickly. And so that the
[1:09:03] facility will be designed as that. You
[1:09:05] know, you'll be able to to bring in feed
[1:09:07] stocks from different mining operations
[1:09:09] and and test them and test different
[1:09:11] processing uh technologies, you know,
[1:09:15] using heat, using, you know, chemical,
[1:09:16] using, you know, flotation, I mean,
[1:09:18] other things like that. Um, and you
[1:09:21] know, again, get from that that sort of
[1:09:23] kilogram level up to a multiple ton per
[1:09:24] day level so that you can, you know,
[1:09:26] create those those design criteria and make the the the investments that
[1:09:31] are needed. Um, we'd like in the future
[1:09:33] to, you know, make sure that all this is
[1:09:34] obviously has an AI lens. We've talked
[1:09:37] about, you know, autonomous test beds,
[1:09:39] underground test beds, and things like
[1:09:40] that. I think there's a lot of
[1:09:41] opportunities for growth in the future.
[1:09:43] So, we actually got $11 million from the
[1:09:46] legislature to do sort of the first
[1:09:47] phase of this and we're actually using
[1:09:49] that to lobby the federal government to
[1:09:51] try and get some national resources. Um,
[1:09:54] you know, with $1 million I think we
[1:09:55] could create a very sort of nice
[1:09:57] state-sized facility, but ultimately
[1:09:59] we'd like this to be sort of a national
[1:10:01] scale facility and for that we'd
[1:10:02] obviously need national resources. And
[1:10:05] so, that's something that we're working
[1:10:06] very hard with the federal government to
[1:10:08] try and get some more national
[1:10:09] resources. And people have talked about
[1:10:11] this as, you know, potentially becoming
[1:10:13] kind of a critical minerals national
[1:10:14] lab. I I don't [clears throat] want to
[1:10:16] talk about national labs because that
[1:10:17] just freaks out the existing national
[1:10:18] labs, but I think that's really could be
[1:10:20] sort of a national center of excellence
[1:10:21] for critical minerals and help to you
[1:10:24] know be sort of the the the hub of a a
[1:10:27] regional system too where you you know
[1:10:30] bring in opportunities from that are
[1:10:32] happening in other states. Um, but we
[1:10:34] feel that Utah is the place to do that.
[1:10:36] And partly because again, you know, it's
[1:10:37] going to be much better to have a a
[1:10:39] national sort of center of excellence in
[1:10:41] Salt Lake City where you can recruit
[1:10:43] people and where you've got all the
[1:10:44] logistical um connections and you know
[1:10:47] again the high quality of life and all
[1:10:49] those things versus you know trying to
[1:10:51] stick this in Nevada or Cheyenne
[1:10:53] Wyoming. So um that obviously you know
[1:10:56] reveals my state bias but that's okay.
[1:10:58] Um, so that's the end of my
[1:11:01] presentation. Um, and yeah, love to
[1:11:06] answer any questions or have some
[1:11:09] discussions about what we can do to
[1:11:11] support you guys.
[1:11:18] » How do you So, a question I have, um, I
[1:11:21] work with groundwater a lot. like what's
[1:11:23] your general response when people bring
[1:11:25] up concerns about the environmental
[1:11:27] consequences of uh you know mining and
[1:11:30] things like that?
[1:11:31] >> Um so a couple of things I mean one is
[1:11:34] that I I think that people have to
[1:11:35] recognize that I mean first of all you
[1:11:38] know the these minerals are if we don't produce them here they're
[1:11:42] going to be be produced somewhere else
[1:11:44] and generally in places that don't have
[1:11:46] any environmental controls that don't
[1:11:48] have any labor standards. Um, and so I
[1:11:50] think, you know, if you're really
[1:11:51] concerned about, you know, the sort of
[1:11:53] worldwide, you know, environment, then
[1:11:56] it's much better to produce minerals in
[1:11:58] countries that that have stringent
[1:11:59] environmental labor standards. Um, and I
[1:12:02] also think that especially when a lot of
[1:12:04] the minerals exist in the west, I mean,
[1:12:06] water for in particular is something
[1:12:08] that we really have to deal with. Um and
[1:12:11] you know mining obviously can be water
[1:12:14] intensive but I think that's part of the
[1:12:15] reason that we also need to make
[1:12:17] investments in uh in research and
[1:12:19] innovation so that we can you know
[1:12:21] reduce water usage um and and even when
[1:12:23] there is sort of necessary water usage I
[1:12:26] mean even doing the research to figure
[1:12:28] out you know how can we make sure that
[1:12:29] any water that is being used can be
[1:12:31] recycled you know or if it does have to
[1:12:33] be released to make sure that you're
[1:12:34] releasing you know water that has the highest purity standards that we can
[1:12:38] have and also I mean frankly too. You
[1:12:40] know, if you're releasing water that
[1:12:42] doesn't, you know, meet the kind of
[1:12:43] criteria you want, well, I mean,
[1:12:45] obviously it has to meet, you know,
[1:12:47] discharge criteria that, you know, the state and the the federal government
[1:12:52] require, but um I mean, even with some
[1:12:54] of the dissolve solids and other things
[1:12:55] that are that, you know, are permissible
[1:12:57] in in uh um in in water releases, in
[1:13:02] most in most cases, those are minerals
[1:13:04] that could potentially be productively
[1:13:05] used. And so um I do think again there
[1:13:08] needs to be more research and innovation
[1:13:10] so that we can figure out how to you
[1:13:12] know be as friendly as possible. Um you
[1:13:15] know one of the challenges we have is
[1:13:17] that you know we we have had you know we
[1:13:19] did have many years of uh you know of
[1:13:24] not having those kind of environmental
[1:13:26] controls in the mining industry and not
[1:13:27] just the mining industry. I mean most
[1:13:29] heavy industry I mean you know I mean
[1:13:31] when I was born you still didn't have to
[1:13:33] have seat belts in your car for heaven's
[1:13:34] sake. So, you know, I I think that these
[1:13:36] things evolve over time, but again, what
[1:13:38] happens today in the mining industry is
[1:13:40] so vastly different than what happened
[1:13:41] 50 years ago, but I mean that legacy is
[1:13:44] something that gets kind of thrown in
[1:13:45] our face pretty frequently. Um, so
[1:13:48] again, there's, you know, a big
[1:13:49] contingent down in southern Utah and
[1:13:50] like you never hear about what is
[1:13:52] happening in southern Utah right now.
[1:13:53] You hear about what happened during the
[1:13:54] uranium boom back in the, you know, 50s
[1:13:57] and 60s and but, you know, that's a
[1:13:59] legacy that has to be dealt with. But um
[1:14:02] yeah, I I I do think that a lot of the
[1:14:04] technologies that are in use today are
[1:14:06] so much better than they were even a few
[1:14:08] years ago. Um and you know, the mining
[1:14:10] industry is always looking to lessen its
[1:14:12] environmental impact. one because that
[1:14:14] helps us maintain our social license to
[1:14:16] operate, but also because um I mean
[1:14:19] frankly that um you know
[1:14:25] being able to to minimize the amount of environmental impact is ultimately
[1:14:29] good for business because I mean you're
[1:14:31] not dealing with these kind of you know
[1:14:32] legacy sites that are going to you know
[1:14:34] require you know maintenance and
[1:14:36] monitoring for years into the future. So
[1:14:39] okay,
[1:14:39] >> I'd also add there is this there's an
[1:14:41] equity and social justice component to
[1:14:43] this as well because here in the west we
[1:14:45] do enjoy a very high standard of living
[1:14:47] a very mineral intensive standard of
[1:14:50] living and by refusing to take on and
[1:14:52] manage our fair share of the resource
[1:14:54] impact globally we're shoving that off
[1:14:57] into other countries and making them
[1:14:58] deal with the impacts and the outcomes
[1:15:00] while we are the ones who tend to have
[1:15:02] the benefit of the very resource
[1:15:04] intensive. So I also think there's kind
[1:15:06] of a global social justice and equity
[1:15:09] component to this of the US needing to
[1:15:11] really um start managing our fair share
[1:15:14] of the resources that make our lifestyle
[1:15:16] what it is today. So I do think there's
[1:15:17] a component of that as well.
[1:15:20] >> And that that's a great point. I mean,
[1:15:21] nobody's willing to, you know, give up
[1:15:23] the, you know, all the devices and, you
[1:15:25] know, our cars and everything else that
[1:15:26] we use. And, yeah, I mean, it is a
[1:15:28] little bothersome to me when you have
[1:15:29] people that'll, you know, drive across
[1:15:31] town for a fair trade coffee bean and
[1:15:32] they're, you know, an electric car
[1:15:34] that's full of cobalt from, you know,
[1:15:36] child miners and the Congo. So, I mean,
[1:15:38] that's just that's not acceptable. So, I
[1:15:40] think that that's something that that
[1:15:42] does have to be dealt with and and we
[1:15:43] can deal with it. And it's not just the
[1:15:45] US. I mean there's a lot of you know
[1:15:46] responsible mining jurisdictions but um
[1:15:49] you know unfortunately a lot of the
[1:15:50] minerals that are in use today are
[1:15:53] produced in very you know unregulated
[1:15:57] jurisdictions and you know jurisdictions
[1:15:59] where things happen that you know would
[1:16:02] appall the average you know person in an
[1:16:04] industrialized country if they want to
[1:16:05] pay attention to it.
[1:16:09] » Could you just give us a thumbnail
[1:16:11] sketch of the Utah Mining Association?
[1:16:13] um you know organization membership etc.
[1:16:18] >> Um so the Utah Mining Association was
[1:16:20] founded in 1915 and so we're one of the older mining associations in the
[1:16:25] country. Um you know there's a couple
[1:16:27] that have us be you know in Colorado and
[1:16:29] others but that's okay. Um so you know
[1:16:32] we were uh created obviously to you know
[1:16:34] be an advocacy organization for the
[1:16:36] mining industry. Um, our founding
[1:16:38] members were actually, you know, what
[1:16:40] was the Utah Copper Company at the time,
[1:16:41] now you know, known as Riot Kenn. Um,
[1:16:44] and we were actually created originally
[1:16:46] as a chapter of the American Mining
[1:16:47] Congress, which no longer exists, but we
[1:16:49] became, you know, independently, uh, uh,
[1:16:52] incorporated back in the the 60s. Um, so
[1:16:56] our membership, uh, we basically have,
[1:16:58] uh, you know, all most of the major
[1:17:00] mining operations in the state. We still
[1:17:02] have a few holdouts that we always have
[1:17:03] to work on. Um and then a lot of service
[1:17:05] companies that work in the mining
[1:17:07] industries and these can be you know
[1:17:09] anything from uh you know engineering
[1:17:11] firms to law firms to equipment
[1:17:13] providers to um you know consumable
[1:17:16] providers. I mean anybody that has a
[1:17:18] stake in you know servicing the mining
[1:17:20] industry and wants the mining industry
[1:17:21] to stay healthy we try and go after them
[1:17:23] to be uh to be our members. Um so
[1:17:26] currently we've got a little over 180
[1:17:28] members. Um again most of the major
[1:17:30] mining operations in the state and then
[1:17:32] a lot of service members. Um, and our
[1:17:35] primary responsibility as the mining
[1:17:37] industry are to to be advocates. I mean,
[1:17:39] I'm a registered lobbyist. Um, I do a
[1:17:41] lot of work with our our legislature,
[1:17:43] with our state agencies, with, you know,
[1:17:45] local governments and with the federal
[1:17:47] government, our f federal regulatory
[1:17:49] agencies, our federal delegation. Um,
[1:17:51] and so, anything that is going to make
[1:17:54] it better to mine in Utah, we want to
[1:17:56] promote those policies. And anything
[1:17:57] that makes it a problem to mine in Utah,
[1:17:59] we want to try and fix those policies or
[1:18:02] make them go away. Um so um in some
[1:18:05] cases that is you know passing
[1:18:06] standalone bills like the the critical
[1:18:08] mineral bills that I I bill that I
[1:18:10] talked about. Um in some cases it's just
[1:18:12] making little you know tweaks to bills
[1:18:14] where there's just something where you
[1:18:16] know maybe money got pulled into it you
[1:18:17] know inadvertently into a bill and we
[1:18:19] just try and you know get ourselves
[1:18:21] exempted out of those things. Um in some
[1:18:24] cases those can be very specific to to
[1:18:27] mining. In some cases there I mean I
[1:18:28] worked on an insurance bill last session
[1:18:31] which made me really cranky but I mean
[1:18:33] anything that you know is problematic
[1:18:34] for our members I mean that particular
[1:18:36] insurance bill is going to be really
[1:18:38] costly to rein they have a high level of
[1:18:40] self insurance so I had to get involved
[1:18:43] and so you know really anything again
[1:18:45] that's going to be damaging to the
[1:18:47] mining industry we want to fight against
[1:18:48] those things. Um we also try and do a
[1:18:51] lot of public awareness um help people
[1:18:53] understand um the modern mining industry
[1:18:56] versus you know again the industry from
[1:18:58] a long time ago. Um we do a lot of
[1:19:00] education work. So you know we have
[1:19:02] people in the industry that we send into
[1:19:04] to schools to do presentations. Um you
[1:19:07] know to help kids understand you know
[1:19:09] where their the minerals come from you
[1:19:11] know where all the stuff in their phone
[1:19:12] and their toothpaste and whatever else
[1:19:14] comes from. Um we've also gotten very
[1:19:16] involved with STEM education efforts
[1:19:19] because um that's something where we
[1:19:20] want people to understand all the STEM
[1:19:22] opportunities that are available in the
[1:19:23] mining industry. Uh so we we uh have had
[1:19:26] a booth at STEMfest for the last number
[1:19:28] of years that the state puts on where
[1:19:30] we've got you know 14,000 kids coming
[1:19:32] through the America Expo Center and you
[1:19:34] know talking about STEM careers. We
[1:19:36] bring in always a big piece of
[1:19:37] equipment. So, we had a massive front
[1:19:39] end loader last time and the kids can
[1:19:40] come and, you know, climb in the bucket
[1:19:42] and climb up in the cab and, you know,
[1:19:44] we throw hard hats on them and then talk
[1:19:45] about all the cool stuff you can do in
[1:19:47] mining. Um, so we do a lot of that. Um,
[1:19:51] and then also opportunities for uh
[1:19:53] business development and networking for
[1:19:55] our members. Um, so we have a few big
[1:19:57] events every year. We have an award
[1:19:59] scaler where we recognize safety
[1:20:00] performance and also environmental
[1:20:02] stewardship and other things like that.
[1:20:05] Um, we have a big golf tournament that
[1:20:06] we just had a couple of weeks ago where,
[1:20:08] you know, we give people an opportunity
[1:20:10] to come out and have a little bit of
[1:20:11] fun, do some employee recognition, but
[1:20:13] also give especially our service
[1:20:15] companies an opportunity to, uh, you
[1:20:17] know, sell their services to the mine
[1:20:19] operators. And then we have a big
[1:20:20] convention in the fall. This year it'll
[1:20:22] be November 3rd through 4th at the Salt
[1:20:25] Palace, which we signed up for before
[1:20:27] they told us they were like closing the
[1:20:29] Salt Palace, which is exciting. um and
[1:20:32] you know give opportunities to talk
[1:20:33] about um you know best practices uh
[1:20:36] policy issues and also you know
[1:20:38] networking and business development
[1:20:39] opportunities for our members. So we've
[1:20:41] actually had um a number of uh UGS folks
[1:20:45] that have um you know Andrew and
[1:20:47] Stephanie and um Michael I think have
[1:20:49] all presented our conference if I'm
[1:20:51] remembering correctly. Um so that's a
[1:20:55] great opportunity for us. So when people
[1:20:57] ask me probably I spend 90% of my time
[1:21:00] on lobby and advocacy activities and
[1:21:02] then you know 10% on all that other
[1:21:05] stuff. So um yeah I'm here to here to be
[1:21:09] your friendly mining lobbyist. So
[1:21:14] » great
[1:21:16] I have a question about workforce.
[1:21:17] >> Yeah.
[1:21:18] >> So you mentioned workforce and I think
[1:21:20] Rich and I were talking a little bit
[1:21:22] about workforce. what's the, you know,
[1:21:25] what does it look like out there? And I
[1:21:27] guess from our from our industry members
[1:21:30] on the board, you know, how is the
[1:21:32] workforce looking out there? Are we
[1:21:34] finding the people with the right
[1:21:36] education that we need to, you know, to
[1:21:39] do the work? And if this really does
[1:21:41] expand, you know, who do we hire? Where
[1:21:44] do we find them?
[1:21:46] >> Yeah. I mean, and I'd love to hear your
[1:21:49] impressions on this. Um, you know,
[1:21:50] workforce is a real concern. Um, I mean,
[1:21:53] we're frankly just not graduating enough
[1:21:55] uh mining engineers and geologists and
[1:21:58] chemical engineers and all the other uh
[1:22:00] people we need in the mining industry.
[1:22:02] Um, and I I do think again that the
[1:22:05] especially the federal government and
[1:22:07] our universities have recognized that
[1:22:08] this is an issue. Um, so Congressman
[1:22:12] Bruce Owens uh from Utah actually had
[1:22:15] his mining schools bill that he's been
[1:22:17] trying to pass for the past few years.
[1:22:18] actually was able to get that language
[1:22:20] into the what's called the National
[1:22:22] Defense Authorization Act, which is one
[1:22:23] of the few kind of must pass bills every
[1:22:25] year. Um, it's gotten in on the House
[1:22:28] side. We're hoping that the language
[1:22:29] stays in there in the Senate side, but
[1:22:31] that would give some additional
[1:22:32] resources to uh to mining schools to be
[1:22:35] able to go out and recruit more
[1:22:36] students. Um, I I will say that, you
[1:22:39] know, with the University of Utah, um,
[1:22:41] you know, that's our our College of
[1:22:43] Minds, Inner Sciences is at the
[1:22:44] University of Utah. Um, and you know, we
[1:22:47] went through kind of a challenging
[1:22:50] period with the university. Um, you
[1:22:52] know, where we just didn't feel like
[1:22:53] that the administration was giving the
[1:22:55] support that was needed for for that the
[1:22:57] college. Um, and I feel like that's
[1:22:59] really turning around. Um, you know,
[1:23:01] President Randle's been
[1:23:07] » which are combined but separate, which I
[1:23:10] >> don't talk about anymore.
[1:23:12] >> Um, you know, Pearl Sand, she she's
[1:23:14] doing a really great job. Um, you know,
[1:23:16] we've got some good people that are
[1:23:17] committed to making sure that we're out,
[1:23:19] you know, recruiting more students and also just helping people again
[1:23:22] understand the opportunities that are
[1:23:24] available. Um, you know, it's there's
[1:23:27] still work that needs to be done there.
[1:23:29] Um, you know, we still don't have an
[1:23:31] economic geology. Um,
[1:23:33] >> sent an [laughter] email about this
[1:23:34] yesterday. The thing is too about that
[1:23:37] workforce is like we still are kind of
[1:23:39] treating workforce in silos from
[1:23:40] everything I see. like the mining
[1:23:42] engineers, the metallergists, the
[1:23:44] geologists, but like [clears throat] you
[1:23:46] know for example this an economic
[1:23:47] geologist we don't have one at the and
[1:23:49] we don't have one in the state of Utah
[1:23:50] actually right now. I think I and my
[1:23:52] team are the only public facing economic
[1:23:54] geologists in the state right now. Um
[1:23:56] but you don't need that person just to
[1:23:58] train more that geologist. You need that
[1:24:00] person to also train your engineers, to
[1:24:02] also train your metallergists, to also
[1:24:03] train your chemical engineers because it
[1:24:05] ultimately all comes down to the charact
[1:24:06] what we call or body knowledge and whole
[1:24:08] body characterization. Ultimately all
[1:24:10] comes down to the character of the rock.
[1:24:11] So we're just it's hard like hard trying
[1:24:16] to get people to live.
[1:24:17] >> Yeah. So I mean thing things are
[1:24:18] definitely getting better. Um you know I
[1:24:21] mean there used to be this weird silo
[1:24:22] between the college of engineering and
[1:24:24] the college of mining and that's that's
[1:24:26] breaking down. Um it's things are much
[1:24:30] better than they were a few years ago.
[1:24:32] Again, there's still a lot of work to be
[1:24:33] done. There's still many more resources
[1:24:35] that are needed. Um, you know, both
[1:24:37] again in terms of student recruitment. I
[1:24:39] mean, the facilities at the U definitely
[1:24:40] need updating. They're they're very
[1:24:42] antiquated. Um, and also there's other
[1:24:45] universities that you know are
[1:24:46] interested in getting into uh, you know,
[1:24:49] helping with with workforce development
[1:24:51] and haven't quite figured out how to do
[1:24:52] that and we're trying to help on that.
[1:24:54] Um Utah State University uh actually had
[1:24:57] a bill that would have given them
[1:24:59] resources to do a study on creating a
[1:25:01] mining engine like what it would have
[1:25:03] taken to create a mining engineering
[1:25:04] program and that kind of broke down when
[1:25:06] the president previous president left
[1:25:08] and so hopefully we're they're going to
[1:25:09] run that again this year. um you
[1:25:11] [clears throat] know some of the tech
[1:25:12] colleges and um you know those smaller
[1:25:15] universities are interested in in
[1:25:17] helping on the kind of skilled trade
[1:25:19] side because that's one thing I love
[1:25:21] about mine is I mean we need everybody
[1:25:22] you know we need people that are coming
[1:25:24] right out of high school and can just
[1:25:25] get on the job training all the way up
[1:25:27] to you know PhD um you know engineers
[1:25:30] and so um it's it's a challenge though
[1:25:34] because again I think a lot of people
[1:25:35] these days don't understand they don't
[1:25:38] understand the mining industry they
[1:25:39] don't necessarily want to go into STEM
[1:25:40] fields not just at mining but anywhere.
[1:25:43] Um you know I I think that some of the
[1:25:46] um changes that you know and we have
[1:25:49] seen a little bit of you know softening
[1:25:50] of attitudes about the mining industry
[1:25:52] as people you know understood how
[1:25:54] problematic it is to you know again be
[1:25:56] dependent on these foreign supply chains
[1:25:58] but also again that we can produce
[1:25:59] things responsibly here and so you do
[1:26:02] have people that I think you know even a
[1:26:03] few years ago wouldn't have considered a
[1:26:04] career in mining you know now will
[1:26:06] consider it because they do recognize
[1:26:08] hey you know this is a way for us to you
[1:26:10] know help our country meet its you know
[1:26:12] obligations. to produce these minerals
[1:26:14] or you know you can be an
[1:26:15] environmentalist and work in the mining
[1:26:17] industry. You can be a social justice
[1:26:18] warrior and work in the mining industry
[1:26:20] because there's actually you know some
[1:26:22] great outcomes that come when we produce
[1:26:24] you know the minerals that everybody
[1:26:25] relies on responsibly. Um so I I think
[1:26:29] that there have you know been some
[1:26:30] attitudal shifts. Um you know one of the
[1:26:33] challenges we have honestly is that
[1:26:35] there's still some you know
[1:26:36] environmental NOS's that definitely
[1:26:38] haven't had any shifts in their thinking
[1:26:40] about mining. um you know or energy or
[1:26:43] anything else and frankly they have a
[1:26:45] lot of money and they have a lot of
[1:26:46] impact and um you know it's hard to
[1:26:49] combat that sometimes but um you know
[1:26:52] again I I feel much more optimistic
[1:26:54] about us being able to meet our our
[1:26:56] workforce challenges now because people
[1:26:58] are I think moving in the right
[1:27:00] direction and paying attention to these
[1:27:01] issues in a way that they just weren't
[1:27:03] even a few years ago.
[1:27:04] >> What about BYU? They used to produce
[1:27:08] mining geologists. maybe not anymore.
[1:27:11] >> Um I mean I to be honest I haven't had
[1:27:14] as much interaction with BYU just
[1:27:16] because you know we tend to focus on the
[1:27:18] publicly funded universities but um I I
[1:27:21] do believe that they still have a
[1:27:22] geology program is that
[1:27:24] >> they Oh yes they lost.
[1:27:28] >> Yeah. And they did run a search um but
[1:27:31] they the search failed. So they actually
[1:27:34] were trying to recruit um kind of the
[1:27:36] next generation of say like economic
[1:27:37] geologists and things like that but they
[1:27:40] weren't able to
[1:27:43] >> but we need we need this industry to do
[1:27:45] a better job in in working with I mean
[1:27:47] it's just it tends to be a little easier
[1:27:49] to work with the universities that are
[1:27:50] publicly funded because you know they
[1:27:53] have to answer the legislature and I
[1:27:55] mean that's really how we get a lot of
[1:27:56] things done here but um it's it's a well
[1:27:59] taken point. I mean they're obviously a
[1:28:01] massive university and you know we need
[1:28:03] to make sure that they're [snorts] in
[1:28:05] the game as well and even some of our
[1:28:07] other you know UVU is another one where
[1:28:09] we haven't quite figured out how to work
[1:28:11] with UVU but I mean it's a huge
[1:28:13] university and we need to you know make
[1:28:15] sure that
[1:28:16] >> uh you know that they're providing even
[1:28:17] if they don't want to have a straight
[1:28:18] money engineering program that's okay
[1:28:20] [clears throat] I mean just to reinforce
[1:28:21] their you know their engineering
[1:28:23] offerings and things like that would be
[1:28:24] very beneficial and to make sure that
[1:28:26] again if you're a chemical engineer you
[1:28:28] know civil engineer whatever or you
[1:28:30] understand that there's opportunities in
[1:28:32] the mining industry. Um, and you know,
[1:28:34] if you're a civil engineer, you don't
[1:28:35] just have to go and, you know, plant
[1:28:36] subdivisions or whatever. Like, you can
[1:28:38] do some really cool stuff in the mining
[1:28:40] industry that, you know, I think for
[1:28:42] civil engineer, for example, is a lot
[1:28:43] more exciting than planning
[1:28:45] subdivisions.
[1:28:50] » I guess I have one more question. Is
[1:28:52] there is there anything that we as a
[1:28:54] survey
[1:28:56] can do that we're not doing to help the
[1:28:58] [clears throat and cough] work of the
[1:28:59] mining association and just generally
[1:29:01] mining in Utah?
[1:29:03] Well, and and I appreciate all the work
[1:29:05] that you guys do. Um, you know, again, I rely a lot on um, you know, the data
[1:29:10] that you guys produce um, especially for
[1:29:13] helping to educate policy makers and the general public. Um, you know,
[1:29:18] obviously you guys work a lot with our member companies, especially our,
[1:29:22] you know, mining exploration companies
[1:29:23] to to help provide them with, uh, you
[1:29:26] know, the services that they need. Um,
[1:29:29] you know, I I think that, um,
[1:29:33] I think that getting you guys involved
[1:29:35] more with uh, some of the efforts that I
[1:29:38] was talking about like with STEM
[1:29:39] education and other things like that. I
[1:29:41] mean, I would love to have people from
[1:29:42] UGS and STEMfest with us. um you know in
[1:29:45] the past we've had people from dogm and
[1:29:47] from um uh uh from sitla and from uh
[1:29:52] even FFSL have come to that but we've
[1:29:54] never had UGS people there and I think
[1:29:56] that you know especially when you've got
[1:29:59] you know I mean most of the time we'll
[1:30:01] end up having somebody that's got you
[1:30:02] know some geological knowledge that you
[1:30:05] know because we always bring mineral
[1:30:06] samples and things like that but I mean
[1:30:07] it's different having you know somebody
[1:30:10] that just has a little bit of geological
[1:30:12] knowledge versus somebody that has a lot
[1:30:14] that can, you know, pick up one of those
[1:30:15] mineral samples or pick up that tooth
[1:30:17] tube of toothpaste that we have out for
[1:30:18] the kids and explain um, you know, in a
[1:30:21] much more uh, detailed way. Um, you
[1:30:24] know, why they should be excited about
[1:30:26] this stuff. So, I think that's that's
[1:30:28] one thing. Um, and you know, in the past
[1:30:31] there have been some I don't know,
[1:30:34] Darlene and I have talked about this,
[1:30:35] some sort of I don't know how to say
[1:30:37] this, sort of like expeditionary things
[1:30:39] that have happened with, you know,
[1:30:41] projects that that weren't particularly
[1:30:43] helpful to industry that sort of seemed
[1:30:45] like um, you know, I I don't know where
[1:30:49] the impetus was coming from um, you
[1:30:52] know, uh, for for some of these research
[1:30:54] projects that um, you know, may have
[1:30:56] been very interesting on the science
[1:30:57] side, but weren't particularly useful
[1:30:59] for, you know, advancing the the mining
[1:31:01] industry in the state. And, you know, I
[1:31:03] think some of those have, you know, gone
[1:31:05] away with leadership change, but, um,
[1:31:07] you know, I have a study coming out
[1:31:09] that's basically like blaming the mining
[1:31:11] industry for some horrible thing
[1:31:12] happening and it's got the UGS logo on
[1:31:14] it. That's problematic for me. Um, so
[1:31:17] and again I think that you know I'm not
[1:31:19] as worried about that now as I you know
[1:31:21] was with previous leadership but I know
[1:31:24] that that sounded really gauzy but um
[1:31:28] anyway I just I think you know figuring
[1:31:30] out how to provide the data and insights
[1:31:33] that are needed to attract mining
[1:31:35] investment here is you know really what
[1:31:37] we rely on you guys to do. I mean, you
[1:31:39] know, I need to be able to go out and
[1:31:41] tell people, hey, you need to come and
[1:31:42] invest in Utah because, you know, yes,
[1:31:45] we have the policy environment and the
[1:31:46] investment environment, but also, you
[1:31:48] know, we've got the minerals here and,
[1:31:50] you know, they're developable and we've
[1:31:51] got all the great geological data that
[1:31:53] you can rely on and, you know, come to
[1:31:55] Utah and don't go to don't go to Idaho,
[1:31:58] you know, don't go to not that I have
[1:32:00] anything against Idaho, but I'd rather
[1:32:01] have the money come here, right? Um and
[1:32:03] so I think you know just keeping that
[1:32:05] focus on you know I mean ultimately the
[1:32:07] more you guys can help us attract mining
[1:32:10] investment here and also too on the you
[1:32:12] know on the policy side um you know
[1:32:15] we've had some good conversations about
[1:32:17] you know policy issues that affect you
[1:32:19] guys directly but you know I mean
[1:32:21] there's there were 1100 bill files
[1:32:24] opened in last session um and again you
[1:32:27] know we had 155 bills on our tracker and
[1:32:30] not all of those guys you know not all
[1:32:31] [clears throat] those bills you guys
[1:32:32] necessarily going to have an opinion
[1:32:34] about or you know have any insight into
[1:32:35] but a lot of them you will and you know
[1:32:37] I'd love to make sure that you know
[1:32:39] we're getting feedback from uh you know
[1:32:41] from the staff and from your board if
[1:32:43] there's something in a bill that's
[1:32:44] problematic that you know I need to go
[1:32:46] up there and try and fix or we can even
[1:32:48] bring you know you guys in to testify or
[1:32:51] to you know to help with those lobbying
[1:32:53] efforts that would be very beneficial um
[1:32:56] because in many cases a lot of these
[1:32:58] things again they're just kind of
[1:32:59] unintended consequences or you know on
[1:33:01] the proactive side are if there's things
[1:33:03] where you know there are resources or
[1:33:05] policies that that need to be
[1:33:07] implemented that would help you guys do
[1:33:08] your job or that you know things you see
[1:33:10] in other states or you really wish that
[1:33:12] we had in Utah or whatever the case is
[1:33:13] like I'd love to figure out how to make
[1:33:16] those things happen so that um you know I just I want you Utah to be
[1:33:20] the best place to mine and so anything
[1:33:22] that's preventing us from you know from getting there I I want to you know
[1:33:27] clear those obstacles so I need people
[1:33:29] that have that you know in-depth
[1:33:31] knowledge like you guys do to to help
[1:33:33] you do that. Um, you know, I I I know
[1:33:36] enough about a bunch of little things
[1:33:38] that I can, you know, be dangerous up on
[1:33:40] the hill, but, you know, when we get
[1:33:42] into a lot of these technical issues,
[1:33:43] you know, you get I get way over my
[1:33:45] skis. So, I I need the advice and
[1:33:47] expertise of, you know, folks that are
[1:33:49] in this room to make that happen.
[1:33:54] » So, yeah, we can do that. We were busy
[1:33:56] last legislative session, busier than I
[1:33:59] think we have been with kind of popup
[1:34:01] bills that we weren't really aware of.
[1:34:04] >> Um, and I think our staff really tried
[1:34:07] to be responsive to both legislators
[1:34:10] and, you know, internally at DNR as
[1:34:12] well. Ben Dylan sitting at the end of
[1:34:14] the table is wears many hats at UGS.
[1:34:17] He's our contract analyst. He's also one
[1:34:19] of my key strategic adviserss, but he is
[1:34:21] also our legislative liaison. And so we
[1:34:24] can, you know, give you his phone number
[1:34:26] and and hopefully, you know, that works
[1:34:29] both ways as well. So we can talk during
[1:34:31] the legislative session.
[1:34:33] >> So yeah, and then um Mike just brought
[1:34:36] our hot off the press 2025
[1:34:40] Utah money report. So you can
[1:34:42] [clears throat] take that with you um as
[1:34:44] well and distribute it to your
[1:34:46] membership, please. one of our very
[1:34:49] small contributions that has been
[1:34:51] ongoing for
[1:34:54] almost 40 years. So we've started EGS
[1:34:58] started publishing an annual mining
[1:35:00] report. I think the first one was 1988
[1:35:03] somewhere around there. Um it's been
[1:35:05] done every year. There it used to be two
[1:35:07] separate reports a mining report and
[1:35:09] then a coal report. Uh we have just
[1:35:13] combined those into just one big binding
[1:35:15] report. And
[1:35:18] this one is hot off the press. Um just
[1:35:21] came out or it's actually not even
[1:35:23] really published yet. It'll be probably
[1:35:25] published next week. and it is an
[1:35:29] overview of 2025 activities, but also a
[1:35:32] lot of our updates and
[1:35:36] descriptions of the exploration include
[1:35:41] stuff that's happening in 2026 as well.
[1:35:44] So, we try to keep it timely. We
[1:35:47] communicate with all the different
[1:35:49] mining operators. We send out
[1:35:51] questionnaires. I send out
[1:35:53] questionnaires to the coal companies.
[1:35:54] that go and visit the coal companies.
[1:35:57] Steph and Andrew will communicate with
[1:35:59] industrial mineral operations and metal
[1:36:02] operations. So we we try our best to
[1:36:06] summarize everything that's going on
[1:36:08] world. So we hope it's useful to
[1:36:12] everybody to you.
[1:36:14] >> No, this is great and I appreciate that.
[1:36:16] I mean it's a pretty early publication
[1:36:18] date for you guys, too.
[1:36:20] >> We're trying to get it out. Well, yeah,
[1:36:23] we're trying to get it out as soon as we
[1:36:25] can.
[1:36:27] >> We have We have to wait on annual
[1:36:28] reports a lot of times and a lot of
[1:36:29] companies aren't putting their annual
[1:36:31] reports out until March or April. So,
[1:36:32] something like that actually helps us
[1:36:34] back.
[1:36:34] >> This is great. Yeah, there was a few
[1:36:36] years ago when it didn't come out until
[1:36:37] like October or something and that kind
[1:36:39] of freaked me out. So,
[1:36:41] >> not gonna lie, that was the year I had a
[1:36:42] baby.
[1:36:44] >> [laughter]
[1:36:46] » a really good
[1:36:48] something that you find informative
[1:36:51] rely on. Yeah. Great. Is it something
[1:36:53] your membership?
[1:36:55] >> We do. We we send this out to our
[1:36:57] membership. Um I use this you know a lot
[1:36:59] of times especially with our federal
[1:37:01] delegation
[1:37:02] >> like people you know will come and
[1:37:03] they're like oh I have all these
[1:37:04] questions. I'm like okay well here read
[1:37:06] this first and then come back to me with
[1:37:08] questions. So, um, between this and the
[1:37:10] critical minerals report, I mean, those
[1:37:12] are two that I send out to a lot of,
[1:37:15] >> um, you know, legislative staff and, you
[1:37:17] know, and other policy makers. And so,
[1:37:20] um, yeah, this is incredibly helpful.
[1:37:22] So, that's great.
[1:37:23] >> Yeah. Again, this and the critical
[1:37:24] mineral report are the two that I rely
[1:37:26] on probably the most, you know, in the
[1:37:28] work that I do. Um, some of the
[1:37:30] specialized reports are amazing, but
[1:37:31] just get into maybe more detail than I
[1:37:34] need for my, you know, high level,
[1:37:36] >> right? the 67 page.
[1:37:40] [clears throat]
[1:37:41] >> Yeah. Well, would you make sure that you
[1:37:43] let the legislature know about this and
[1:37:46] how how important it is for your
[1:37:48] industry as well? You know, I think I
[1:37:51] think coming from a a third party, you
[1:37:54] know, that leads, you know, one of the
[1:37:55] key industries in the state. I think
[1:37:57] that go over really well with them. We
[1:37:59] often don't get a lot of airplay for
[1:38:01] that kind of work that we do behind the
[1:38:03] scenes. It takes a lot of industry
[1:38:05] knowledge and communication and really
[1:38:09] personal relationships to collect a lot
[1:38:11] of this data.
[1:38:12] >> You know, Mike is especially great at
[1:38:14] putting together, I think, some
[1:38:16] statistics and data around all of that.
[1:38:19] Um, and so I'm glad to hear that it's an
[1:38:21] informative report and that you're
[1:38:23] sharing it so widely. Thank you.
[1:38:26] >> Thank you guys.
[1:38:28] Um I I don't want to overstate my
[1:38:30] welcome, but one other thing that I'd
[1:38:32] love to um you know,
[1:38:35] we were Andy and I were just talking
[1:38:36] about this a little earlier. You know,
[1:38:38] one of the the sort of potential
[1:38:40] conflict points that I do see coming up
[1:38:41] and that I think you guys will have to
[1:38:43] be involved with is you know, on um you
[1:38:46] know, in geothermal and like how do you
[1:38:48] regulate any potential mineral
[1:38:50] production out of geothermal operations?
[1:38:53] Um that's kind of an ongoing discussion
[1:38:55] in the legislature right now. I think
[1:38:56] that having, you know, good data around,
[1:38:59] you know, what is potentially producable
[1:39:01] and and other things from geothermal
[1:39:03] operations and how do we deal with that
[1:39:04] from a kind of regulatory and promoting
[1:39:06] perspective will be really important to
[1:39:08] have you guys in those conversations. I
[1:39:10] mean, you guys are having a little bit
[1:39:12] of a family feud inside of DNR about
[1:39:14] that. um you know between your water
[1:39:17] rights and and doggum and um you know
[1:39:20] unfortunately I got in the middle of
[1:39:21] that during the last session and got
[1:39:22] yelled at and no [cough]
[1:39:25] um [clears throat] but I mean that that
[1:39:26] is going to be an ongoing issue you know
[1:39:28] I mean when you're getting into
[1:39:29] geothermal operations when you're
[1:39:30] getting into you know deep brine
[1:39:32] resources and other things like that
[1:39:33] where you know is this a geothermal
[1:39:36] operation is this a water production is
[1:39:38] this a mineral operation um I mean all
[1:39:40] those things are going to get mixed up
[1:39:42] and I think that you know your
[1:39:44] perspective active on that and also
[1:39:45] being able to figure out you know where
[1:39:47] you can get into that discussion and
[1:39:49] where you have to stay out of it
[1:39:50] internally will be important.
[1:39:52] >> Yeah, thank you. There's a there's an
[1:39:54] internal DNR energy collaborating
[1:39:57] council that meets once a month and
[1:39:59] those those discussions do happen with
[1:40:02] that group. So know that we're engaging
[1:40:05] internally at DNR on that. Um, but I do
[1:40:09] think that the geothermal development
[1:40:12] potential is happening pretty rapidly. I
[1:40:14] think you probably saw Rotherm's
[1:40:16] announcement, you know, what they're
[1:40:18] planning on doing. Um, so thanks for the
[1:40:21] heads up on that. Um,
[1:40:23] >> and and I think that there's ways to
[1:40:25] deal with all of that. I mean, I don't
[1:40:26] think that, you know, especially in
[1:40:28] today's world, that, you know, an
[1:40:29] operation needs to be just one thing. I
[1:40:31] mean, it doesn't just need to be
[1:40:32] geothermal or doesn't just need to be
[1:40:34] oil and gas.
[1:40:35] >> Maybe all of the above.
[1:40:39] Well, and and even produced water. I
[1:40:41] mean, you know, I think that with
[1:40:42] produced water, I mean, you know, the
[1:40:43] fact that a lot of my guys, the only way
[1:40:45] they can water [clears throat] is to
[1:40:46] bless you, the only way they can deal
[1:40:48] with water is just to, you know,
[1:40:49] reinject it back into the formations. I
[1:40:51] mean, you know, maybe that's good, maybe
[1:40:53] it's not because I mean, we're in a
[1:40:55] drought situation. So, maybe we can, you
[1:40:57] know, put that water to productive use,
[1:40:58] but then we run into a bunch of
[1:41:00] regulatory and, you know, rights issues
[1:41:02] that are problematic. So, I I think that
[1:41:04] we're going to have to have some very
[1:41:06] hard discussions about this over the
[1:41:07] next few years. And I just want to make
[1:41:09] sure that, you know, everybody has a
[1:41:11] seat at the table for those discussions.
[1:41:14] Um because, you know, I we can't just
[1:41:18] say, "Oh, you know, this is how we did
[1:41:20] water in 1896 and so we're going to keep
[1:41:22] doing it this way." Well,
[1:41:23] [clears throat]
[1:41:24] you know, that's probably not going to
[1:41:26] work for the future. When you have a lot
[1:41:29] of these operations, they're going to be
[1:41:31] everything. I mean, they're going to be,
[1:41:33] you know, energy operations and mineral
[1:41:35] operations and water operations and who
[1:41:37] knows what else. So, you know, we've got
[1:41:39] to make sure that the regulations are
[1:41:41] keeping up with the reality.
[1:41:43] >> You want to add anything about that?
[1:41:45] >> Um, just part of our role in that is to
[1:41:48] do the analysis to see what is in that
[1:41:51] water, whether it's from thermal and
[1:41:53] produced water. And so, we've done a lot
[1:41:56] of that in the past. We also have two
[1:41:59] rather large DOE budgeted projects
[1:42:01] related to core CN which is carbon ore
[1:42:06] and critical minerals. So it was the
[1:42:09] phase one was focused on coal and coal
[1:42:12] adjacent strata. But phase two, which is
[1:42:14] going to be starting here soon um in
[1:42:18] Colorado Plateau area, but also in Quest
[1:42:20] Desert, is much more broadly defined.
[1:42:24] Part of that new definition is going to
[1:42:26] include produced water. We did a little
[1:42:29] bit of sampling of produced waters for
[1:42:31] Corsium phase one and that data is now
[1:42:34] out there, but we'll have an opportunity
[1:42:36] to do a lot more. Um, and with now the
[1:42:39] West Desert as part of the area of
[1:42:42] interest, that'll include geothermal
[1:42:45] grinds. Like I said, we we have kind of
[1:42:48] a baseline of this data, but we'll have
[1:42:50] the funding here soon over the next year
[1:42:52] to do a lot more
[1:42:55] put out a lot more data.
[1:42:56] >> That's somewhere where interfacing can
[1:42:58] help because operators don't want us to
[1:43:01] come sample water. So, it's also part of
[1:43:03] it too, right? Like we could probably do
[1:43:05] a lot more, but
[1:43:06] >> Huh. I mean the perception would be
[1:43:08] there to meet up and you know problems.
[1:43:10] >> Yeah. Well, that's it because everything
[1:43:11] we do we're going to make public, right?
[1:43:13] So then that's Yeah.
[1:43:16] >> So maybe that's somewhere that we can
[1:43:18] all all work together to make sure
[1:43:20] everyone's soothed and getting getting
[1:43:22] the good data that can help with you
[1:43:25] know policy and managing resources but
[1:43:27] also
[1:43:29] >> shuffling operators. It was the same
[1:43:31] it's the same with mine waste, right?
[1:43:33] >> People can't decide if they want us to
[1:43:34] come tell us there's things in it or
[1:43:35] not. can't make up. I know John Basel
[1:43:38] the previous director at dogam he was
[1:43:41] very interested in produced water
[1:43:43] putting it to beneficial use but in the
[1:43:46] end the data that they had and for my
[1:43:48] experience almost all of it is the
[1:43:50] quality does not allow any the highest
[1:43:53] beneficial use is putting it back in to
[1:43:55] keep the reservoir pressurized
[1:43:58] or your you know
[1:44:00] >> but and I would say there's this is
[1:44:02] where like the mine center might be one
[1:44:03] of these things where it can really help
[1:44:05] because there is all of these leaps and
[1:44:07] bounds being made with that DL
[1:44:09] technology. Well, and not just so that's
[1:44:12] specific to lithium, but basically these
[1:44:13] ionic meshes that you put water through
[1:44:16] and with the different size of the mesh.
[1:44:19] I'm like I don't know, but um there's
[1:44:22] all sorts of advances in like the
[1:44:25] different ways that we can do extraction
[1:44:27] from water. So that's you know one of
[1:44:29] the areas that hopefully that
[1:44:31] metallergical interfacing and chemical
[1:44:32] engineering can really maybe help with
[1:44:34] that. And I know it's like it's also
[1:44:36] super variable produced waters all over
[1:44:38] the place.
[1:44:38] >> Yeah. That I think we we talked for a
[1:44:40] long time about trying to do a really
[1:44:42] big push on produced water studies and
[1:44:44] then ultimately like it was like they're
[1:44:46] captured differently that like it's just
[1:44:48] it was
[1:44:48] >> there's a lot being used for track water
[1:44:51] now some drill water. But that's as far
[1:44:53] as we've gotten
[1:44:55] >> which is awesome beneficial.
[1:44:56] >> Yeah.
[1:44:57] compared to compared to using farmers
[1:44:59] water. This that's a that's a I mean
[1:45:01] you're to avoid taking
[1:45:04] >> drinking water and agricultural quality
[1:45:06] waters and putting them in the ground.
[1:45:08] >> Yeah. So it is a big step up.
[1:45:12] >> I'm sure there's more.
[1:45:13] One last thing is um on the workforce
[1:45:16] services side um you know so I do oil
[1:45:18] and gas and where we've had a lot of
[1:45:20] success is we're in the schools pretty
[1:45:23] constantly and the one thing is the
[1:45:25] schools I work with a lot we don't get
[1:45:27] the mining industry in uh we don't get
[1:45:29] you guys on thesis or field trips or
[1:45:32] presentations and it just takes a lot of
[1:45:34] little touches just to get the students
[1:45:35] aware that that's where it's at to get
[1:45:37] them to take that emphasis and circle
[1:45:39] that to where that correction so you
[1:45:41] know uh we
[1:45:43] interface and somehow get you guys in
[1:45:44] there. I think that would be good for
[1:45:46] everybody.
[1:45:47] >> Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, we we do
[1:45:50] have, you know, our mining ambassador
[1:45:52] program, but I mean part of the
[1:45:53] challenge we have is that I mean we're a
[1:45:55] lot more spread out than the oil and gas
[1:45:57] industry in the state. So, I mean, you
[1:45:58] know, we're in so many different parts
[1:46:00] of the state and um and one of the
[1:46:04] things I think that oil and gas has done
[1:46:05] a little bit better than us is that I
[1:46:07] mean, they've also gotten a lot of their
[1:46:08] service companies involved with that.
[1:46:09] Whereas on the mining side, it's
[1:46:11] traditionally been the operators only
[1:46:12] that have really done that. And I don't
[1:46:14] know why that is, but that's something
[1:46:16] where we need
[1:46:16] >> We'll have 80 service companies or 80
[1:46:18] different opportunities for touches
[1:46:20] where of course
[1:46:21] >> Jennif's huge. If they don't have it,
[1:46:23] they might not get that touch.
[1:46:24] >> Exactly. So yeah, we need to figure out
[1:46:26] a way to get our service companies as
[1:46:28] involved in the the education touch
[1:46:30] points. But yeah, in some of the you
[1:46:32] know the rural parts of our state that
[1:46:34] has been a little bit more challenging
[1:46:36] just because you know again you don't
[1:46:37] have that like huge concentration of
[1:46:40] activity like you do in the oil and gas
[1:46:41] industry where it's you know vast
[1:46:43] majority of it's just right there in the
[1:46:44] basin. So um one thing I did want to go
[1:46:48] back on the produced water side. I mean
[1:46:50] one thing that's been a challenge for us
[1:46:51] and you know a couple years ago they
[1:46:53] have a produced water bill that was run
[1:46:54] for oil and gas and originally there was
[1:46:57] a companion bill on mining. we decided
[1:47:00] to hold on the mining side because there
[1:47:01] were some you know particular things for
[1:47:03] oil and gas that were it was just making
[1:47:05] it a little overly complicated to do
[1:47:07] both of them at the same time but then
[1:47:09] you know the state water engineer kind
[1:47:12] of got buyers remorse about the produced
[1:47:14] water bill and so we were never able to
[1:47:16] run ours um and so I mean these are kind
[1:47:19] of things where again I mean you've got
[1:47:20] different sort of regulatory you know
[1:47:23] something that's totally different on
[1:47:24] oil and gas than it is on the mining
[1:47:26] side even though I mean ultimately it's
[1:47:27] the same principle right that what do
[1:47:29] you do with this water that you
[1:47:30] inevitably produce as a result of your
[1:47:32] you know your activities your production
[1:47:34] activities and so um yeah these are the
[1:47:37] kind of things where again I think you
[1:47:38] know over the next few years we're going
[1:47:39] to have to have some really hard
[1:47:41] conversations about how we deal with
[1:47:43] these type of things and um you know and
[1:47:45] I I think to your point earlier Rich I
[1:47:47] think that you know as technology
[1:47:49] develops and you know Stephen was
[1:47:50] talking about you know there's going to
[1:47:52] be more and more uses there's going to
[1:47:53] be more minerals that you can extract
[1:47:55] there's going to be you know you can
[1:47:57] clean up the water better you can find,
[1:47:58] you know, new ways to to recycle. But, I
[1:48:00] mean, even water reuse is really
[1:48:02] controversial. And so, I mean, like,
[1:48:04] these are a lot of conversations that
[1:48:05] we're going to have to have over the
[1:48:06] next few years. And, um, you know, we're
[1:48:10] going to need to make sure that all the
[1:48:12] experts are at the table for that
[1:48:13] because, um, you know, that hasn't been
[1:48:16] the case. Um, you know, with a lot of
[1:48:18] these bills that have been earned over
[1:48:19] the past few um, legislative sessions. I
[1:48:22] mean they've been very narrowly focused
[1:48:24] to kind of provide a you know either fix
[1:48:26] a problem or provide a benefit for a
[1:48:27] very sort of narrow sector of you know
[1:48:29] the geothermal industry or whatever the
[1:48:31] case is and you know we're not dealing
[1:48:33] with some of these bigger issues and um
[1:48:35] you know we've got to deal with them but
[1:48:37] also like want to get yelled at by Mike
[1:48:39] McKill. So um anyway
[1:48:42] >> then that goes back to like this
[1:48:43] cross-disciplinary approach to workforce
[1:48:46] development because if more of whatever
[1:48:48] field you're looking at is aware and has
[1:48:50] had a little bit of training in other
[1:48:51] fields around them. It's easier to look
[1:48:52] for these crossover and improvement.
[1:49:00] » I hope that was correct for us. So,
[1:49:04] thank you so much for for taking the
[1:49:07] time to come to get to know our board a
[1:49:10] little bit more. You're a huge asset for
[1:49:12] us and to talk with us about how we can
[1:49:15] continue to support the mining industry
[1:49:19] and you know the value of our data
[1:49:22] hopefully. So, and we have a big team
[1:49:25] here that's doing a lot
[1:49:27] >> um on the mining side. So,
[1:49:31] keep going on all that.
[1:49:32] >> Yeah. Thank you guys. Thanks for what
[1:49:34] you do. And yeah, if there's anything
[1:49:35] where again we can
[1:49:37] >> be helpful and um you know, we're we
[1:49:41] love to partner with our state state
[1:49:43] partners and our uh just here to make
[1:49:47] things work as well as they can. So,
[1:49:49] thank you.
[1:49:51] >> You missed the very introductory part of
[1:49:52] our meeting. We did introduce um in
[1:49:54] addition to our mineral staff, we have
[1:49:56] quite a bit of outside funding that has
[1:49:58] come in um through staff and her team
[1:50:01] for for minerals exploration work. Um
[1:50:05] and uh there's even a couple other
[1:50:07] larger projects out there. I think
[1:50:09] you're aware of the BHP explore program
[1:50:10] that Steph's been part of. So we did add
[1:50:13] another minerals geologist to our team.
[1:50:15] So we're doing the good work over here.
[1:50:18] That's great. So, can I ask is that
[1:50:20] funny mostly coming from industry or is
[1:50:22] that
[1:50:23] >> Yeah. Do you want me to run through it?
[1:50:24] I don't have any slides, but I can run
[1:50:25] through also for the board if anyone has
[1:50:27] heard of um I think it's in this survey
[1:50:30] note. Does anyone know? We had we ran an
[1:50:32] article about BHP explore and I think
[1:50:34] it's in the survey.
[1:50:34] >> It's in the survey notes that's coming
[1:50:36] out next month.
[1:50:37] >> Okay. Yeah. So, there will be there will
[1:50:40] be an article about this in survey
[1:50:41] notes, [clears throat] but um so my
[1:50:43] project geologist Jim McY and I were in
[1:50:45] this program called BHP explore. So BHP
[1:50:47] is the largest mining company in the
[1:50:48] world. They have what's called an
[1:50:50] accelerator program that's traditionally
[1:50:52] targeted at junior mining companies to
[1:50:54] take essentially a good idea and make it
[1:50:56] investable. And just out of a moonshot,
[1:50:58] I actually applied for us. Um and just
[1:51:01] lo and behold, we've got in. And so
[1:51:02] we're the first government entity,
[1:51:04] academic entity, anything other than
[1:51:06] essentially a junior mining company were
[1:51:07] the first ones in. And so the way that
[1:51:09] we've structured this is focusing on our
[1:51:12] actual um foundational data
[1:51:14] infrastructure. So all the data that you
[1:51:16] need to then take and do your job. Our
[1:51:18] focus is on trying to build those
[1:51:20] foundations for Utah. So we've got a
[1:51:22] couple different themes that are very
[1:51:23] like our nitty-gritty geology like
[1:51:24] intrusive base maps and fertility and
[1:51:26] architecture mapping. So we have, you
[1:51:28] know, it's our kind of stuff, but that
[1:51:29] allows us to build the data foundations
[1:51:31] that we need to then create the products
[1:51:33] that can inform just a basic
[1:51:34] prospectivity map for the state and
[1:51:36] things like that. So it's a half a
[1:51:37] million dollar um grant. We're wrapping
[1:51:40] up the formal part of it.
[1:51:41] >> Liverpool one.
[1:51:43] >> Yeah. So we have a they are the nerdy
[1:51:45] geology deliverables. So we will be
[1:51:47] doing we're doing a regional intrusive
[1:51:49] sampling campaign where we're running
[1:51:51] lithogochemistry, geocchronology, trace
[1:51:53] on geiochemistry and zircon and madenium
[1:51:56] isotopes. So that helps with creatonic
[1:51:58] isotopic mapping age like age and
[1:52:01] fertility assessments across the state.
[1:52:02] So that the whole point of doing that if
[1:52:05] we take all the dirty like nerdy geology
[1:52:07] speak what we're trying to do is area
[1:52:09] reduction for expiration. So we don't if
[1:52:11] an expiration company's coming in, we
[1:52:12] don't want them to have to figure out
[1:52:14] where in the whole state they want to
[1:52:15] pick up ground. We want them to know
[1:52:17] like this 20% of the state is the most
[1:52:19] perspective for the system that you're
[1:52:21] looking for. Um but then we need a lot
[1:52:23] of thin geology to do those assessments.
[1:52:26] So our focus is on de-risisking
[1:52:28] exploration um attracting investment and
[1:52:31] reducing exploration area in the state.
[1:52:33] And when we also reduce the exploration
[1:52:35] area, we can start to integrate above
[1:52:37] ground risk as well risk as well. So we
[1:52:39] can start taking out areas that are
[1:52:40] overly sensitive for environmental
[1:52:42] reasons or for water reasons. So that
[1:52:44] allows us to also promote the
[1:52:45] responsible stewardship of resource
[1:52:47] development. So um our deliverables are
[1:52:50] things like an architecture with the
[1:52:51] spirit map and this regional fertility
[1:52:54] study and a prospectivity map and a
[1:52:55] preservation potential. So those are
[1:52:56] kind of the deliverables that we're
[1:52:58] doing. Everything we're doing will be
[1:53:00] made public. There's a one-year window
[1:53:01] of confidentiality. That is the benefit
[1:53:03] that the HP is getting out of it, but
[1:53:04] overall I would say
[1:53:06] we're getting a lot out of it. Um, so
[1:53:09] yeah, the formal part of the program,
[1:53:11] Jim and I are closing that out actually
[1:53:12] in just a month, but our project will
[1:53:14] actually run through July of next year.
[1:53:17] >> So half a million dollar.
[1:53:20] >> Yeah.
[1:53:21] >> But it will let let us do, you know,
[1:53:24] traditionally we've kind of been able to
[1:53:25] do a lot of postage stamp work and
[1:53:27] trying to get little areas. This is
[1:53:29] letting us do much larger statewide
[1:53:31] assessments and compilation so that we
[1:53:33] can build essentially better products to
[1:53:36] attract exploration and investment into
[1:53:38] the state. So
[1:53:39] >> do you have a feel
[1:53:42] why BHP
[1:53:45] selected the Utah Geological Survey? I
[1:53:48] mean is it because of the resources in
[1:53:50] the survey or the perspective
[1:53:53] terrains geological terrains of Utah or
[1:53:56] bodies or both? Yeah, I think it was
[1:53:59] multi-pronged. I think there was kind of
[1:54:02] a lot of curiosity about how this type
[1:54:04] of public part public private
[1:54:05] partnership could actually work. Um, I
[1:54:07] mean, I do think BHP works very hard to
[1:54:09] be a good community member within the
[1:54:11] mining industry. So, there was that
[1:54:13] aspect kind of the innovative aspect to
[1:54:15] it. There is recognition of the skills
[1:54:18] and the depth of knowledge and um,
[1:54:22] both me and my team like we we deliver
[1:54:24] at a pretty high level and I think we're
[1:54:25] known to deliver at a pretty high level.
[1:54:27] So I will say there was c certainly some
[1:54:29] reputational uh support that went into
[1:54:31] that but then also yeah geologic tree
[1:54:33] and we are kind of only working on the
[1:54:35] western half of the state right now. Um
[1:54:37] but the kind of the skills that we're
[1:54:39] learning because we're getting a lot of
[1:54:41] upskilling as well as far as like how
[1:54:42] they look at a mineral system from you
[1:54:44] know mantle to deposit scale and things
[1:54:46] like that and what kind of data we need
[1:54:47] to collect and how we integrate all
[1:54:49] that. So we're getting a lot of value
[1:54:50] out of it and we'll be able to take that
[1:54:52] to the rest of the state with different
[1:54:54] types of mineral systems. So um right
[1:54:56] now it's very poor free offer focused
[1:54:58] but yeah pulling stuff out into other
[1:55:00] systems as as we're able ultimately are
[1:55:03] still government but we do still not
[1:55:04] work as fast as industry but we're
[1:55:07] getting skills.
[1:55:10] >> Do you want to talk about SEG maybe
[1:55:12] while Brian's here too?
[1:55:13] >> Yeah I know
[1:55:16] looking at who might actually be going
[1:55:17] to SCG
[1:55:19] >> probably.
[1:55:20] >> Yay. Okay so SCG is the society of
[1:55:22] economic geologists. This is an
[1:55:24] international organization um that's
[1:55:26] very technically focused. There's that
[1:55:28] tends to work more on the downstream has
[1:55:30] all your engineers has things like that.
[1:55:32] This is more upstream and it is very
[1:55:33] geoscience centric. So the international
[1:55:36] annual meeting is being held here in
[1:55:38] Salt Lake. I do have the privilege of
[1:55:40] being chair of this conference. So um
[1:55:43] yeah, we've got a lot of UGS impact
[1:55:45] going on. Darlene is going to come give
[1:55:47] some opening comments for us when we
[1:55:49] open the whole thing. It'll be at the
[1:55:50] Salt Powell Center from September 30th
[1:55:52] to October 3rd. Mike's going to run a
[1:55:54] field trip whether he wants to or not.
[1:55:56] [laughter]
[1:55:56] I put it on his calendar about a year
[1:55:58] ago. So, he could tell how many people
[1:56:00] are expected to come. We are currently
[1:56:03] trending above registration numbers from
[1:56:06] last year, which was the record setting
[1:56:07] year of attendance. So, I always felt
[1:56:10] like if we hit a thousand, we'd be doing
[1:56:12] great. But right now, they had 1,200
[1:56:14] last year, and right now our
[1:56:15] registration numbers are trending above
[1:56:17] them. So, we will see. Um, we have some
[1:56:20] really cool uh innovative things. We
[1:56:22] actually sold out our core shack, which
[1:56:24] SCG has one never had a core shack and
[1:56:26] two never managed to sell it out. So,
[1:56:28] we've sold out our core shack. We've
[1:56:29] sold out our exhibits. We've sold out
[1:56:31] our field trips. We've sold out our
[1:56:32] short courses. Um, yeah, we're doing
[1:56:35] some we're doing a rock auction. If any
[1:56:38] anybody has some good geological samples
[1:56:40] that they wouldn't mind donating, we are
[1:56:42] running a rock auction for a scholarship
[1:56:44] fundraiser. So, if you have any nice
[1:56:45] samples, I would
[1:56:46] >> What are you looking for? just things
[1:56:48] that are nice, high quality rock and
[1:56:50] minerals that something that someone
[1:56:51] would want to bid on in a silent
[1:56:52] auction, just that type of thing. Um, so
[1:56:56] yeah, it should be a really good time.
[1:57:00] >> Maybe you could add anything to our
[1:57:01] members at that time rock.
[1:57:04] >> Oh, I've been trying to tell everyone
[1:57:06] that I possibly could. I can send you
[1:57:08] our little graphic.
[1:57:10] >> Yeah, we send it with our newsletter.
[1:57:12] >> Oh, those are donations. So
[1:57:14] >> yeah, you can [clears throat] they can
[1:57:16] just come to us like we'll we'll manage
[1:57:18] getting them to
[1:57:18] >> That's a great idea. And that money
[1:57:20] raises scholarship.
[1:57:22] >> Yep. Scholarship. So research grants and
[1:57:24] conference attendance.
[1:57:25] >> That's a great idea.
[1:57:27] >> Yeah. And Steph's the chair of this. So
[1:57:29] it's kind of a big deal.
[1:57:30] >> Yeah. It should be really fun. It's very
[1:57:32] it's, you know, it's very upstream but
[1:57:34] also for me my argument is always well
[1:57:36] the downstream doesn't exist without the
[1:57:38] upstream. The upstream tends to be a
[1:57:39] little smaller because it's a little
[1:57:40] more focused, a little more technical.
[1:57:42] We don't have as many oper uh like
[1:57:44] service providers. Um but again, if we
[1:57:48] don't do our job well, there's nothing
[1:57:49] that comes after us.
[1:57:51] >> It's great to have in Utah. So that
[1:57:52] gives Utah's, you know, exploration.
[1:57:56] >> A lot of them are exhibiting and West is
[1:57:58] exhibiting. BCM is exhibiting. I almost
[1:58:01] got Hawk Resources, but I think they
[1:58:02] missed out and we sold out. Tenkick is
[1:58:04] exhibiting. Rio's exhibiting. Like
[1:58:06] they're all um yeah, they're all even
[1:58:09] the little ones, they're all showing up.
[1:58:10] Liberty's exhibiting. Yeah,
[1:58:13] >> survival's exhibiting. Yeah.
[1:58:20] » Well, yeah. Send me the the graphic.
[1:58:22] I'll point that out with our newsletter.
[1:58:23] >> Thank you.
[1:58:24] >> I love to see if we can get some samples
[1:58:26] for that. And then if there's anything
[1:58:27] else that we can do to support that from
[1:58:29] the industry side, love to
[1:58:31] >> love to help with that. So,
[1:58:33] >> for sure.
[1:58:35] >> Great.
[1:58:35] >> I assume you're working with you a bunch
[1:58:37] on that, too. not as much because we
[1:58:39] don't have an economic geologist. I
[1:58:41] think Lauren Burnhar is gonna come. Um I
[1:58:43] think she's sending a couple students.
[1:58:44] But um we one thing I will so actually y
[1:58:48] going back to this workforce
[1:58:49] conversation. I worked my tail off to
[1:58:52] get SCG to provide travel support for
[1:58:54] undergrads specifically because SCG this
[1:58:56] is one of my things with SCG they
[1:58:58] traditionally focus very heavily at the
[1:58:59] graduate level and that is too late.
[1:59:01] We've already missed a huge part of the
[1:59:03] workforce pipeline if we're focusing at
[1:59:04] the graduate level. So I worked super
[1:59:07] hard to get undergraduates travel
[1:59:09] support this year. We sent it out to all
[1:59:11] the university we like in the US, you
[1:59:13] know, Arizona, California, all of our
[1:59:15] Utah universities, just everyone. We got
[1:59:17] six applications from the US.
[1:59:21] >> So when I when we say this workforce
[1:59:23] problem is hard and like we're try like
[1:59:26] so you know and and so then that's gonna
[1:59:29] I think everyone liked the idea enough
[1:59:31] that it will still have traction to go
[1:59:32] forward. I think they're going to take
[1:59:33] the program that I built and use it in
[1:59:35] future conferences and obviously there's
[1:59:36] been some lessons learned but um yeah
[1:59:39] the the workforce component is is hard
[1:59:42] and we're trying but it is it is a
[1:59:43] challenge.
[1:59:52] » Thank you so much for your time. Thanks
[1:59:54] for coming to visit us. It's really nice
[1:59:56] to see you here and I appreciate your
[1:59:58] time and your preparation for this. So
[2:00:00] we'll just keep the conversation going.
[2:00:02] I know when I put Brian and you know
[2:00:04] Brian and staff got together for lunch
[2:00:05] and I I really just got out of the
[2:00:07] conversation and took notes they had a
[2:00:08] lot to talk about. It's very engaged. So
[2:00:11] I really appreciate that. So thanks for
[2:00:13] all you're doing.
[2:00:14] >> Oh thank you guys. And one thing too
[2:00:16] again if there's anything that we can do
[2:00:17] as industry to to help and um you know I
[2:00:20] know it's only August so it seems crazy
[2:00:22] to be talking about the legislative
[2:00:24] session but it'll be here before before
[2:00:26] we know it. Um, so yeah, I mean I'd love
[2:00:28] to to have some conversations and if we
[2:00:30] could be helpful as you guys are putting
[2:00:32] your requests for um, you know, for for
[2:00:34] budgets and if you know end up with any
[2:00:36] RFAS or anything like that. I mean, we
[2:00:38] ask for a lot from the legislature, but
[2:00:40] we don't tend to ask for a lot of money.
[2:00:42] Um, and so, you know, if we can support
[2:00:44] things like that, you know, especially
[2:00:46] appropriations requests, like that does
[2:00:48] tend to have an impact because again,
[2:00:49] we're just not in there, you know,
[2:00:52] begging for money every year like most
[2:00:53] people. So, we'd love to do that. what
[2:00:56] to make sure you guys have the resources
[2:00:57] you need both, you know, for your mobile
[2:01:00] operations, but also for these kind of
[2:01:01] projects that you're you're taking on.
[2:01:04] Um, I mean, I would love to see maybe
[2:01:06] there could be a state man, you know,
[2:01:07] that BHP project and just let you, you
[2:01:09] know, expand that. And um, anyway, I
[2:01:13] would love to to be helpful wherever we
[2:01:14] can on the on the legislator side.
[2:01:17] >> We should have talked a week ago. Our
[2:01:19] building block request [laughter]
[2:01:21] yesterday. We'll get you next time.
[2:01:23] >> No, it's fine. Well, the The problem is
[2:01:26] in submitting your building broker
[2:01:27] prices getting, you know,
[2:01:28] >> getting it into the governor's budget.
[2:01:30] But that's okay. We we got we got a
[2:01:32] little leverage. I think
[2:01:34] >> we should recognize the the RFA that we
[2:01:37] got a couple years ago
[2:01:40] 400,000 which I'm sure you helped with
[2:01:42] and we appreciate and we love RFAS
[2:01:45] because they're a little bit easier for
[2:01:46] us.
[2:01:47] >> Yeah. line [clears throat] waste
[2:01:48] inventory actually had a little bit of
[2:01:50] seed funding from USGS but we [snorts]
[2:01:53] as part of this like high priority min
[2:01:56] that went into
[2:01:57] >> yeah let's follow up and send that to
[2:01:59] Brian also
[2:02:00] >> yeah I know I'm sorry there's actually
[2:02:04] » yeah I'd love to help with that I mean
[2:02:06] again RFAS and things like that but I
[2:02:08] mean if you guys are finding problems
[2:02:10] with your you know budget stuff like
[2:02:13] please let me know I mean we can't
[2:02:14] always impact that but we
[2:02:17] I think we don't have a lot of success
[2:02:19] impacting what goes into the governor's
[2:02:20] budget, but we have more success if
[2:02:22] there, you know, are things that maybe
[2:02:23] got missed in the governor's budget and
[2:02:25] you guys can't talk about them anymore,
[2:02:26] but
[2:02:27] >> Okay.
[2:02:27] >> Governor can't fire me, so I can still
[2:02:30] [laughter]
[2:02:30] >> I like that our legislative finance
[2:02:32] analyst, Lacy, is here too. So, she's
[2:02:35] probably listening here. So, we will
[2:02:37] continue that conversation. That's a
[2:02:39] great offer. And thank you very much.
[2:02:41] That is some place, those are, you know,
[2:02:43] two different tracks where you could
[2:02:44] really help us out a lot online. Yeah.
[2:02:46] And you were joking that it's August.
[2:02:48] It's too early to think about the
[2:02:49] legislative session. Aren't you thinking
[2:02:50] about the next legislative session? And
[2:02:52] I think, you know, there's some work
[2:02:54] about road mapping what a strategic plan
[2:02:56] for mineral resources in Utah looks like
[2:02:58] and kind of dovetailing how geological
[2:03:00] research works with the mine center,
[2:03:02] works with all the other initiatives.
[2:03:03] And I think if we work on that, you
[2:03:06] know, we're we're we're very lucky to be
[2:03:08] well funded at the moment. We've had a
[2:03:10] lot of luck with outside grants with no
[2:03:12] match outside grants and trying to find
[2:03:14] and you know we are still working out
[2:03:16] the ends of the RFA but I think uh in
[2:03:19] the next following session I think we
[2:03:21] could maybe put forward some really bold
[2:03:23] ideas about how to truly move the needle
[2:03:25] on what's needed to attract investment
[2:03:27] to the state. Do some big ideas
[2:03:30] >> and and I think one more area is
[2:03:31] EarthMRI
[2:03:33] um is up for review at the federal
[2:03:36] level. It's a really important program
[2:03:39] for Utah. We're I think we're in a good
[2:03:41] place with our fMRI, but for many other
[2:03:44] states, it is a crucial piece of
[2:03:46] collecting, you know, information over
[2:03:49] wider areas. It really helps, you know,
[2:03:51] kind of zero in on relevant areas um for
[2:03:54] exploration and that kind of de-risking
[2:03:56] piece of it. So, you'll hear about that
[2:03:58] and, you know, you can help advocate for
[2:04:00] that federal level. That's really
[2:04:02] important.
[2:04:02] >> Yeah. I mean, have you guys talked to
[2:04:04] Congressman Malloyy's office about that?
[2:04:06] I spoke with Malloy's office last week,
[2:04:08] the one Utah sign. They had a couple of
[2:04:09] coordinators there and they we ran
[2:04:11] through the last five years of Earth MRI
[2:04:13] projects for UGS and what we used them
[2:04:15] for. So I I think they understood the
[2:04:17] significance that we see that the
[2:04:20] program.
[2:04:20] >> Well, yeah, I'd love to coordinate on
[2:04:21] that because we do a lot of work. I
[2:04:22] mean, she's she's on material
[2:04:24] appropriations and so I mean she
[2:04:25] probably has the best um you know, the
[2:04:28] best opportunity to affect that. Um, and
[2:04:31] she's obviously, you know, she's the
[2:04:32] daughter of a minor. So, I mean, she she
[2:04:34] gets the importance of uh, you know,
[2:04:37] this industry and and everything you
[2:04:38] need to support it. So, I think you can
[2:04:40] have some really good inroads there. And
[2:04:42] again, we'd love to help, you know, just
[2:04:43] sort of second whatever you pitch to
[2:04:46] them.
[2:04:47] Whatever you pitch to her office, again,
[2:04:49] we do a lot of work with all our
[2:04:51] delegation offices. if there's things
[2:04:53] where we can be helpful there as well.
[2:04:54] If there's you know federal issues that
[2:04:56] you know we can just give a you know an
[2:04:59] amen to as you guys are advocating there
[2:05:03] potential doors open happy to help with
[2:05:05] that.
[2:05:05] >> Be excellent. I'm looking forward to
[2:05:07] talking. I think we have a lot of ground
[2:05:08] to cover.
[2:05:09] >> Yeah. Mike's going to be in DC at the
[2:05:11] end of next month. The American
[2:05:12] Association of State Geologists has a
[2:05:15] twice yearly legislative liaison, you
[2:05:18] know, outing. And so Mike's going to be
[2:05:21] out there actually for the Earth MRI
[2:05:22] workshop. It's overlaps with AASG's
[2:05:25] legislative leaison. So we're going to
[2:05:27] hit up all of our congressional
[2:05:29] representatives. Um so you know maybe a
[2:05:32] letter of support or something somewhere
[2:05:33] along the way from from your association
[2:05:35] would be great.
[2:05:36] >> Yeah, I'd love to do that.
[2:05:38] >> Thank you board that when we talk about
[2:05:40] EarthM there's there's funding that
[2:05:41] comes directly to UGS which I think
[2:05:43] would be in excess of 1 million
[2:05:47] generally no match funding. So we've
[2:05:49] brought in a lot of direct funding, but
[2:05:50] also Earth MRI has led fed federal data
[2:05:53] acquisitions over the state exceeding
[2:05:55] $10 million worth of new data as far as
[2:05:58] geoysics, LAR, hyperspectral. Um I know
[2:06:01] I'm forgetting one other one. I can't
[2:06:03] remember what the other one is. There's
[2:06:04] actually a new Aeromag and a rod survey
[2:06:06] that was just released over southwest
[2:06:08] Utah. We'd like to go look at that. It's
[2:06:10] called the iron access survey. So it's
[2:06:12] great.
[2:06:13] >> It's not just about the money that comes
[2:06:14] into UGS specifically. It is about money
[2:06:16] and data over Utah as a whole.
[2:06:22] would say the the only small downside to
[2:06:25] Earth MRI is it's very metals focused,
[2:06:27] critical minerals focused and um talking
[2:06:31] with Andrew Rupy, we're seeing the need
[2:06:33] to look at more industrial minerals and
[2:06:36] there's not a good source of funding to
[2:06:39] [clears throat] study industrial
[2:06:40] minerals and so Andrew and I have been
[2:06:43] talking about that and trying to figure
[2:06:45] out ways for maybe the state to get more
[2:06:47] involved in funding minerals or this
[2:06:50] aggregate although
[2:06:56] Have you uh I mean has there been any
[2:06:58] discussion with USGS about you know sort
[2:07:01] of shifting some of these things to be
[2:07:03] more critical mineral focus versus just
[2:07:05] kind of hard rock I mean there's
[2:07:08] obviously a lot I mean
[2:07:10] >> and other things aren't on there but I
[2:07:11] mean you know potsh and some of the
[2:07:13] other industrial minerals
[2:07:15] >> you could do pot [laughter]
[2:07:18] >> yeah so it it is explicit to critical is
[2:07:21] critical It's not limited to hard rock
[2:07:23] resources and Andrew's done several
[2:07:24] studies on um phosphate
[2:07:28] >> uh I think that was the major
[2:07:30] >> phosphate
[2:07:31] >> chlorine yeah
[2:07:33] >> but yeah we're thinking more about
[2:07:36] aggregates a lot things that fall
[2:07:39] outside the realm of earth we're having
[2:07:41] more trouble finding
[2:07:43] >> yeah and their mineral resources program
[2:07:45] from the USGS like Sarah Rker she was
[2:07:47] starting to make noise in that
[2:07:51] two years ago, but then I think was just
[2:07:54] that yeah, things went crazy. So I don't
[2:07:56] I would
[2:07:58] >> we'll be having those conversations with
[2:08:00] USGS about pushing Earth more into
[2:08:04] desert minerals, but we'll see where it
[2:08:06] goes.
[2:08:08] >> Yeah. And I mean the the aggregate stuff
[2:08:10] is a little tricky on the state side
[2:08:12] just because I mean you know they're
[2:08:14] obviously they're I don't have any
[2:08:15] aggregate members. um you know they
[2:08:18] because they're regulated a little bit
[2:08:20] differently they haven't traditionally
[2:08:21] been part of the mining association they
[2:08:23] have kind of their own coalition
[2:08:25] >> um so yeah I don't have any of the
[2:08:28] aggregate producers and one of the
[2:08:29] challenges we have honestly is that
[2:08:32] >> I mean politically like they'll the
[2:08:34] aggregate producers kind of try and do
[2:08:36] things for themselves and then mining
[2:08:37] gets you know traditional mining gets
[2:08:39] sucked into it and sometimes that's fine
[2:08:41] and other times we have to kind of like
[2:08:43] you know say hey you guys do your thing
[2:08:45] over here and we're going to do our
[2:08:46] thing over year. So, um I mean that's
[2:08:49] another thing I think over the next few
[2:08:50] years we'll probably have to have those
[2:08:52] conversations as to whether aggregate
[2:08:53] needs to be, you know, brought it under
[2:08:55] kind of full state control. Um but I
[2:08:58] mean right now they kind of like their
[2:09:00] weird little, you know, we have some
[2:09:02] state stuff and some local stuff and you
[2:09:04] know, I don't know. I just I don't know
[2:09:06] if that's sustainable long term, but and
[2:09:09] we're going to have another fight this
[2:09:10] year at Balon. Actually, I don't know if
[2:09:12] you guys heard about that. The whole
[2:09:13] Daniels Canyon thing that's happening.
[2:09:16] um like there's going to be a bill run
[2:09:18] on that that you know basically goes
[2:09:20] back and looks at that geological trend
[2:09:21] language that we have
[2:09:24] that's that's how they're justifying
[2:09:26] that that mind and I mean it's
[2:09:28] incredibly controversial and not just
[2:09:30] you know in that community but I mean
[2:09:32] frankly in the industry because I've had
[2:09:34] conversations with my counterparts on
[2:09:36] the aggregate side and I mean they don't
[2:09:37] like it either but we've got to make
[2:09:40] sure that we figure out the right
[2:09:41] language to say okay you know how do we
[2:09:43] you know preserve the intent of this
[2:09:45] which is that you know you can follow
[2:09:47] those geological trends if you're you
[2:09:49] know chasing a gold vein or whatever the
[2:09:51] case is but this doesn't mean that if
[2:09:53] you you know have a mine in in you know
[2:09:55] Janola that you can then have a mine you
[2:09:58] know in peeper because it's the same
[2:10:01] geological trend. It's like yeah I don't
[2:10:03] know that that was really the intent of
[2:10:05] that that statue when it was you know
[2:10:07] created however many years ago that it
[2:10:09] was created. So, but we also want to
[2:10:11] make sure that it's, you know, you guys
[2:10:12] are helping to advise on that and we,
[2:10:14] you know, preserve as much of the
[2:10:16] functionality of that as we can, but
[2:10:18] also don't allow someone to say, "Hey,
[2:10:20] you know, you know, limestone is
[2:10:23] limestone, so I can open one."
[2:10:25] >> Right. I appreciate hearing your
[2:10:28] sensibility about that and offer to kind
[2:10:30] of collaborate on tweaking that so that
[2:10:33] it is appropriate
[2:10:36] >> for your industry as well. So, and this
[2:10:39] again something where we kind of get
[2:10:41] dragged into it and we don't want to see
[2:10:42] you know the that that benefit for our
[2:10:45] industry go away but you know I clearly
[2:10:47] I think this is something that most
[2:10:49] people can agree is an abuse that
[2:10:50] statute and so we need to figure out how
[2:10:52] to re that in without you know without
[2:10:56] taking away a benefit for people that
[2:10:59] want to use it the way it was intended
[2:11:01] to be used. So
[2:11:02] >> maybe that's something we can get ahead
[2:11:03] of prior to legislative session. We're we're trying we actually have a um
[2:11:09] we're going to be putting a meeting
[2:11:10] together with
[2:11:12] >> Okay.
[2:11:13] >> Well, we don't know exactly who the bill
[2:11:14] sponsor is going to be at this point.
[2:11:16] So, um but once we figure that out,
[2:11:18] we'll we'll get everybody together and
[2:11:21] talk through it. So,
[2:11:22] >> okay. Yeah, we're happy to contribute to
[2:11:24] that. We did just have something kind of
[2:11:26] passed through our office around that.
[2:11:28] So, we've got thoughts and can can
[2:11:31] contribute to that. So, all right. Thank
[2:11:33] you.
[2:11:35] Okay. Well, thank you guys.
[2:11:36] >> We turned Brian loose. Thank you so much
[2:11:38] for your time today. It's really great
[2:11:40] to have you here. Really appreciate you.
[2:11:43] >> Thank you.
[2:11:46] >> Why don't we take a break again and I'll
[2:11:48] get our uh the rest of our board meeting
[2:11:51] teed up. We're going to do financials
[2:11:53] next. So, we've got manager
[2:11:59] [laughter]
[2:28:33] Okay, so we're back on the record
[2:28:35] everyone. So at this point in our
[2:28:38] agenda, we'll move to our next item
[2:28:41] which is a financial update. So, uh, we
[2:28:45] close our year end at the end of June
[2:28:48] and begin our next fiscal year. Um, this
[2:28:52] is the time when our relatively new
[2:28:54] finance manager, Win Seymour, um, who's
[2:28:58] wasn't previously with the state, got to
[2:29:00] run through her first closeout,
[2:29:03] um, looking back at our annual, um, at
[2:29:07] everything over the year. and she's run
[2:29:09] a great report for you guys about where
[2:29:11] we stand um at the end of this fiscal
[2:29:14] year and how that te's us up for success
[2:29:17] for fiscal year 27. Um I just want to
[2:29:21] really hand a huge compliment to win.
[2:29:23] She's been a terrific asset for us. She
[2:29:26] was an amazing interview. Um and I think
[2:29:29] we're lucky to have her in UG. She's
[2:29:31] been a great asset to me and to our
[2:29:32] leadership team as is. Ben Zelin is
[2:29:36] gonna follow up with that with kind of a
[2:29:37] look on the contracts and sort of how we
[2:29:40] get our revenue and manage that side.
[2:29:42] But I'm gonna turn it over to W who's
[2:29:44] got a great story to tell you here. Let
[2:29:46] me make that slide.
[2:29:47] >> Perfect.
[2:29:50] >> So if you all recall back in April, um
[2:29:55] so just internal agenda, I'm going to
[2:29:57] walk through just a refresher on the
[2:29:59] funding architecture. So everybody have
[2:30:02] a sense of our funding source and then
[2:30:05] we'll go over the expenditures, our
[2:30:08] fiveyear trend. Um we'll go over our
[2:30:11] carry forward and then our FY27 outlook.
[2:30:15] So if you was here in April, we kind of
[2:30:20] tell a story of where our money come
[2:30:22] from for UGS. Uh we have general fund
[2:30:25] which is 50% of our um funding and then
[2:30:30] we have restricted account. These are
[2:30:32] the money that come from the federal
[2:30:35] lease, the um um my occupation tax um
[2:30:41] and uh our interest income from that and
[2:30:45] then our we have so have a small
[2:30:48] component of land exchange distribution
[2:30:51] account that contributes our restricted
[2:30:54] account. Um and then the outside
[2:30:56] funding. These are the great work that
[2:30:59] uh the grant the federal grant that you
[2:31:02] saw we talk about the private entity
[2:31:05] come in and give us the funding to do
[2:31:07] our work. So
[2:31:10] on the restricted account obviously the risk that we always monitoring
[2:31:15] within UG
[2:31:22] matching up with the appropriation that
[2:31:24] was given to us. So this is something
[2:31:25] that we con constantly are monitoring
[2:31:29] the outside funding. We every year get a
[2:31:33] appropriation which is a max authority
[2:31:35] that we can go out and collect um based
[2:31:38] on the forecast of the work that our
[2:31:42] program manager put together. Uh but the
[2:31:45] actual earning and collections is based
[2:31:48] on the delivery that we are able to
[2:31:51] accomplish for the years. Um so that
[2:31:53] very much dependent on the capacity the
[2:31:56] bandwidth the staff have to be able to
[2:31:59] deliver. So this year's FY26
[2:32:02] as um Darene mentions our fiscal year
[2:32:06] start July 1st 2025 and it ended June
[2:32:10] 30th 2026. So FY26 where we landed in
[2:32:15] term of the um the um funding source we have 8.9
[2:32:24] million from general um that captures
[2:32:27] our general fund our general fund one
[2:32:30] time as well our building block the
[2:32:32] geothermal that you all heard of that
[2:32:35] run multiple years and then the
[2:32:38] restricted account we have 3.29 29
[2:32:42] million in restricted account and then
[2:32:45] outside funding which is 5.51
[2:32:49] uh represent 31% of our funding source.
[2:32:53] Want to pause for a minute here because
[2:32:55] that 5.51
[2:32:57] represent um the 2.53
[2:33:01] chamfer which is the work that we do in
[2:33:05] collaboration
[2:33:06] with our brother or sister agency and
[2:33:09] then the federal grant 2.26 million
[2:33:12] those number those two number are the
[2:33:15] highest realization rate ever in UG
[2:33:19] history. So um a moment of celebration
[2:33:24] here um with the general restricted and
[2:33:27] outside funding that bring our total
[2:33:29] available funding to 17.74 million and
[2:33:34] then how we spend that money. We're
[2:33:36] going to show you our expenditures over
[2:33:39] the last five years so that you can see
[2:33:41] the trend. So
[2:33:44] uh here over the last five years you
[2:33:47] will see that our uh financial footprint
[2:33:50] has expanded uh from 9.49 million to
[2:33:55] 15.24
[2:33:56] million
[2:33:58] personnel is our core asset. people our
[2:34:01] core asset um this year's in FY26 that
[2:34:07] blue component as you can see
[2:34:10] um represents 73% of our expenditures
[2:34:14] and if you look at the expenditures for
[2:34:16] personnel you'll see that over the past
[2:34:18] five years we have every year year over
[2:34:22] year keep growing but in FY26
[2:34:26] um we intentionally
[2:34:29] try to put a pause and take a look at
[2:34:32] our workforce as a whole and kind of
[2:34:35] assess whether we have the bandwidth or
[2:34:40] the funding to keep growing and what the
[2:34:43] work should look like. Um so as you can
[2:34:46] see that component did not grow from
[2:34:50] 2025 to 2026 and actually in the next
[2:34:54] slide you'll see that we kind of pick a
[2:34:56] little dip when it comes to personnel
[2:34:59] and that was an intentional decisions
[2:35:01] that we make. Um and now as we assess
[2:35:05] the workload, the amount of grand work
[2:35:08] that we receive and we see that there is
[2:35:12] enough work um we then make the decision
[2:35:14] to hire and as you see those um new
[2:35:17] personnel that we just saw at the
[2:35:20] beginning of the meeting. The second
[2:35:22] thing that will jump out in here you'll
[2:35:24] see is the pass through amount. uh
[2:35:28] because of the complexity of the work
[2:35:30] the grant that was written uh requires
[2:35:33] to partner with other entity. Um I think
[2:35:37] mice is gone but he could speak to
[2:35:39] certain project that uh requires to
[2:35:43] partner with other um entity and that's
[2:35:47] why that number increase compared with
[2:35:50] previous years. So in summary, the
[2:35:54] expenditures the primary driver for us
[2:35:57] uh for this year's is a building block
[2:36:00] funding that we've got for geothermal
[2:36:02] that run multiple years as well as our
[2:36:06] um record captures in federal fund and
[2:36:09] the work that we perform in
[2:36:11] collaborations with our sister and
[2:36:13] brother agency. And when before you want
[2:36:16] before you change the slide, I want to
[2:36:18] point something out, especially because
[2:36:20] Lacy is here. She's our legislative
[2:36:23] finance officer. I want to point out
[2:36:25] that all of this growth in funding
[2:36:30] has happened without asking the
[2:36:32] legislature for an adjustment to our
[2:36:35] general fund. Right? So the staffing
[2:36:37] growth that we've had, the way we deploy
[2:36:40] our general funds to um you know secure
[2:36:45] match funding for grants, the hiring
[2:36:48] that we've done, this growth is is
[2:36:50] related to transfer funds with other
[2:36:53] agencies with external funding and with
[2:36:56] building blocks. So specific, you know,
[2:36:59] line item type things. So just keep that
[2:37:03] in mind as we talk about our overall
[2:37:06] staff numbers.
[2:37:08] >> Yeah, I might just step back and I just
[2:37:10] mentioned that the work uh for certain
[2:37:12] program require us as we prepare the
[2:37:16] grant to collaborate with other outside
[2:37:19] um entity to deliver that and Mike can
[2:37:22] speak to some of that. Um I think UBML
[2:37:26] is one of example that you could tell
[2:37:29] the board on the work that we partner
[2:37:32] with other entity to deliver.
[2:37:35] >> Yeah, that project is our bathtric light
[2:37:39] project
[2:37:41] and we had initially put in a building
[2:37:44] block. Um the legislature decided to
[2:37:48] take the funds from forest fire state
[2:37:50] lands restricted account which was fine
[2:37:53] with us and so it's a partnership
[2:37:56] between us forest fire state lands to
[2:37:59] collect
[2:38:01] our data out lake which is similar to
[2:38:05] but it laser penetrates the water column
[2:38:08] and gives you high resolution rendering
[2:38:11] of the floor of the lake and gives us
[2:38:14] better elevation models.
[2:38:17] million dollar
[2:38:18] >> $1.8 million the data collection is
[2:38:22] about 1.6 six and we carved off about
[2:38:25] 200k per second.
[2:38:28] >> Darling, would it be fair that you know
[2:38:30] from 2022 to now, but the growth has
[2:38:34] been?
[2:38:35] >> So, some of that growth was driven by um
[2:38:38] like uh bumping up staff to manage data
[2:38:40] preservation grant I think is probably a
[2:38:43] big one. Um where else did we grow
[2:38:46] >> the water program? We had a lot of
[2:38:48] growth.
[2:38:48] >> We had a lot of growth in our
[2:38:49] groundwater wetlands program. Yeah,
[2:38:51] we've we've grown that groundwater
[2:38:53] wetlands work a lot and staff a lot and
[2:38:55] again that's because that is what's
[2:38:57] being asked from us from our state
[2:38:59] partners right forestry far state lands
[2:39:01] right as the attention to water deficits
[2:39:04] in Utah and the great salt lake have
[2:39:06] become more and more kind of a prevalent
[2:39:09] um you know driver and need for our work
[2:39:12] um we have grown our energy and minerals
[2:39:15] team as well um so but again you know
[2:39:18] when I came on you groups for the CCUS
[2:39:22] and then the hydrothermal programs as
[2:39:25] well as the critical me stuff that the
[2:39:28] >> the legislaturator is asking you to do
[2:39:29] anyway.
[2:39:30] >> Yes. Right. And yes, it is right and
[2:39:34] there's a lot of external funding for
[2:39:36] that. Right. So, it's partly like what
[2:39:38] is the state asking us to do? Where are
[2:39:40] their funding opportunities externally,
[2:39:42] especially from DOE and DOI that'll help
[2:39:45] us get that work done? So we're we're
[2:39:47] bringing in you know federal money to
[2:39:50] help achieve that as well as being
[2:39:52] responsive to forestry fire and state
[2:39:54] lands to the division of water rights as
[2:39:56] they've asked us to do basin you know
[2:39:59] groundwater basin water balances across
[2:40:01] the state for communities that are
[2:40:03] experiencing water stress um trying to
[2:40:05] help sit right with with mapping on on
[2:40:08] lands that have potential you know lease
[2:40:11] opportunities. So when I came on, you
[2:40:14] know, I looked at our staffing numbers
[2:40:17] and our mission focus and really just
[2:40:21] tried to align our staffing with what
[2:40:24] our mission needs to be, right? So we
[2:40:27] had some attrition in 2024 and 2025. I
[2:40:32] kind of let that attrition happen. We
[2:40:34] just held our staffing, called it
[2:40:37] measure and monitor mode. Right? where
[2:40:40] are we at with our staffing and I'm
[2:40:42] still looking at rebalancing our
[2:40:44] staffing portfolio a little bit. I think
[2:40:46] there's some opportunities to do that.
[2:40:48] Um so you'll see a few changes. You
[2:40:51] know, we've brought on to be able to
[2:40:53] bring on four scientists I think says a
[2:40:56] lot about how healthy our budget is. And
[2:41:00] again, that was done with a lot of
[2:41:02] thought, with a lot of number crunching,
[2:41:05] um, and you know, making sure that we
[2:41:07] can support that down the road. Mike,
[2:41:11] >> part of that increase in personnel costs
[2:41:13] from 2022 to 24 were pretty massive
[2:41:17] targeted salary increases for
[2:41:19] geologists. uh two years in a row the
[2:41:22] legislator
[2:41:24] uh did studies looking at comparability
[2:41:27] of what we get paid versus private
[2:41:30] industry and there were
[2:41:32] 10% [snorts]
[2:41:33] raises 20% raises there was significant
[2:41:36] raises to level up our salaries compared
[2:41:39] to outside
[2:41:42] so a lot of that is we're not adding
[2:41:44] people but people are getting paid
[2:41:46] better
[2:41:46] >> they're getting paid more yeah that that
[2:41:48] was like that was like a step change or
[2:41:50] staff costs are somewhere it depends on
[2:41:52] the position and the person but up to
[2:41:54] like 30% really over those couple years.
[2:41:56] >> Wow.
[2:41:57] >> This time scale I believe represents
[2:41:59] [clears throat] growth from about 80 to
[2:42:01] 95 employees. So we did add bodies as
[2:42:04] well.
[2:42:05] >> Yeah, we did for sure. But there's a not trivial component of
[2:42:09] changes in mortgages that were they
[2:42:11] occurred as two different step changes
[2:42:13] >> and we're trying to be really careful
[2:42:15] about that right now. You know there's a
[2:42:16] big affordability question happening.
[2:42:19] you know, we're we're trying to help
[2:42:20] people out. We're looking at
[2:42:21] opportunities to to promote staff. But
[2:42:24] again, you know, you can't just give
[2:42:25] everybody a 10% raise when your
[2:42:27] personnel costs are, you know, $1
[2:42:29] million,
[2:42:30] >> right? I do want to echo what both Mike
[2:42:34] and Stephan brought in because if you
[2:42:36] see the headcount world, um the number
[2:42:39] didn't change so much drastically from
[2:42:42] 2022 to 2026.
[2:42:45] Um cuz it's [clears throat] 62 and 62
[2:42:48] right on at the B level schedule B and
[2:42:53] then everything else kind of constant
[2:42:54] but that jump that you saw from the
[2:42:56] previous slide was pretty significant
[2:42:59] and that kind of
[2:43:01] >> B your G right
[2:43:05] >> yeah so TLS
[2:43:07] >> be career science positions or career
[2:43:09] support staff positions as the core of
[2:43:12] the survey
[2:43:13] >> so TLS are, you know, the the two guys
[2:43:16] that were in here, you know, we hire
[2:43:18] those. We carry we carry our TL we carry
[2:43:22] some of our TLS around for a long time
[2:43:24] and I think we probably want to be a
[2:43:27] little more thoughtful about some of
[2:43:28] that. That's what I'm looking at right
[2:43:29] now. Um so but they are um they are
[2:43:34] usually that's the level that we'll hire
[2:43:36] at when we have you know a grant large
[2:43:40] grant opportunity that's come in that
[2:43:42] might take a couple years to to map out.
[2:43:45] So
[2:43:46] >> yeah and one thing that you probably
[2:43:49] don't know I want to give a huge kudo to
[2:43:51] Stephan and Darene because every time
[2:43:53] when somebody bring in any project
[2:43:55] proposal the first question that they
[2:43:58] would ask is is this missions focus and
[2:44:01] I think that helped out a lot with you
[2:44:04] know because I feel like here everybody
[2:44:06] want to do great work and they have
[2:44:08] always have great idea what kind of
[2:44:10] project they will want to work on
[2:44:12] unfortunately we don't have the money to
[2:44:14] do it all because we have constraint and
[2:44:17] Gene and Stephan has been great with
[2:44:18] kind of narrowing people down. Um so on
[2:44:22] this slide just want to bring um kind of
[2:44:25] echo what we discussed in the previous
[2:44:27] slide is that number one personnel is
[2:44:30] our highest um component of total spend
[2:44:33] and that is pretty much aligned with um
[2:44:36] the industry or the service that we
[2:44:38] provide. we are, you know, heavy in
[2:44:41] personnel. And then the
[2:44:44] um cost in term of personnel service for
[2:44:47] 2026, as you can see, we kind of hold
[2:44:50] steady um even bring it down a little
[2:44:54] bit compared to the previous year. Then
[2:44:57] that would allow us to assess for FY27.
[2:45:02] Uh moving on. So as we discussed our
[2:45:06] total available funding was at 17.74
[2:45:11] million from those three source of
[2:45:14] funding our expenditures for FY26
[2:45:18] um ended at 15.24 24 million that
[2:45:22] leaving us with a balance of 2.5
[2:45:25] million. Um of that 2.5 million
[2:45:29] » [clears throat]
[2:45:29] >> um we talked earlier on about those
[2:45:31] program that carry multiple years. Um so
[2:45:34] you talk about the Bonavville salt flat,
[2:45:37] the critical mural RFA and then the um
[2:45:40] geothermal building block. Those three
[2:45:44] program have multiple years um and so
[2:45:46] the carry forward that belong to those
[2:45:48] three program is 1.31
[2:45:51] million and then the nonprogram
[2:45:53] component um of that 2.5 is 1.18
[2:45:58] million. So that is our um carry forward
[2:46:02] allocations for FY27.
[2:46:06] Um at the end of FY27
[2:46:10] uh we do want to have a balanced goal
[2:46:12] for the nun program uh in the same range
[2:46:16] between 1 to 1.2 million and we'll dive
[2:46:19] into that the rationale why we thinking
[2:46:21] that is a healthy number in in the next
[2:46:24] slide. anything you will add to that
[2:46:26] before we moving on any questions from
[2:46:28] the room. Okay.
[2:46:32] Uh so we did touch on the uh restricted
[2:46:38] account at the beginning of our
[2:46:40] conversations is that we have a
[2:46:42] restricted account that we really can't
[2:46:44] control. Uh we was given an
[2:46:47] appropriation but the revenue collected
[2:46:48] from the restricted accounts kind of go
[2:46:50] up and down month over month. Um so for
[2:46:55] FY26
[2:46:56] we started the beginning balance at 1
[2:46:59] million restricted account total we
[2:47:02] wasn't collected in the restricted
[2:47:05] account for FY26 2.68 million um and
[2:47:09] then the appropriations that was given
[2:47:12] to us to withdraw 3.27 27 which we do
[2:47:16] that in every quarter we'll take out 800
[2:47:19] 811k
[2:47:21] and so that leaving us at the end of
[2:47:23] FY26 with a balance of 417K
[2:47:27] [clears throat] um which is what we will
[2:47:29] then start um for FY27 as a beginning
[2:47:33] balance um we touch on that 1.184005
[2:47:40] million that we started as a nonprogram
[2:47:43] carry forward. Um, we put in some
[2:47:47] scenario to kind of help us plan for
[2:47:49] FY27.
[2:47:50] What if we collected the same amount?
[2:47:53] What if we collect 10% more or less than
[2:47:55] 10%? What would happen? And then Mike uh
[2:47:59] also did his um calculation forecast to
[2:48:02] help us figure out out of those three
[2:48:04] scenario where we most likely will land
[2:48:07] in term of the revenue collection
[2:48:08] itself. Um so it might seem to think
[2:48:12] that we will most likely in these two
[2:48:15] scenario where our base will be about
[2:48:17] 2.78 million plus or minus 200k.
[2:48:22] So with those two scenario we're kind of
[2:48:25] looking at a
[2:48:28] deficit um if we continue drawing at the
[2:48:31] 3.3271
[2:48:33] 100 um that was given in terropriations.
[2:48:37] So that 1.184
[2:48:40] 1.18 million that you see we carry
[2:48:42] forward um will net between um 958K
[2:48:48] to 1.1 million
[2:48:52] just from that. Okay.
[2:48:54] >> So this is complicated. So I'm going to
[2:48:57] try to go through it again because I I
[2:48:59] do this really so I can understand it as
[2:49:02] well.
[2:49:04] um our appropriation is 3.27 million out
[2:49:09] of our restricted account.
[2:49:12] So whether this much money comes in or
[2:49:16] not, 811k a quarter gets pushed into our
[2:49:20] account.
[2:49:22] So if only
[2:49:27] 2.684 684 comes in through those mineral
[2:49:30] lease and severance funds, there's a
[2:49:34] deficit and we have to pay that back at
[2:49:37] the end of the year. So, we have to have
[2:49:41] enough carryover
[2:49:43] to
[2:49:45] uh you know adjust this balance, right?
[2:49:49] Or we request a change in our
[2:49:51] appropriation.
[2:49:53] And um since Lacy's here, I'll just say
[2:49:56] we're watching this and so we're not
[2:49:59] going to make a request right now, but
[2:50:02] by December maybe we may have a better
[2:50:04] idea of where we stand. Um Mike has this
[2:50:08] kind of uh very complicated
[2:50:12] method for tracking what is really
[2:50:16] happening in industry that drives this
[2:50:19] on the revenue side. And so he's able to
[2:50:22] give us kind of a, you know, he gets his
[2:50:25] Ouija board out and his crystal ball and
[2:50:28] shakes them all up together and gives us
[2:50:30] kind of a ballpark figure of where he
[2:50:32] thinks that min release is going to come
[2:50:34] in or the restricted account is going to
[2:50:37] come in for the year. We try to budget
[2:50:41] to this,
[2:50:43] not to that. Because if we budget to
[2:50:46] that, we may be over by about $500,000.
[2:50:50] And that's a lot in our in our little
[2:50:52] budget, right? So, um so we either plan
[2:50:57] on having um enough money to, you know,
[2:51:01] have additional carryover, right?
[2:51:03] Ideally, we'd like to be using our
[2:51:04] restricted account to keep money in
[2:51:07] reserve. That's the goal. But there's
[2:51:09] been an offset with industry since our
[2:51:12] appropriation was set about what revenue
[2:51:14] actually comes in.
[2:51:17] Maybe just a little bit more background
[2:51:19] especially for newer board members. Um
[2:51:22] we have Utah Geological Survey has
[2:51:24] gotten mineral federal mineral lease
[2:51:27] royalties for a very long time. Um which
[2:51:31] is great. We did a certain percentage,
[2:51:34] but it's complicates our budgeting
[2:51:38] because that number is so uncertain
[2:51:40] because it's based off of commodity
[2:51:42] values. And what really drives it is oil
[2:51:45] and gas and the price of oil and gas.
[2:51:48] So we try to calculate or predict oil
[2:51:52] and gas production on federal lands and
[2:51:54] the price of oil and gas to try to
[2:51:56] [snorts] determine how much money we're
[2:51:57] going to get each year
[2:52:00] to varying degrees of success.
[2:52:04] Then a couple years ago, two or three
[2:52:06] years ago, we started to receive
[2:52:09] additional money into our restricted
[2:52:11] account from state seance tax. Uh so
[2:52:14] that comes from oil and gas, but it also
[2:52:17] comes from money. So it's a little bit
[2:52:20] more diversified out of money. So it's
[2:52:24] from mineral commodities produced
[2:52:26] anywhere in Utah. Whereas the mineral
[2:52:28] lease is only mineral commodities
[2:52:30] produced on federal land. So like think
[2:52:33] of Kakott. We never got any mineral
[2:52:36] lease money from Kakott because Kakott's
[2:52:39] private land. But now we get some money
[2:52:42] from Kakott because they pay minerals
[2:52:45] tax.
[2:52:47] So now we have two unpredictable amounts
[2:52:50] that we try to have to forecast
[2:52:52] severance tax is also based on the value
[2:52:56] of the production. Um luckily the
[2:52:59] formula for how much money we get in
[2:53:02] severance tax is based on or historic
[2:53:05] events. So we can use historic data and
[2:53:10] then use that to calculate mineral lease
[2:53:12] or separates tax for say this year.
[2:53:15] Mineral lease is more of a a real time
[2:53:19] thing to predict. So that's where this
[2:53:22] 2.68
[2:53:24] million comes from. Those two pots of
[2:53:27] money coming into this account from
[2:53:30] those two sources.
[2:53:33] And again, we try to predict what that's
[2:53:36] going to be for the entire fiscal year.
[2:53:39] Um, we get mineral lease checks monthly.
[2:53:43] So, every month once we get check, I
[2:53:46] review all my numbers and update them as
[2:53:49] needed,
[2:53:50] >> which is this number that my talk about.
[2:53:52] So, every month my would do his
[2:53:54] calculation. He'll send it back to he
[2:53:56] say it's going to be this instead of
[2:53:58] that.
[2:54:00] So just last week I tried to calculate
[2:54:03] the what we're going to get for fiscal
[2:54:05] year 27 and landed on that down at the
[2:54:08] bottom that 2.78 million from both
[2:54:12] severance and release.
[2:54:14] >> So instead of 2.6 six because this is
[2:54:17] right now we just take okay what if it's
[2:54:20] this year's the way it is this year 10%
[2:54:24] and this is what Mike uh mentioning that
[2:54:27] it possibly be in FY207
[2:54:31] 2.78 plus or minus 200k
[2:54:35] >> so that that's that's basically at break
[2:54:37] even for our restricted account so in
[2:54:40] terms but remember we started with a
[2:54:43] little bit in our account so there is an
[2:54:46] opportunity when we get to like you know
[2:54:48] maybe December if we if we do feel like
[2:54:50] our budget is pretty healthy and have
[2:54:52] any carryover [snorts]
[2:54:54] maybe we want to adjust that
[2:54:55] appropriation downwards for the year so
[2:54:58] that we can retain some money in our
[2:55:00] restricted account and actually start
[2:55:03] you know using it to to have a little
[2:55:05] bit more cushion. Any carryover is a
[2:55:08] great cushion for us. It gives us
[2:55:10] resilience. Um, you know, there's still
[2:55:13] a lot of uncertainty out there with
[2:55:14] federal government and all that kind of
[2:55:16] stuff. So, we definitely want to have
[2:55:18] that cushion. Um, again, we're being
[2:55:21] really careful about staffing um and the
[2:55:24] rest of our expenses. So, we're just
[2:55:26] kind of in measure and monitor mode, but
[2:55:29] this picture that WIN has built really
[2:55:31] helps us understand where we sit and
[2:55:34] where we're going. So, it's great
[2:55:36] guidance for us.
[2:55:39] >> Anything else you want to add?
[2:55:41] I just say again going back to the
[2:55:43] unpredictability having a restricted
[2:55:46] account removes some of the the
[2:55:49] uncertainty and
[2:55:52] within plugging that money into our
[2:55:54] budget because now we can take money
[2:55:56] from year to year whereas in the past
[2:55:58] the mineral lease we had to spend it
[2:56:01] that year and if I predicted 1.5 but and
[2:56:06] we get three million
[2:56:08] >> get swept away
[2:56:09] >> it gets swept. dur the end of the year
[2:56:11] we're like how can we spend $500 fast
[2:56:15] >> now now we don't necessarily have that
[2:56:18] problem because we have a a mechanism to
[2:56:20] carry that forward but we're we're still
[2:56:23] kind of caught in the unpredictability
[2:56:27] that in say 2015 price of oil and gas
[2:56:32] crashed kind of unexpectedly and wiped
[2:56:36] out $2 million from mineral lease that
[2:56:38] we thought we were going to get All of a
[2:56:39] sudden, a couple months later, we're not
[2:56:42] getting $2 million. And for a UGS budget
[2:56:45] at the time, which was like 10 million,
[2:56:48] losing $2 million overnight, and our
[2:56:51] staffing takes up 90% of our budget,
[2:56:54] that's a huge deal. So, that's why we
[2:56:58] had that's illustrates the importance of
[2:57:01] having that carry forward
[2:57:04] and paying attention and doing good
[2:57:06] budgeting and being good finance.
[2:57:09] Um and that kind of leading into was
[2:57:12] just the same thing for the following
[2:57:14] year that we need to have a healthy uh
[2:57:17] carry forward or do something with our
[2:57:20] budget. Um cuz FY26 we had a balance to
[2:57:24] be with. FY27 we had a beginning balance
[2:57:29] to be with. FY28 we not sure whether
[2:57:33] there'll be a beginning balance in the
[2:57:35] district yet. So then we'll have to be
[2:57:38] um enter cautions. Um not to be worried.
[2:57:42] This is not to be alarming. We are
[2:57:44] starting to go and do our operating
[2:57:46] budget next week with our staff and that
[2:57:49] will inform us what would it take to run
[2:57:53] the um UTS FY20
[2:57:58] seven. Um, also it's very assuring for
[2:58:01] me because a lot of our managers not
[2:58:04] only plan out for their staff with the
[2:58:06] workload and the grant for FY27. Many of
[2:58:10] the managers had plan out two or three
[2:58:13] years. If they staff me just inform me
[2:58:16] that see no two years out for her staff
[2:58:20] and when you talk to groundwater a lot
[2:58:22] of the manager know and they have grand
[2:58:26] or upcoming work for three years. So now
[2:58:30] after this my work is to go and gather
[2:58:32] all that data together to help us then
[2:58:35] plan ahead FY 27 and FY28.
[2:58:41] Um
[2:58:43] okay.
[2:58:45] Um and then yesterday during staff
[2:58:47] meeting I'm mentioned to staff that he
[2:58:50] has a kind of a life cycle of the
[2:58:52] outside funding so that everybody know
[2:58:55] that even though there's a lot of
[2:58:56] opportunity that people see when they do
[2:58:59] the grant proposal at the end of the day
[2:59:01] it's all about deliver get it and on
[2:59:05] time on budget so that actually collect
[2:59:08] the outside funding um as we plan um so
[2:59:12] staff is aware of that. We also show
[2:59:14] them that here are kind of the thought
[2:59:16] of like scope the brand accurately. Um
[2:59:22] check the remaining budget regularly and
[2:59:24] making sure that there's still budget
[2:59:26] and then don't charge to a program or
[2:59:30] project that doesn't have any funding.
[2:59:32] Work with their managers to scope it
[2:59:34] right and that would also help with our
[2:59:36] budget. So, we do everything we can
[2:59:39] internally to kind of making sure that
[2:59:41] we proactively plan for and then
[2:59:44] managing our budget. Um, as you see, we
[2:59:48] do a lot of great work here and there
[2:59:50] just not enough funding to do everything
[2:59:52] that we want to do and our staff are
[2:59:54] incredibly intelligent and smart and
[2:59:57] they have a great lots of great ideas.
[2:59:59] So, uh Ben will then walk you through
[3:00:02] the next component about the program and
[3:00:05] project.
[3:00:07] So for for a lot of our staff these last this financial picture you
[3:00:13] know when delivered a simplified version
[3:00:15] of this to our staff yesterday but these
[3:00:17] last two slides about you know project
[3:00:20] delivery
[3:00:22] um and you know you guys have come from
[3:00:25] the consulting world right so this you
[3:00:28] know revenue collection and recognition
[3:00:31] whip
[3:00:32] um you know actually project delivery
[3:00:35] this is like beat into our heads all the
[3:00:37] time. If you come from consulting, this
[3:00:40] snapshot of where they sit in this and
[3:00:43] how this drives and contributes to our
[3:00:46] financial health, it's probably more, I
[3:00:49] guess, information than they've probably
[3:00:53] had insight into in the past. So, we're
[3:00:56] trying to really coach our staff about
[3:00:58] how the work that they do and the
[3:01:00] importance of as something as simple as
[3:01:01] how they fill out their time sheet
[3:01:04] really contributes to our financial
[3:01:06] health. And I'm not sure that that focus
[3:01:09] was really solidly in place um you know
[3:01:13] under prior leadership, but we're really
[3:01:16] building that now and it has made a huge
[3:01:18] turnaround in our financial health
[3:01:20] already. So, we just kind of continue to
[3:01:23] try to um give our staff some insights
[3:01:26] into where they sit with um with their
[3:01:30] contribution to not only the science
[3:01:32] that we do, but the financial health of
[3:01:34] our organization. And so, these are
[3:01:36] really clear, you know, kind of
[3:01:38] directives from our finance team that
[3:01:41] leaves into Ben.
[3:01:42] >> I think as an addendum to that, a lot of
[3:01:43] our staff has been in academia or
[3:01:45] research. They've never really had to
[3:01:47] deal with the financial component their
[3:01:48] projects. I think the financial project
[3:01:50] management aspect has been somewhat
[3:01:52] lacking. Win is an excellent
[3:01:54] communicator and I think is really
[3:01:55] helping to break down some of those
[3:01:56] issues. I think we're only going to
[3:01:58] continue to see improved discipline and
[3:02:01] billing from our staff. I think folks
[3:02:03] are starting to really understand
[3:02:04] financial health part of the science as
[3:02:07] well, not just doing the science. So I'm
[3:02:09] going to give a slightly larger uh drill
[3:02:12] down view of of some of what just went
[3:02:15] over. So I manage the outside revenue
[3:02:18] collection for UGS. We have about 55 to
[3:02:21] 65 active projects at any given time.
[3:02:23] Right now it's about 20 federal
[3:02:25] projects, about 30 to 35 state level
[3:02:27] projects, and then another handful of
[3:02:29] projects with private companies. So all
[3:02:31] of that we have to guess at the start of
[3:02:33] the year how much do we think we're
[3:02:35] actually going to earn from our
[3:02:36] projects. When I first got to UGS, there
[3:02:39] was a somewhat systemic issue that we
[3:02:41] would consistently underp project or
[3:02:44] we'd overp project by about 15 to 20%.
[3:02:46] At the end of the year, we would have
[3:02:48] collected 15 to 20% less revenue than
[3:02:50] we'd anticipated. Since we've started to
[3:02:53] put some financial controls in place and
[3:02:54] worked with our managers, we've gotten
[3:02:56] much much better. This has been the best
[3:02:59] year since I got to UGS. We collected
[3:03:01] 96% of what we thought we would when it
[3:03:03] came to revenue. On the left side here,
[3:03:05] we have what we thought would happen at
[3:03:07] the very start of fiscal year. We
[3:03:09] thought we'd do about 2.5 million in
[3:03:11] revenue for federal grants, about 2.4
[3:03:13] million in revenue for state grants
[3:03:16] known as transfers. We do just under
[3:03:18] $400,000 in dedicated credits, which are
[3:03:20] more or less the sale of services to
[3:03:22] private companies and about $160,000 in
[3:03:25] expendable receipts, which are similar
[3:03:27] to dedicated credits, but the difference
[3:03:28] is not worth getting into.
[3:03:31] At the end of the year, we'd collected
[3:03:32] 5.3 out of our projected $5.5 million.
[3:03:36] This was the highest ever revenue year
[3:03:37] for UGS. Last year, fiscal year 25 was
[3:03:40] the previous high at about 4.3 million.
[3:03:43] So, we surpassed that significantly.
[3:03:45] Granted, a lot of that was passed
[3:03:47] through money where we received a grant
[3:03:49] and passed money down to a collaborator.
[3:03:51] We don't necessarily earn on that, but
[3:03:53] it's still important to understand the
[3:03:54] scope and the scale of some of these
[3:03:56] projects. 5.3 million is a huge step
[3:03:59] increase for UGS. We collected the 5.3.
[3:04:03] It shifted a little bit from what we
[3:04:04] thought at the start of the year. We
[3:04:06] actually did a little bit more work for
[3:04:07] state contracts. We collected 2.6
[3:04:09] million in transfer funds, only about
[3:04:12] 2.2 2.3 in federal grants, but that's
[3:04:14] fine because those are ongoing. We
[3:04:16] didn't lose any opportunities there. And
[3:04:18] then dedicated credits uh were well
[3:04:20] below at only about $160,000 and about
[3:04:25] 246 for expendable receipts. This was a
[3:04:28] really strong year financially for UGS.
[3:04:30] Our staff got much better at time sheet
[3:04:32] discipline. We got much better at
[3:04:33] billing to the projects and stopping
[3:04:35] once they were over build. And it just
[3:04:38] feels like everything is tightening up a
[3:04:40] little bit. So for my role, these are
[3:04:43] the two numbers I kind of think the most
[3:04:44] about. Where are we saying we're going
[3:04:46] to be at the start of the year and where
[3:04:47] do we actually finish? So to get to that
[3:04:50] $1.2 million of carryover every year
[3:04:52] that keeps our budget healthy, it's
[3:04:54] really important that we stay on top of
[3:04:56] our outside awards.
[3:04:58] Another critical part of our budget is
[3:05:01] our grant match. We have all of these
[3:05:03] awards, but they're not all free. We're
[3:05:06] trying to chase smart money. We want to
[3:05:07] find projects where we're paying into
[3:05:09] the the project as little as possible.
[3:05:12] In the past, our grant match got up to
[3:05:14] as high as $1.2 million. So, this means
[3:05:17] out of that allotted $6 million general
[3:05:19] funds, we're already committing 1.2 to
[3:05:22] grants. That means that if we have any
[3:05:24] projects we want to pursue that aren't
[3:05:26] necessarily funded by an outside ward,
[3:05:28] we have $1.2 million less to pursue
[3:05:31] those. Whether that's staff going to
[3:05:32] conferences, presenting, doing uh
[3:05:35] science that is not necessarily funded
[3:05:36] by an outside award, a trench study
[3:05:38] somewhere in the state. We reduce that
[3:05:40] capacity by $1.2 million. Over the last
[3:05:43] couple years, we've instituted go no-go
[3:05:46] kickoff meetings prior to a pro project
[3:05:48] application. We've tried to chase smart
[3:05:50] money, a grant where we pay 50% cost
[3:05:53] share and don't receive our full
[3:05:55] indirect rate is not something that
[3:05:57] makes sense economically for us. We have
[3:05:59] to find projects that not only match the
[3:06:01] mission and scope of the UGS but make
[3:06:04] sense financially and we've gotten a lot
[3:06:06] better. So you can see on the left side
[3:06:08] of this graph that is our scale for
[3:06:10] match. The y- axis shows how much we are
[3:06:13] uh paying out of general funds for match
[3:06:15] and uh on the right side the y- axis is
[3:06:18] our revenue. Revenue in green match in
[3:06:20] red. Over the last few years, revenue
[3:06:22] has increased significantly from about
[3:06:25] $2.3 million to now about $5.3 million.
[3:06:29] Massive increase. Our grant match over
[3:06:31] that time has fluctuated, but we have
[3:06:32] brought it down from the high of $1.2
[3:06:34] million to this year we were just above
[3:06:37] $400,000 of grant match. That is now an
[3:06:39] additional $800,000 in our general funds
[3:06:42] we are not using and can be applied to
[3:06:44] other projects, can be applied to retain
[3:06:46] talent, hire good talent, and expand our
[3:06:48] operations. Reducing match is almost
[3:06:51] like finding new revenue. I see this is
[3:06:53] more or less $800,000 in additional
[3:06:55] revenue for EGS. I think in terms of our
[3:06:59] financial health, this is one of the
[3:07:00] most impactful things we've done in the
[3:07:02] last few years. This is a lot of cost
[3:07:05] savings. We're very proud of this. Our
[3:07:07] go no-go meetings have been great. Staff
[3:07:09] has gotten a little bit better at
[3:07:10] scoping projects and I think we're a
[3:07:12] little bit tighter when it comes to
[3:07:13] following our mission. We have a lot of
[3:07:16] grants. Don't want people's eyes to
[3:07:17] glaze over. I only want to show these
[3:07:19] two kind of primary big numbers because
[3:07:21] I think these kind of the best KPIs for
[3:07:24] our grant and outside program financial
[3:07:26] health. Stop there. Questions, concerns?
[3:07:32] >> Yes.
[3:07:32] >> What kind of leverage are you typically
[3:07:34] looking for for a match? Like $2 to one,
[3:07:37] three to one.
[3:07:38] >> So in the last couple years, we've
[3:07:41] gotten a lot of grants that have 0% cost
[3:07:43] share for us. Earth MRI is a great
[3:07:45] example of that. A lot of the money that
[3:07:47] Mike and his team gets from DOE is
[3:07:49] between zero and 20% cost share. 20%
[3:07:53] seems to be about the sweet spot for us.
[3:07:55] There's some state level contracts
[3:07:56] where, you know, we want to be good
[3:07:59] collaborators with other sister
[3:08:00] divisions. We'll throw in 50% match, but
[3:08:03] for the most part, 20 is about what
[3:08:05] we're aiming for. And with our full GNA,
[3:08:09] >> which grants have we been passing
[3:08:12] >> that we were doing that that we've cut
[3:08:13] out? I think our emphasis on finding
[3:08:16] smart money has made our job a lot
[3:08:18] easier. Staff aren't bringing grants to
[3:08:20] us at this point that have a 50% cost
[3:08:22] share and limited GNA. We've turned down
[3:08:24] I think one maybe two projects that just
[3:08:26] felt more out of mission than out of
[3:08:29] financial compliance.
[3:08:31] >> I will say a lot of that PE the real
[3:08:33] high match period that was related to
[3:08:35] data preservation
[3:08:37] >> of one particular grant that had a
[3:08:39] really high ceiling for a couple of
[3:08:40] years. I was
[3:08:41] >> it's expensive money. It is expensive
[3:08:44] money for
[3:08:45] >> for what it is. Um, we do still go I
[3:08:48] will make just because I'm a state map
[3:08:50] person I will put out there that we
[3:08:52] still go after things like state map
[3:08:54] which
[3:08:55] >> 50
[3:08:55] >> is 5050 and a reduced GNA but the thing
[3:08:58] about something like state map is we
[3:09:00] can't it is probably the most
[3:09:03] missionoriented
[3:09:04] >> it is opportunity that we have and it's
[3:09:07] like a Swiss army knife it gives us
[3:09:09] money to do things that are foundational
[3:09:11] to the survey all over that there's no
[3:09:13] other way to pay for it and so there's
[3:09:14] always going to be things like that that
[3:09:16] we're gonna go do. Um,
[3:09:18] >> absolutely.
[3:09:19] >> But it's being choosy.
[3:09:20] >> It's being smart about it, right? And we
[3:09:22] want to have room in our budget for
[3:09:25] projects like State Math. We want to
[3:09:27] have room in our projects for data
[3:09:29] preservation, right? Which is also a 50%
[3:09:32] grant, but maybe not $700,000
[3:09:35] in match to scan aerial photos, right?
[3:09:39] Again, the questions I want to hear from
[3:09:41] our staff when they bring a grant
[3:09:43] proposal to us is, is it strategic? It
[3:09:47] is, is it in line with our statutory
[3:09:50] responsibilities, right? How expensive
[3:09:53] of the match is it? Right? Are we
[3:09:56] looking at 50% match, 20% match, 10%
[3:09:59] match, nothing? What's our GNA on this?
[3:10:02] do we have the staff bandwidth to
[3:10:04] actually get this work done or are you
[3:10:07] bringing this and saying I'm going to
[3:10:08] need to hire three people which I think
[3:10:10] when we brought you know a lot of these
[3:10:12] big data preservation grants in we hired
[3:10:14] like five people we're going to be
[3:10:16] really really really careful about doing
[3:10:18] that um so so it's just kind of like
[3:10:22] because there is an opportunity cost to
[3:10:25] us when we allocate $1.2 2 million in
[3:10:28] match. There is an opportunity cost for
[3:10:31] that and we need to be sure that we're
[3:10:33] deploying that money, you know, in
[3:10:36] alignment with what our responsibilities
[3:10:37] are to the state. Are we answering the
[3:10:39] mail with what the state needs from us?
[3:10:42] And so I think these go no-go kickoffs
[3:10:45] have been really kind of a gamecher for
[3:10:47] us. People are thinking through their
[3:10:49] project opportunities.
[3:10:52] uh we're mapping out, you know, in some
[3:10:54] of these some of these groundwater
[3:10:55] wetlands, you know, projects have like
[3:10:57] two to three years of staff, you know,
[3:11:00] contribution, right? So, we're mapping
[3:11:03] out into 2030 at this point for some of
[3:11:05] these grants. And so, we're looking at,
[3:11:08] you know, when you start adding up those
[3:11:10] staff hours, we can start to see really
[3:11:13] quickly, well, is this person going to
[3:11:14] get overcommitted in 2028? And what does
[3:11:17] that mean? We have also used this as an
[3:11:20] opportunity to make sure that some of
[3:11:23] our other project contributors are
[3:11:24] included in the funding. Our data
[3:11:26] [clears throat] management team has done
[3:11:28] a lot of heavy lifting on projects.
[3:11:30] Those their costs were not originally
[3:11:33] included in a lot of our grants. And so
[3:11:36] we've brought in the data management
[3:11:37] team and their piece of it into the
[3:11:39] funding to the point where our data
[3:11:41] management team is now 30% grantf funded
[3:11:44] because their piece of the work and
[3:11:47] creating the databases behind it and
[3:11:49] pushing out, you know, websites and
[3:11:51] stuff is now acknowledged in that grant.
[3:11:53] It's covered in the grant costs and so
[3:11:56] their work is now being funded as well.
[3:11:58] So we're just a lot smarter and we're
[3:12:00] bringing in kind of the whole pieces of
[3:12:02] the project. So this has been great for
[3:12:04] our financial outlook. Um yeah what to
[3:12:09] say about it?
[3:12:11] >> What is a go what does a you know go
[3:12:13] no-go meeting look like? Is that a
[3:12:14] dedicated committee for certain areas or
[3:12:16] for the whole UGS?
[3:12:18] >> It's almost like investment committee
[3:12:19] for a a funding body. We sit down with
[3:12:22] the leadership team. We have the uh
[3:12:25] principal investigator for the project
[3:12:26] come in their manager. They've been
[3:12:28] putting together powerpoints which has
[3:12:30] made it a lot easier.
[3:12:31] >> Yeah. pretty much a pitch deck. Um, we
[3:12:33] sit down, we go over the project, who's
[3:12:35] working on it, how many hours, what do
[3:12:37] their hours, budgets look like for the
[3:12:38] next couple of fiscal years, does this
[3:12:40] make sense? Is this project on scope? Is
[3:12:43] the science that is a priority for us
[3:12:45] and for the state? We pretty much go
[3:12:47] through a couple of different points
[3:12:48] there and then say, okay, is this a
[3:12:50] project that makes sense for us to
[3:12:51] pursue? And UGS has a pretty darn good
[3:12:54] track record when it comes to applying
[3:12:55] for and winning projects, probably 80 to
[3:12:58] 90%. So, we try and start as early as we
[3:13:01] can. Is this smart money? Is this a
[3:13:03] smart project? So, we sit down. There's
[3:13:06] usually five or so of us in the room,
[3:13:08] and it's a pretty good discussion.
[3:13:11] [clears throat] I like that staff takes
[3:13:12] it really seriously. It
[3:13:14] >> they come they come pretty well prepared
[3:13:16] for this. So, and and Ben's usually had
[3:13:18] a peek at the budget already, kind of
[3:13:20] helped them kind of stack the budget.
[3:13:22] So, he's usually already got some
[3:13:23] insider info. I've usually buzz in the
[3:13:26] office about an opportunity. There's
[3:13:27] been a couple that have, you know, have
[3:13:29] been kind of concerned. So, um, we're
[3:13:32] careful.
[3:13:32] >> Yeah, we have passed on things, right?
[3:13:34] We have,
[3:13:35] >> we have passed on things.
[3:13:36] >> By and large, the majority of these are
[3:13:38] approved, but we have passed on things.
[3:13:39] >> Passed on a few things. I'm also, this
[3:13:41] is where I've, you know, from doing
[3:13:44] these where I mean, Stephen Odd was
[3:13:46] hired into our wetlands team because I
[3:13:48] looked at, you know, Becca is our our
[3:13:50] wetlands manager and I looked at her
[3:13:52] team and the work that they had coming
[3:13:54] and I was like, you're going to need
[3:13:55] some help here, right? So, you're going
[3:13:58] to need some help. We've been watching
[3:13:59] Christian's workload with geothermal.
[3:14:02] And you know, Mike was like, "If these
[3:14:04] two projects land, and you just saw them
[3:14:06] on your proposal list, two big DOE
[3:14:08] projects, if they land, we're going to
[3:14:10] need some help." So, we're actually
[3:14:12] reallocating one staff person who's
[3:14:14] internal here. She's a TL, moving that
[3:14:17] person into the ENM team to support that
[3:14:20] as well as probably advertising a
[3:14:21] project geologist position to help help
[3:14:24] that team as well. So, yeah, if we can
[3:14:27] redeploy staff, we will. So, um, but
[3:14:30] yeah, I think they've been they've
[3:14:32] really helped us. And for me as a
[3:14:34] director, it also connects me to the
[3:14:37] project work that people are doing. I
[3:14:40] understand more about what's out there,
[3:14:42] you know, and and what type of work
[3:14:44] we're doing and what's driving that.
[3:14:49] » Any other questions about our finances?
[3:14:52] >> Thank you.
[3:14:53] >> Okay. Thanks everybody. Thanks you guys.
[3:14:55] Uh, we won't, you know, again, this is
[3:14:57] kind of a year end closeout. Um, we
[3:15:00] won't have uh too
[3:15:04] much of some in-depth financial reports
[3:15:06] for the next little while. Um, so I'll
[3:15:09] move to our next item. Oh, I meant to
[3:15:11] talk about this while Brian was here,
[3:15:13] but we got so caught up in talking about
[3:15:14] everything else. We are recruiting an
[3:15:17] additional board member. Um this was uh
[3:15:20] a result of um the statutory intent
[3:15:24] language change that we requested last
[3:15:27] year to add a groundwater resources
[3:15:29] member. Um we were going to swap that
[3:15:31] out for a mineral seat. Um Brian
[3:15:35] actually pushed back and you know to the
[3:15:37] legislature and was like I don't want to
[3:15:39] lose a mineral seat. Let's add a seat to
[3:15:42] board. So, um, we are, uh, recruiting a
[3:15:47] replacement now for this mineral
[3:15:49] industry openc. So, I'll just put it out
[3:15:52] to you guys. Um, after our board field
[3:15:54] trip, which we're going to talk about
[3:15:56] next, um, we will begin kind of
[3:15:59] campassing. If you have people that you
[3:16:00] think would make uh great board members,
[3:16:03] ideally someone who is connected to the
[3:16:06] minerals industry on the exploration
[3:16:08] side, so they can really help us
[3:16:11] understand, you know, that industry and
[3:16:14] what they need from UGS. So, just kind
[3:16:17] of put that out there. I know you guys
[3:16:19] all know people. So, um and we'll we'll
[3:16:22] work with Brian to kind of get that out
[3:16:24] there also.
[3:16:27] And
[3:16:28] >> so so not industrial minerals.
[3:16:32] >> So not industrial minerals. What did I
[3:16:35] say? Did I say industrial minerals?
[3:16:38] >> Yeah, we
[3:16:39] >> Yes, industrial minerals. Oh,
[3:16:41] industrial. Okay,
[3:16:42] >> I think that was
[3:16:43] >> not metallic. Yes,
[3:16:45] >> sort of.
[3:16:45] >> Okay. Yeah, we are looking for somebody
[3:16:47] and that was discussed in our last board
[3:16:49] meeting here about you know where where
[3:16:52] should we fill that seat and you know
[3:16:55] looking at the current makeup of our
[3:16:57] board which I love. I think we have I
[3:16:59] think we have a lot of you know the
[3:17:01] industries that we work with pretty well
[3:17:03] covered. So our agreement was to look on
[3:17:05] the industrial side
[3:17:09] and we will look for your help with
[3:17:12] that.
[3:17:14] Okay, just two more topics here. Um, our
[3:17:17] field trip overview and then let's take
[3:17:19] a look after this at our 2027 board
[3:17:22] meeting dates. So, if you remember our
[3:17:25] field trip is the 7th, 8th, and 9th.
[3:17:29] >> So, two nights.
[3:17:30] >> Yeah, a little longer one this year, I
[3:17:32] think. Has everybody
[3:17:34] >> has everybody RSVPd and
[3:17:37] >> Okay.
[3:17:37] >> got reservations. So, this is this one's
[3:17:39] a unique opportunity. We're kind of
[3:17:41] leaning in. Um, so we're the board
[3:17:43] members will fly down to Cayana on the
[3:17:46] state plane. We've got that book. It's moderately affordable. Um, we'll have a a ground crew that'll meet
[3:17:53] you guys in Cayana, which is just south
[3:17:56] of the Utah line in northern Arizona
[3:17:58] near Monument Valley. And then that
[3:18:00] first day, we're going to drive up into
[3:18:02] the Utah part of Monument Valley, and
[3:18:04] we're going to look at the old Jetto 7
[3:18:06] and a half quads and the geology there.
[3:18:08] Uh we'll do we'll do basically typical
[3:18:11] field geology. We're going to hike
[3:18:12] through the permo triacic section. We're
[3:18:14] going to talk scoscience.
[3:18:17] Basically there are some resource
[3:18:19] related issues down there related to
[3:18:21] uranium that we'll deal with. That'll be
[3:18:23] the majority of our first day. Um when
[3:18:26] we're done walking around on the ground
[3:18:28] in Alta, we will get in the vehicles and
[3:18:30] we'll start to head north. Uh we'll
[3:18:32] probably have one intermediary stop in
[3:18:35] Mexican hat and we'll talk about
[3:18:36] pictorile history there and strategraphy
[3:18:39] a little bit bathroom break. Um we will
[3:18:42] likely have dinner in Bluff. Our best
[3:18:45] options are in Bluff. So we'll stop and
[3:18:47] have dinner before we get to the hotel
[3:18:49] in Blanding. Stay up in Blanding at the
[3:18:51] Stone Lizard which is a really nice
[3:18:53] hotel. um wake up in Blanding and then
[3:18:56] the next day uh we wanted to focus on
[3:18:59] start on resources basically and I was I
[3:19:02] was hoping to do most of that day in
[3:19:04] Lisbon Valley with Mike Mike's volunteer
[3:19:06] to help us out with that potentially go
[3:19:09] to the Mi Vita uranium mine and then
[3:19:12] also the copper mine there. Um and then
[3:19:15] also some overview kind of regional
[3:19:17] geology. Uh there we have that critical
[3:19:20] minerals mill is still on there. We
[3:19:22] tried to remove that yesterday. Um, that
[3:19:24] is an option that I guess if the board
[3:19:26] is really interested in, maybe we could
[3:19:28] tour the White Mesa Mill in Blanding,
[3:19:31] but it would really cut into our ability
[3:19:32] to go to Lisbon Valley and spend time
[3:19:34] there. So, I would I think we would have
[3:19:37] to choose [clears throat] either White
[3:19:39] Mesa or the Copper Mine.
[3:19:41] >> Yeah, sorry. We edited this slide
[3:19:43] yesterday to to take the
[3:19:45] >> Yeah, that should actually be in there.
[3:19:47] Um,
[3:19:47] >> so Lisbon Valley is also where the mine
[3:19:49] that Brian mentioned, the Mariana mine,
[3:19:52] um, new copper mine is as well. That
[3:19:54] copper name that Lisbon Valley copper
[3:19:56] mine's been rebranded.
[3:19:58] >> Yeah, we were leaning towards the copper
[3:20:01] mine just because it's a little bit more
[3:20:03] geology than seeing a processing mill.
[3:20:06] But I mean, this is the board feel.
[3:20:08] Yeah, that that's really what the point
[3:20:10] of this discussion here is what do you
[3:20:11] folks think about that? Are you okay
[3:20:13] with this idea of really making that
[3:20:15] second day focusing on Lisbon Valley and
[3:20:18] sort of Paradox Basin stuff near there?
[3:20:21] >> So, I'm unable to go, but I would
[3:20:23] recommend you guys go to the Copper
[3:20:25] Mine. They've done some cool things
[3:20:27] there.
[3:20:27] >> Oh, awesome. Thanks, Andy.
[3:20:30] Yeah,
[3:20:31] >> I'll take that as an affirmative towards
[3:20:34] >> I think it's better to go look in the
[3:20:36] field at the or body instead of a
[3:20:40] process.
[3:20:40] >> Yeah, that's the input I was hoping for.
[3:20:42] So, we'll just that will be formally
[3:20:44] scratched out at this stage. So, we
[3:20:45] really well focus at Lisbon Valley.
[3:20:47] We'll probably add in a stop or two
[3:20:49] related to strategraphy and then
[3:20:51] structure in the paradox basin. There's
[3:20:53] a couple good ones that we can tack on
[3:20:55] before and then after Lisbon Valley. So,
[3:20:57] we'll go to Lisbon Valley, tack on a
[3:20:59] couple stops, and then that evening,
[3:21:01] we'll end up in Moab. So, we'll be
[3:21:03] staying in Moab, dinner in Moab, and
[3:21:06] then wake up in Moab, and Friday will be
[3:21:08] our return day. Uh, I was talking with
[3:21:10] to Mike about this this morning. Um,
[3:21:14] Friday, we'll do a couple morning stops
[3:21:16] on Northern Paradox Basin Resources. So
[3:21:19] potentially a stop at the Big Flat Field
[3:21:21] which is on the way to Island in the Sky
[3:21:24] and then definitely a stop near Crystal
[3:21:26] Geyser at their site of recent cing and
[3:21:29] we'll bring along some of those cores,
[3:21:31] pull them out and talk about talk about
[3:21:34] that piece of work. And then after that
[3:21:37] we'll get in the vehicles and boogie
[3:21:39] back to Salt Lake so we can get you guys
[3:21:41] back here at 5 at the latest on Friday.
[3:21:45] >> So we got you for two nights this time.
[3:21:48] So, three, you know, three days, two
[3:21:50] pretty long days because we're going to
[3:21:51] ask you to meet at general radiation um
[3:21:55] at 8
[3:21:58] a.m.
[3:21:58] >> You'll also be driving through a lot of
[3:21:59] MOS and some of that recent MOS stuff,
[3:22:02] which is a huge interest right now in
[3:22:05] Eastern Utah. A lot of
[3:22:07] lease dollars.
[3:22:08] >> Yes. A
[3:22:08] >> lot of lease dollars that come to you
[3:22:10] guys,
[3:22:10] >> right?
[3:22:11] >> Yeah. You know, that's an that's an
[3:22:12] interesting comment because there is
[3:22:14] Kirkland has some stops that are that
[3:22:16] would be north of Green River that could
[3:22:18] be we might be able to tack one of those
[3:22:20] on
[3:22:20] >> depending on what you wanted to see if
[3:22:22] there's something right off the highway.
[3:22:24] >> That's a good idea.
[3:22:26] >> I found they have shark teeth, but
[3:22:27] they're also kind of
[3:22:28] >> there's some good photography in there.
[3:22:30] >> That could be a good idea. [laughter]
[3:22:31] >> That's a great suggestion.
[3:22:33] >> Um that's a that's our for our our board
[3:22:36] field trip this fall. We'll have more
[3:22:38] details coming up. We need to do some
[3:22:39] dry run and we've got some meetings to
[3:22:41] figure out some of the details, but I
[3:22:43] think we're all booked for rooms. We're
[3:22:45] booked for the plane and this general
[3:22:47] itinerary. So, it should be a good one.
[3:22:49] This is a really rare chance to go see
[3:22:51] this the Monument Valley geology on
[3:22:53] foot. It's really pretty. It's showy.
[3:22:56] And we've Matthew's got some new age
[3:22:58] information about that herotriacic
[3:23:00] contact and the units that join it or
[3:23:04] don't adjoin it. That's really
[3:23:05] interesting that he'll share.
[3:23:07] There's an important groundwater study
[3:23:09] um in Alento also you know one of the
[3:23:12] drivers for doing this mapping was to
[3:23:15] assist the Navajo Nation um with
[3:23:17] understanding their water resources
[3:23:20] there. So, a really key use of this
[3:23:24] mapping is to help, you know, a a
[3:23:27] community that's really, you know,
[3:23:30] challenged, uh, understand their water
[3:23:32] resources and make some pretty key
[3:23:34] decisions about where to spend some of
[3:23:36] their funds.
[3:23:37] >> We were really excited about this
[3:23:39] collaboration with the Navajo Nation for
[3:23:40] the Ghetto Quad. This is the first of
[3:23:42] its kind mapping on the nation. We went
[3:23:45] to them and said, "How can your
[3:23:46] priorities direct our science?" And they
[3:23:48] said, "We need help with groundwater."
[3:23:49] So, we actually put out a press release
[3:23:51] about this yesterday announcing the map
[3:23:53] is out and published. USGS has shared it
[3:23:55] broadly across their accounts. They're
[3:23:57] very proud of this collaboration. It's
[3:23:58] funded by the state map program. This is
[3:24:01] really really excellent work from UGS.
[3:24:03] Very jealous you folks are getting to go
[3:24:05] down and check it out.
[3:24:06] >> It's it's we've built a great
[3:24:08] relationship with them and we're it's
[3:24:09] one of the focal points of mapping going
[3:24:11] forward. We're really going to work on
[3:24:12] southeastern Utah to finish up those 30
[3:24:14] by60s bluff. will be starting on Bluff
[3:24:17] uh in part of the Bluff 30 by 60 in
[3:24:20] September.
[3:24:21] >> And to just close to close the loop on
[3:24:23] that, you know, grant match
[3:24:25] conversation,
[3:24:27] you know, for me as a director, that is
[3:24:30] a really great investment of our dollars
[3:24:34] is to support that 50% match for a
[3:24:37] project like that. That is where I like
[3:24:39] to see our general fund money, you know,
[3:24:41] being deployed. I can't think of a more,
[3:24:44] you know, strategically and statutoily
[3:24:48] important project than something like
[3:24:50] that where, you know, a community is
[3:24:52] able to use that mapping to make
[3:24:54] decisions about a really important
[3:24:55] resource.
[3:24:58] >> Okay. Well, look forward to that. Um,
[3:25:01] you guys don't have to bring your bed
[3:25:02] rolls like we did for Fish Springs. We
[3:25:04] get to eat out. We don't need coolers
[3:25:07] full of food. We saved a lot of money on
[3:25:09] that trip because we didn't pay hotel
[3:25:11] fees. So, we'll use it on this trip uh
[3:25:13] for the planes. Great investment. I'm
[3:25:15] really looking forward to the time we
[3:25:16] get to spend with you guys. So, okay,
[3:25:19] that brings us to future board meetings.
[3:25:22] We'll map these out. I asked Cheryl to
[3:25:24] put some suggested dates on here. This
[3:25:26] is basically based on what we've been
[3:25:29] doing in the past where we have our
[3:25:30] board meeting in the first week or two
[3:25:34] um of the month. I'm going to be honest
[3:25:37] with you that we have our staff meeting
[3:25:40] on the
[3:25:42] first or second Tuesday. Second Tuesday.
[3:25:45] And so what winds up happening is that
[3:25:48] I've got board meetings stacked on top
[3:25:50] of staff meeting. Our staff meeting was
[3:25:52] yesterday. And these are both um really
[3:25:55] important opportunities for us to engage
[3:25:58] with people. Right. I really like the
[3:25:59] opportunity to engage with our staff.
[3:26:01] Love the opportunity to engage with you.
[3:26:03] I'd like to suggest maybe we spread
[3:26:05] those out a little bit. Um, so we could
[3:26:08] look at doing our board meetings the
[3:26:11] third week of the month. This also puts
[3:26:14] us, you know, everybody's coming back
[3:26:17] from the holidays on this date and
[3:26:19] trying to remember what they do for a
[3:26:20] living. And um, so again, this is your
[3:26:24] meeting, so I'll let you guys kind of
[3:26:26] think about these dates. Um, but it
[3:26:28] would be great to, you know, calendar
[3:26:30] these and we can get them on your
[3:26:32] calendars. Um,
[3:26:34] >> 13 works better for me.
[3:26:35] >> And those are the first and second weeks
[3:26:37] of
[3:26:38] >> these are the first and second. So, you
[3:26:40] know, add a week, add a week, add a
[3:26:42] week.
[3:26:43] >> And we can go back and forth, too. We're
[3:26:45] not we're not carved into stone here.
[3:26:48] >> So, I I think I would say that I would
[3:26:51] offer a little later in each month
[3:26:53] generally will work better for us. We'll
[3:26:55] have less conflicts with uh our staff
[3:26:57] meeting or at least less stacking.
[3:26:59] There's not necessarily conflict just
[3:27:01] makes bunch of big meetings back to
[3:27:03] back.
[3:27:04] >> Does anybody have any conflicts later
[3:27:06] January 6?
[3:27:10] » Okay. What about the 20th?
[3:27:12] >> How about So yeah, do you want to check
[3:27:14] your calendars for the 20th? And Cheryl,
[3:27:16] will you
[3:27:18] and then Cheryl when we get some dates
[3:27:20] down
[3:27:22] invite so we block off your
[3:27:25] >> 20th
[3:27:27] >> works
[3:27:28] >> April 21 we just do it for all of them
[3:27:30] >> if you guys Okay. So January 20th,
[3:27:35] >> April 21,
[3:27:38] >> August 25th.
[3:27:39] >> So the important point here is that we'd
[3:27:41] be moving to the
[3:27:42] >> third day of the third week basically in
[3:27:45] the month.
[3:27:46] >> Mike brings up an an important point.
[3:27:48] >> Legislative session starts on 199.
[3:27:51] >> Legislative session starts on the 19th.
[3:27:54] >> Traditionally or historically, we
[3:27:55] haven't presented until the third week,
[3:27:57] >> but you never know.
[3:27:58] So there may be
[3:28:00] maybe we will have to consider an
[3:28:02] adjustment here of doing that board
[3:28:03] meeting right before the week before the
[3:28:05] legislature.
[3:28:09] » Nice.
[3:28:10] >> Yeah. Well, okay. Right. We we have the
[3:28:14] controller of presentation dates sitting
[3:28:17] here with us. So I would be are we do we
[3:28:21] need to be at that first meeting? It's
[3:28:24] just if you want to have the board
[3:28:26] meeting right at the start of the
[3:28:27] session or the week before the session,
[3:28:29] >> you probably don't need to be at that
[3:28:30] first session.
[3:28:32] >> I can be
[3:28:34] someone else can date.
[3:28:35] >> We can certainly find a way to cover it.
[3:28:36] Yeah.
[3:28:38] Do the board meeting. It's just whether
[3:28:40] we have
[3:28:40] >> We can just do that meeting on the 13th
[3:28:42] and
[3:28:42] >> and do the other ones on the third.
[3:28:44] >> What if we do this one on the 13th and
[3:28:46] do the rest of them on the third week?
[3:28:48] You guys okay on the 13th? Is that
[3:28:50] January?
[3:28:51] >> Yeah. And if we need to, we'll move
[3:28:53] staff meeting.
[3:28:55] >> Okay. January 13th. Neil, is that gonna
[3:28:58] be okay with whatever you had on?
[3:29:00] >> Yeah, I just have a conference on the
[3:29:02] 6th through like whatever the end of the
[3:29:03] week.
[3:29:04] >> Okay. Spending the morning with us on
[3:29:06] the 13th.
[3:29:08] >> Yeah, the 13th should be fine. That's
[3:29:09] the following week, correct?
[3:29:11] >> Yeah, that's okay.
[3:29:14] >> Okay. And in August, the 18th is
[3:29:16] actually the third week. Our staff
[3:29:18] meeting is the 10th. It starts beginning
[3:29:20] of the month. So, okay, the 25th would
[3:29:23] be the fourth week. That's fine if you
[3:29:24] want to do it then. Whatever.
[3:29:29] » Why don't we stick with that third week?
[3:29:32] >> Okay. So, January 13th January 13th,
[3:29:35] >> April 21st
[3:29:40] » and August 18th.
[3:29:44] » Yes.
[3:29:46] Okay. [clears throat]
[3:29:46] >> I'll send
[3:29:49] >> Okay. Thank you very much. Yeah.
[3:29:52] >> Uh and then board field trip. I don't
[3:29:53] know. Let's talk about it on this field
[3:29:55] trip. We'll talk about where where to
[3:29:56] take you guys.
[3:29:57] >> Los back. I'll put that out there. We've
[3:29:59] got a bunch of new stuff that's
[3:30:01] happened. What? It could be like Cash
[3:30:03] Valley and down more of a local trip.
[3:30:05] >> That's an option.
[3:30:06] >> I so much.
[3:30:08] >> I like it.
[3:30:09] >> Yeah. Little cheaper.
[3:30:11] >> Could be cheaper. Yeah. offset the cost
[3:30:14] [laughter]
[3:30:17] out over three three years. [laughter]
[3:30:20] >> So I I had one last point before we we
[3:30:23] formally close quickly. Um the geologic
[3:30:26] mapping group is overseen by a state map
[3:30:29] advisory councly
[3:30:32] Becky. Um she is more or less ready to
[3:30:37] step down from that role.
[3:30:39] >> Yeah. Well, I I want to say I've been
[3:30:42] the the chair of this map for six years.
[3:30:47] I keep thinking it's eight years because
[3:30:50] I was a member of this this map for two
[3:30:53] years uh when I was working and I thought, well, wait a minute.
[3:31:01] Okay, I've been a chair for six years.
[3:31:03] Well, maybe somebody else
[3:31:05] uh on the board would like the
[3:31:08] opportunity uh because
[3:31:12] it's fun, it's interesting, and now
[3:31:16] Stefan has it down to the science. I
[3:31:20] mean, the he's he's got the process
[3:31:23] worked out. It's it's efficient. Uh they
[3:31:28] get all their deliverables in on time.
[3:31:31] Uh, it's it's it's it's great. Um, so
[3:31:38] I thought just maybe it was time for me
[3:31:41] to see if anybody else would would like
[3:31:44] to do it.
[3:31:45] >> Yeah. And we've almost always had, well,
[3:31:47] I should say, as far as I can tell, we
[3:31:49] have always had a Smack chair that has
[3:31:51] been a board member, either current or
[3:31:53] past. It's a really good fit for this
[3:31:56] role because you understand the survey
[3:31:58] and you broadly understand what's going
[3:32:00] on in Utah. The actual commitment comes
[3:32:02] down to basically we have a half-day
[3:32:05] meeting in late October that you attend
[3:32:07] and kind of run as a chairperson where
[3:32:10] we go over uh the program and then what
[3:32:12] our proposal will be and then after that
[3:32:16] uh you prepare a letter of support
[3:32:18] basically for our proposal. Those are
[3:32:20] the two primary tasks. So it's a
[3:32:22] relatively low lift. Um, I put it out
[3:32:25] there to this group. Again, I would
[3:32:27] really love if one of the board members
[3:32:29] uh would be willing.
[3:32:30] >> What's your date in October?
[3:32:31] >> I think it's the We haven't quite set
[3:32:34] that. We usually do it the either Monday
[3:32:35] or Tuesday of the final week of October.
[3:32:39] >> Do Tuesday instead of Monday
[3:32:41] >> that love to sign up
[3:32:42] >> if you're interested. I mean, again, I
[3:32:45] think you Riley, you could be a
[3:32:47] wonderful candidate for this.
[3:32:49] >> I'm opinionated about that. [laughter]
[3:32:52] Well, and and and that's and and
[3:32:54] actually that's what we're looking for,
[3:32:55] right? And and actually any of you guys
[3:32:58] would make great Smack members as well.
[3:33:01] And the input is really important. Where
[3:33:04] do we go next? And what are the drivers
[3:33:06] for where we're mapping, right? Is it
[3:33:08] development related?
[3:33:10] >> Is it industry? [laughter] Right. Riley
[3:33:14] is vocal and opinionated
[3:33:17] as you all should be.
[3:33:18] >> Yeah. The committee is a group right
[3:33:20] now. I think we have 20 people who are
[3:33:22] on the committee as state folks who are
[3:33:25] have some [clears throat] vested
[3:33:27] interest in mapping.
[3:33:28] >> Doug's probably on it.
[3:33:29] >> No, Doug is not. Um we have the previous
[3:33:32] mappers commonly attend some of the
[3:33:34] retired folks. Interestingly enough, we
[3:33:37] have representatives from all the
[3:33:38] universities and then all the principal
[3:33:41] um kind of areas of geologic work like
[3:33:44] groundwater hazards, minerals, soil and
[3:33:47] gas, all that kind of stuff. So
[3:33:49] >> BLM form for service federal partners.
[3:33:53] >> Yeah, that's the goal is to get the user
[3:33:55] community and make sure that whatever
[3:33:57] we're doing with mapping or field
[3:33:59] geology in the state.
[3:34:04] » Yeah.
[3:34:04] >> Okay. Well, you're you're hired as far.
[3:34:11] [laughter]
[3:34:15] » Yeah, that's great. Thank you. Yeah,
[3:34:17] this kind of the insights that you guys
[3:34:19] bring are important for us, right? We
[3:34:22] don't work in a vacuum and we're not
[3:34:24] sitting around here doing science for
[3:34:25] the sake of doing science. We have a
[3:34:27] mission and we want to make sure that,
[3:34:29] you know, we're we're going in
[3:34:30] [clears throat] the right direction. The
[3:34:31] support is a great piece of that for us.
[3:34:35] So,
[3:34:36] >> oh, and [clears throat] uh just got the
[3:34:39] award from USG USGS.
[3:34:43] >> Yeah, we did. I didn't see that on our
[3:34:45] thing, but we had a record state map
[3:34:46] award.
[3:34:48] So 660 for two years of federal money.
[3:34:51] So total value is about 1.3
[3:34:54] worth of mapping. And then we funded a
[3:34:56] bunch of because state map is like a
[3:34:58] Swiss Army knife. We've funded some
[3:35:00] other interesting things. a 3D study on
[3:35:02] the mangos in the UA basin that Ryan G
[3:35:05] do and then a stratographic study of the
[3:35:07] Cedar Mountain formation that Jim
[3:35:09] Kirkland to try to capture his knowledge
[3:35:12] of that unit. So
[3:35:17] » it starts it'll start technically start
[3:35:20] in like November
[3:35:22] >> or not November sorry uh September. I
[3:35:24] was gonna make our match grant curve go
[3:35:26] back up again.
[3:35:28] >> Not significantly. [laughter]
[3:35:35] We I'm not afraid brand match. It's, you
[3:35:38] know, it's what we do, right? We just
[3:35:40] want to make sure that it's it's really
[3:35:41] strategically deployed.
[3:35:43] >> We were lucky because as staff
[3:35:45] mentioned, we have those 0% that the
[3:35:48] offset offet
[3:35:52] map will be comparable next year.
[3:35:54] >> Yeah. I mean most of the match that
[3:35:56] you're seeing there is state map anyway
[3:35:57] and state map is remarkably consistent.
[3:36:00] We always get plus or minus about 10% of
[3:36:03] that amount. So it's usually 600ishk
[3:36:07] worth of match to fund.
[3:36:11] » Any questions or followups before we
[3:36:15] close out? Any thoughts from Brian's
[3:36:18] presentation or our finances or anything
[3:36:21] else that
[3:36:24] >> Yes,
[3:36:25] >> this isn't profound or anything, but I
[3:36:27] have a little house in Moab and I might
[3:36:29] be down there in October and I'm want to
[3:36:31] go on the field trip obviously, but
[3:36:34] >> if I do decide to do that, can I just be
[3:36:36] there? Yes.
[3:36:37] >> Get picked up by the
[3:36:39] >> You could get picked up by the For sure.
[3:36:41] It's It's Oh, as opposed to take the
[3:36:43] plane. Yeah, because we do again we have
[3:36:44] to we do have the the two of the cars
[3:36:46] we'll have to drive to the day before.
[3:36:49] >> So the one catch would be if if you're
[3:36:51] going to do that let us know. We'll need
[3:36:52] to get your room in Monument Valley for
[3:36:54] the sixth.
[3:36:56] >> Okay. I will make that decision in the
[3:36:58] next week. [clears throat]
[3:37:00] >> Okay. Get back.
[3:37:01] >> Okay. Let us know on the plane. So we
[3:37:04] might do some math.
[3:37:07] >> Okay.
[3:37:08] >> It's just a great time to be down there.
[3:37:10] It is a great time to be out there. And
[3:37:12] yeah, if you want to get picked up on
[3:37:14] the way, it'll just it'll cut into your
[3:37:15] time a little bit because they'll pick
[3:37:16] you up a day earlier because everybody
[3:37:18] has the vehicles. It's it's a hall. So,
[3:37:23] sure. Yeah. Whatever works out for you.
[3:37:24] Is everybody else
[3:37:26] >> on board with um riding down on the on
[3:37:29] the state plane? I'll just go back to
[3:37:31] this.
[3:37:32] >> Um everybody else is planning on coming.
[3:37:35] >> You're cool with us just leaving the
[3:37:36] cars here at the course a little?
[3:37:39] Yes. Uh, no, you'll be leaving. Yes,
[3:37:42] you'll be meeting here. So, your cars
[3:37:44] will be be secured behind the gate. Then
[3:37:47] we will carpool you over to general
[3:37:50] aviation, which is where the state plane
[3:37:54] um takes off from. You'll get a safety
[3:37:56] briefing before you hop on the plane. It
[3:37:59] is a small plane. So, yeah, it's not
[3:38:02] like
[3:38:04] it's not a jet. It's a Beachcraft. When
[3:38:07] you park, I suggest not parking along
[3:38:09] the fence line because we've had damaged
[3:38:12] vehicles right along the fence line. So,
[3:38:14] park in
[3:38:17] >> I guess they can throw things.
[3:38:19] >> Yeah.
[3:38:22] [laughter]
[3:38:24] » There is there is some talk we're
[3:38:26] starting to talk formally about this DNR
[3:38:29] campus.
[3:38:30] >> So, including the course. So,
[3:38:34] >> it's it's coming for us. Uh we will
[3:38:37] probably need some sort of building
[3:38:38] block or something when it comes time to
[3:38:40] think about a new home for the core
[3:38:42] center. Expensive to move
[3:38:44] >> uh two to three years. The core center
[3:38:46] is a big thing that we will probably
[3:38:48] need. We're going to need board help to make sure that we get it done
[3:38:51] properly. They're going to downsize this
[3:38:53] too because life sucks and then we die.
[3:38:56] But
[3:38:57] >> this I'm glad you brought that up
[3:38:59] because this is a topic that we might
[3:39:00] want to address in more detail at future
[3:39:03] board meeting kind of planning about
[3:39:05] this potential move, right? Because and
[3:39:07] what it's going to take because the the
[3:39:09] core center is a big deal.
[3:39:10] >> It is a big deal. We have dealer
[3:39:12] leadership on board. They realize how
[3:39:14] important this facility is. Um but um it
[3:39:19] is it's coming and so I think we just
[3:39:21] need to plan for it. Um do the cost to
[3:39:24] move. have a I've asked ammon and Mike
[3:39:26] to put together a pretty comprehensive
[3:39:28] proposal about what we need for a new
[3:39:29] core center facility like needs needs
[3:39:33] and wants right larger education center
[3:39:35] better viewing area better temperature
[3:39:37] control you know so I think I think this
[3:39:40] is a plus for us on the downside it's
[3:39:43] just going to be painful to go through
[3:39:45] it so more capacity we've got we're
[3:39:48] turning core away that we could be
[3:39:50] bringing in so I think I actually think
[3:39:53] that this is a great opportunity for us.
[3:39:55] It's just going to be it's going to be
[3:39:57] hard. We're going to need a little help
[3:39:58] from the legislature to to move. I don't
[3:40:01] know if you've been Yes, you have been
[3:40:02] back there. So, Lacy has seen what's
[3:40:05] back there. So, we'll work together on
[3:40:07] that. But again, I'm optimistic about the outcome for this.
[3:40:11] >> You stay in Southern Valley. You go to
[3:40:14] Valley.
[3:40:14] >> Um the court
[3:40:18] possibly just right down the street.
[3:40:19] It's very likely that we'll be in this
[3:40:21] northwest quadrant part of Salt Lake.
[3:40:23] >> And there's a lot there is a lot of
[3:40:26] existing warehouse.
[3:40:28] >> We'll see. We don't want
[3:40:30] >> Yeah, we'll be okay.
[3:40:36] » Really appreciate it. Very good.
[3:40:38] >> Very good. Thank you.
[3:40:44] » Where's the prison?
[3:40:45] >> Well, it's going to be easy for the mic
[3:40:46] because it's right by [snorts]
[3:40:50] >> [clears throat]
[3:40:53] [laughter]
[3:40:54] >> is 1210 and we formally now the meeting
[3:41:04] board meeting
[3:41:12] is