Why Idaho Is a Premier Mining Jurisdiction with Ben Davenport
At the 2020 Vancouver Resource Investment Conference, Bill Powers interviewed Ben Davenport about why Idaho is a premier mining jurisdiction. Ben is the Executive Vice President of the Idaho Mining Association.
0:15 Introduction
2:07 Overview of last three decades of Idaho mining
3:07 Idaho’s mining friendliness
4:11 State officials have helped miners raise money
5:15 Geological endowment of Idaho relative to Nevada
6:22 Permitting in Idaho
7:26 Mining’s contribution to Idaho’s GDP
8:31 Mining and local population’s sentiment
9:48 Idaho’s relationship with federal government regarding mining
10:55 Any suggestions for Idaho miners?
11:45 Final thoughts
TRANSCRIPT:
Bill Powers: Welcome back to Mining Stock Education. I am your host Bill Powers and I am in Vancouver and I just finished a breakfast called “Focus on Gold in Idaho” while attending the Vancouver Resource Investment Conference. And as the title obviously indicates, it was focused on why you would invest in gold miners in Idaho. One of the speakers was Mr. Ben Davenport. He’s from the Idaho Mining Association and he joins me today. Ben, thanks for coming on Mining Stock Education to talk about the good things that are going on in Idaho.
Ben Davenport: Thanks for having me Bill.
Bill: Could you give my listeners like just a quick thumbnail overview of the last 30 years of the general mining cycle in Idaho?
Ben: Yeah, it’s been kind of an up and down cycle as you might expect in the mid to late 90s. Gold saw quite a dip in price. And we saw significant contraction of the industry in Idaho where we saw our major gold producer close, a couple of them close at that time and since then we haven’t seen much going on in the state. It’s been nice seeing the resurgence in the last couple of years as gold prices have climbed and as some of these companies have looked for safer jurisdictions, we found a lot of success in promoting Idaho to do some of these projects.
Bill: What about the friendliness of the government towards the mining industry? What can you speak about, what’s occurred in the last three decades?
Ben: Yeah, I don’t think that anything has changed with our government in the last three decades when it comes to the mining industry specifically. Idaho has always been responsibly regulated state. Our legislature and our leadership in the governor’s administration has always tried to make things easy for business. While it’s a responsible regulation, I think they try to work to getting to “yes” for some of these projects. So I don’t think that’s necessarily changed over the last 30 years. But as some of the mining projects continue to come into the state of Idaho, you start seeing some of our government officials be more familiar with regulating mines. And so it makes the process a little bit easier going forward and trying to get some of these projects permitted.
Bill: I was impressed. One of the companies, Integra Resources, talked about how some of your state officials went with them when they were talking to potential financing sources. Can you talk about that? And what other ways is the government of Idaho helping the gold miners?
Ben: Yeah. The Idaho Mining Association has worked really hard over the last couple of years to try and put together this investor coalition to try and get some of our government officials in front of the investor world. And so a couple of years ago we had the governor of the state and some of his administrative folks from different departments that deal with permitting with us in Toronto, and then again in New York. So yeah, the reception has been very good when it comes to getting government to help us with what we’re looking for in Idaho.
Bill: One of the things that was talked about was the geological endowment of Idaho, which is great and how when you compare that to Nevada, which has a lot of exploration and mining dollars go into it, the potential is great. Can you talk a little bit about the comparison between the potential in Idaho relative to Nevada?
Ben: Yeah. I’m not a geologist Bill, so I’m going to put that out there on the first onset there. But geology does not know of manmade borders, of course. And so Northern Nevada is still the same basin as Southern Idaho there. And so we have a lot of the same geological trends that Nevada has. Similarly, when you look at Idaho’s geology, you can draw lines from British Columbia and the Yukon down into Idaho as well. We have a very similar geology along that whole line there. So, I think there is a lot of potential.
Bill: What about permitting? How does the permitting structure of Idaho compare to Nevada?
Ben: Well, I’ve never tried to permit a project ever myself, so I can’t tell you what it’s like in Nevada. I can tell you that permitting a project on state land in Idaho would be very favorably met. The other challenge that we have in Idaho like every other state is the large federal ownership in land distribution. We’ve got about 60% of our state owned by the federal government and sometimes it takes a little bit longer to permit projects on forest service or Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land. In Nevada, they do have a lot of BLM land holdings which seem to be more versed at permitting mines than some of the forest service folks. That doesn’t mean that we won’t get there once we get some of these projects permitted, but certainly the BLM is more familiar with permitting a mine right now. So there are some challenges there with educating the forest service, but I think we’re getting there.
Bill: What’s the role of mining in contributing to the GDP of the state?
Ben: Yeah. So currently mining is only about a one and a half percent of the state GDP and that includes mining as well as the ancillary contractors that work for industry as well. And so a billion dollars in a $65 billion economy doesn’t seem like a lot, but it means a lot to our local and rural communities in Idaho. So I think one and a half percent, somewhere near one billion dollars a year may seem small, but that just shows what kind of growth can happen if we get one or two of these projects off the ground. I mean, right now we’ve only got five operating, larger operating mines in the state and one more and put us up to 2% of the GDP and then we can just see growth from there.
Bill: What is the local population, their perspective and their sentiment towards mining and has that improved recently?
Ben: I don’t know if it’s improved. I can’t say whether or not it’s improved. Obviously there’s a lot of anecdotal stories when it comes to mining and the public’s perception of mining. If you’re in a community where mining is happening and it’s active in your community, it’s usually very good and they appreciate the economic benefits. They appreciate the jobs, they appreciate the contributions that are made in the schools and in the local communities. And then when you start getting closer to the urban centers, like anywhere, they may have a different opinion of what mining is. So, statewide it’s still pretty favorable for natural resources in Idaho, but we’ve got a lot of work to do at the Idaho Mining Association to make sure that we continue to tell that story and so that people will understand where their products come from and how mining can be done responsibly and sustainably and not damaged the local communities.
Bill: What’s the state of Idaho’s relationship with the federal government and what changes have you seen since the Trump administration took office?
Ben: I’ll tell you, Idaho’s very independent in our thinking politically in the past we have not seen eye-to-eye with the federal government on a lot of things. That trend doesn’t necessarily, it’s been better recently. The Trump administration has been very interested in streamlining regulations and trying to make things easier for business. So I think our government who also supports a more streamline approach to policy and rules has been very receptive to some of the Trump administration ideas. So, that’s not to say that we’re not a republic still, but I think our leadership in Idaho has been receptive to the Trump administration’s ideas.
Bill: So you’ve talked to the government, you talked to the miners. When you’re talking to the mining companies, what are your suggestions you give them with how they deal with the locals and deal with the government?
Ben: Yeah, my suggestions are always to be open and honest. Transparency is the name of the game in Idaho. We heard today from some of these folks that the accessibility to government is one of the big things that we have in Idaho that some other jurisdictions might not have. But if we aren’t continuing to be trustworthy and open and honest with our dealings, then that accessibility will go away. So we need to continue to do the right thing and continue to keep our government informed and keep our locals informed on what we’re trying to do.
Bill: As we conclude, any final thoughts you’d like to share with the investors listening to you and do you have a website they could look at?
Ben: Yeah. Certainly, I have a website. It’s www.mineidaho.com. The only thing I can say is that, I think the secret’s out on Idaho, not just in the beauty of the state, not just in the resource of the state, but how government operates in the state of Idaho. We are now, according to our governor, the least-regulated state in the nation, and he’s got plenty of stats that to share with you on that. So if you guys ever need any of those, just reach out and I’ll get you in touch with the governor and he can tell you all about Idaho.
