Land Quality Division - Episode 4

Wyoming DEQ State of the Environment

Listen now to DEQ Director Todd Parfitt as he visits with the agency's Land Quality Division Administrator, Kyle Wendtland on the latest happenings with mining in Wyoming.
Definitions you may want to know for this podcast:

• Critical Minerals: Minerals essential to the economy and national security. vulnerable to the supply chain, a component of essential manufacturing, necessary for high technology industries, national defense applications, and green growth industries.
• Emerging Minerals: Minerals required for high technology devices and energy transition industries
• Rare Elements or Rare Earth Metals: Are seventeen metallic elements that are essential to the production of high technology devices and used in over 200 high technology devices including national defense.
• Source Material: Radioactive material regulated by the NRC or Agreement States. In relation to the Wyoming Agreement State, it is referencing the regulation of uranium and thorium that is generated as a side stream of the processing of rare earth metals.
• In Situ Technology: Often referred to as ISR or insitu recovery of mineral materials. The mining method is conducted in-ground with minimal surface disturbance. This mining method is expanding and is now standard technology being applied to recover mineral materials such as uranium, trona, and lithium.