The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) is threatened with elimination by proposed budget cuts under consideration by the Oregon Legislature as soon as February 2021. Supporters of this petition want DOGAMI to continue to prepare Oregonians for natural disasters, and want the Oregon Legislature to continue to fund DOGAMI as an independent agency.

DOGAMI is an independent scientific agency of the State of Oregon that develops and provides unbiased information on natural hazards, such as landslides and flooding from winter storms and Cascadia earthquakes and tsunamis. DOGAMI assists before, during and after Oregon disasters, including the 1993 Scott Mills and Klamath Falls earthquakes, the 1996 Willamette Valley floods, the 2007 Great Coastal Gale, and the 2017 Eagle Creek and Chetco Bar fires. Information from DOGAMI is trusted and used by Oregon communities, planners, developers, businesses, and citizens to help protect people and property. In addition, DOGAMI safeguards natural geologic resources through mining activity regulation. All of this is accomplished with an operating budget that is nominal when compared with the extreme cost of even a single natural disaster event (e.g., losses from the two 1993 Klamath Falls earthquakes and 2007 winter storm exceeded $10 million and $100 million, respectively).

Although the agency has served its mission since its creation by the Legislature in 1937, Governor Kate Brown has proposed to eliminate DOGAMI as a state agency. Eliminating DOGAMI will result in more destructive and costly natural disasters for Oregonians, and the loss of independence of its mining regulatory oversight may lead to degradation of Oregon’s natural resources.

Petition by Yumei Wang and the Geological Society of Oregon Country (GSOC)