This recent article published by Native Sun News Today is a must-read as it provides information about some of the current mining projects in our region. It ends with how citizens can intervene to help protect water from these destructive mining projects.
A new uranium boom is still a bust for South Dakotans
By Marnie Cook Native Sun News Today Correspondent
BLACK HILLS – It’s a new mining boom in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. Traditional mining for gold and oil and gas has given way to new and sometimes untried extractive techniques designed to get at the resources that have been detected in the deeper recesses of the Black Hills. Political conditions favor the extractors who are also hoping that exploratory projects might find rare earth minerals.
Darrow Pits, an old, abandoned uranium mine north of Edgemont. Photo from Rapid City Journal provided by BHCWA.
Some of the oldest areas on earth exist right here in the Black Hills. Spearfish Canyon in the Northern Hills is a gorge carved by Spearfish Creek, which is a remnant of a sea that had covered the area some 600 million years ago (Precambrian period). The Southern Hills also share this rich and ancient history. Because of that, these areas are also rich in diverse minerals.
These minerals have attracted wealth seekers for more than a century hoping to mine their riches from the Black Hills. The landscape is pockmarked with every boom-and-bust cycle. The economic benefits of the booms are reaped by a few while residents are left with the cost of “clean up.” As long as business is good, corporations stay. But minerals are finite and market conditions change.
Market conditions have been looking more favorable, so activity has increased. The latest proposed uranium project in the Southern Black Hills is the Chord Project, a few miles east of another project, the Dewey-Burdock Project which is still referred to locally as Powertech. This multi-canyon area features Indigenous petroglyphs and pictographs – painting and rock art carved into the sandstone – as well as graffiti, the remains of campfires, signs of settler activity and modern activity. This site is thought to have been used for thousands of years by not only Indigenous tribes… Read More.
Black Hills Clean Water Alliance 