January 7, 2026

Press Release

Contact: Lilias Jarding, Ph.D.

edbhcwa@gmail.com

The large out-of-state – and often international — mining companies operating in the Black Hills have a history of doing business here using a public front that is an entity that is organized in South Dakota.  The local Powertech Uranium is a subsidiary of Texas-based enCore Energy.  “Clean” Nuclear Energy Corporation is a subsidiary of the Canadian company Nexus Uranium.  Lead-based Dakota Gold has agreements with Barrick Corporation, a Canadian company and one of the world’s largest gold companies.  And so forth.

For years, Pete Lien & Sons – a corporation organized in South Dakota – seemed to break that pattern.  They advertised themselves as a small, local, family operation.  In fact, their website and articles about the company sometimes read more like beloved family history than a corporate profile.

Like other mining companies that hope local people will let their destructive work continue unopposed, Lien makes sure everyone knows that they spend money here — a number of area operations bear their family name.  This appears to have accelerated in the past few years, at the same time that the company is attempting to expand to mine graphite at a Lakota sacred landscape that is also in Rapid City’s municipal watershed. This presents immediate threats to Rapid City’s water supply and critical Lakota ceremonial life.  Meanwhile, the company’s mine continues to operate – and pollute — within Rapid City limits, and the company is pushing large, water consuming projects, such as Libertyland.

But something appears to have changed seven years ago.  In its 2019 federal Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) report, a “Form 10-K,” Summit Materials reported that it had “acquired” Pete Lien & Sons on January 4, 2019.  The relevant portions of the Form 10-K are attached.  Summit was a multi-billion-dollar national producer of aggregate and cement.

And “was” is the appropriate verb, because Summit Materials no longer exists.  According to Summit’s website, which is still posted, on February 10, 2025, it was acquired by Quikrete Holdings, Inc., left the New York Stock Exchange, and became a privately held subsidiary of Quikrete.  See https://summit-materials.com/summit-merger or the attached article from concreteproducts.com. Quikrete is a multi-billion-dollar, multinational company that provides a variety of construction products. 

This is where the corporate trail grows muddy.  Did Summit still own Lien when it was acquired by Quikrete?  That would be a reasonable assumption, but the public record is spotty.  Because Quikrete isn’t traded on a stock exchange, there is little public information about the firm.  Its website lists some of its larger subsidiaries, but not all of them, and not Pete Lien & Sons.

Still, the evidence that is available indicates that Pete Lien & Sons – while still operating locally as a South Dakota corporation – is actually part of a much larger company.  It appears to be a subsidiary, and probably an unimportant one, to a multi-billion-dollar company, rather than just a local, family-run business.  Does this mean that what happens here – mining and damage done here – are just a speck on some corporate horizon?  How important are Lakota sacred landscapes, outdoor recreation in the Black Hills, our precious water and air, and our communities to whoever is actually controlling the mining? 

Pete Lien & Sons needs to answer some questions, including letting the public and the regulatory agencies who deal with the impacts of their mining know who the company answers to.  If they say they are just a local operation, they need to explain the documents that indicate otherwise.  The Black Hills and area residents deserve to be protected from mining projects and their impacts, and to know who is behind those impacts.