BHCWA Clean Water Connections Podcast

Welcome to our NEW Podcast – Clean Water Connections – Keep Black Hills Water Alive!

September 8, 2022 podcast recording with BHCWA staff; Dr. Lilias Jarding, Executive Director (left) and Miana Fay, Creative Program Assistant (right).

Our podcast is coming to you from the Heart of the Black Hills, Wacante Ognaka or Wamaka Ognaka Icante “The Heart of Everything That Is” in Lakota. Clean Water Connections is being brought to you by the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, a non-profit organization, who has been working to protect our precious waterways from radioactive and destructive mining in the Black Hills region since 2009.

Miana Fay, a member of the Oglala Lakota and Cheyenne Nations, is our Creative Program Assistant/Organizer and she will be your host.

In each episode Miana will visit with her guests to discuss different topics relating to Hard Rock Mining Projects happening now in the Black Hills, SD and how Indigenous peoples and allies here are banning together to help protect the water in our precious Black Hills region.

Most importantly, Miana will discuss our relationship with water in relation to viewing water as not only as a resource but what it means to have a relationship with the water more than viewing it as just a separate object. Miana and her guests will discuss the traditional Lakota relationship with the land and water and how that is important in being good stewards to the land by preserving our waterways now for future generations to come.

Below are our first four episodes that we hope you will enjoy. Give a listen and let our host, Miana Fay, know what you think. This was a great learning experience for our entire team. Funds for this project were provided by the CHEJ Foundation.

Episode 1: We are glad you are here to listen to this first episode where Miana will be speaking with Dr. Lilias Jarding, Executive Director for the organization, and Carla Rae Marshall, Uncimaka Advocate, and one of the organization’s board members. Both are seasoned water protectors and have been standing strong in the fight to keep our water CLEAN from future mining pollution in the HeSapa (Black Hills). They will be speaking about the origins of the organization, why they became involved, some of the current mining threats, the permitting process, and the governmental agencies involved.
Episode 2: Join us as we talk with two awesome lawyers, Jeff Parsons and Bruce Ellison, who have been on the legal frontlines for many years to protect Black Hills Water. They will be giving us some of their personal experiences regarding State, Federal, and Tribal Water Law issues surrounding our fight to protect water in the Black Hills from radioactive and destructive mining.
Episode 3: Uranium and In Situ Leach Mining. In this episode, our host Miana will be holding a conversation with Reno Red Cloud Sr. and Dr. Lilias Jarding. We will be talking about the policies that are a part of the mining process. Tribal consent and recognition. What In Situ Leach Mining is and how that processing is done. Harmful impacts it can have on our local environment (not to mention the effects it can have on our economy). What we can do to be involved, and more!
Episode 4: Miana speaks with Cheryl Angel, Sicangu/Oohenumpa, and Surrounded Bear, Oglala, who is with the International Indigenous Youth Council—Oglala Chapter and Owe Aku. Cheryl, an esteemed Lakota Grandmother, Frontline Water Protector, Sovereign Sisters, and Spiritual Activism, shares how speaking for, and with, water connects us to life, and how listening to the earth is critical medicine now. Sounding Bear gives a heartfelt talk about how his connection to water coincides with his Lakota cultural upbringing.
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