The proposed October Jinx Project is part of the Chord Project. The Chord Project is composed of 3,677 acres east of the Dewey-Burdock project in the Craven Canyon area in the southern Black Hills. This area had exploration drilling in the 1970s and is a world-class cultural resources site. Union Carbide Corp. started mining in Craven Canyon without getting a state mining permit in 1979 and was stopped by legal action by the Black Hills Alliance (BHA), a regional nonprofit group at that time. This mining was stopped because a local citizen noticed the movement of large equipment into the area and called the BHA. Now, we must move fast to protect this sacred landscape.
The company that has asked for a permit for the October Jinx Project is “Clean” Nuclear Energy Corp. (CNEC), a subsiderary of Nexus Uranium Corp. (Nexus) of Canada. On September 16, 2025, Nexus acquired Basin Uranium Corp., a previous involved company, consolidating the U.S. portfolio under Nexus and continuing permitting at the Chord Project through CNEC. These 3,677 acres, located in Fall River County, straddle state and federal lands.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
FEDERAL REVIEW OF THE OCTOBER JINX PROJECT COMING IN JANUARY 2026
Nexus Uranium has announced that the Federal scoping process for the October Jinx project will begin in mid-January 2026. This proposed uranium exploration drilling project is the portion of the Chord Uranium Project that is on Forest Service-controlled land at Craven Canyon near Edgemont, South Dakota. This is separate from the company’s project on state-controlled land in the same area, which CNEC’s Chord Project is now a contested case with efforts to protect Craven Canyon, and ancient sacred site with cultural and historical resources dating back more than 7000 years.
In the October Jinx’s Plan of Operations (POO) they could have up to seventeen 60 ft x 60 ft drill pads, with vertical exploration holes to a maximum depth of 700 ft. The project would draw from municipal and private water sources and use 5,000 – 10,000 gallons of water per day under normal conditions.
When the Scoping process begins, we will post instructions on how to submit your public opinion comments to the Forest Service for this project. Currently, the Forest Service has proposed allowing uranium drilling to proceed without further environmental review under a Categorical Exclusion (CE).
View October Jinx’s POO here.
Click here for link to the SD DANR Minerals and Mining page for more information about these two uranium exploration projects.
https://danr.sd.gov/Environment/MineralsMining/Exploration/NewEXNIS.aspx
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