Citizens secure key wins ahead of Craven Canyon uranium hearing

PIERRE – When concerned citizens next meet with state officials and Clean Nuclear Energy Corporation (CNEC) over the prospect of renewed mining in South Dakota’s Southern Hills, the discussion will move to the Mueller Center in Hot Springs, April 13–17. The change in venue is one of several recent wins for a growing grassroots movement opposed to mining in the Black Hills. The current proposal is on state land in Craven Canyon, a culturally and historically significant site in Fall River County with more than 7,000 years of documented human presence. Tribal leaders and community members, along with local residents and business owners, worry that new industrial activity — including uranium exploration and mining — could damage the pristine landscapes that draw ceremonial practitioners, hikers, and tourists, as well as the tourism dollars their communities rely on.

On Wednesday March 18, the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment (BME) heard appeals from citizen intervenors in the permitting process, who are challenging CNEC’s application for a state permit to drill at the proposed Chord uranium exploration project on state land in Craven Canyon.

While the citizen movement didn’t get everything they asked for at the hearing last week, their request to move the final hearing venue from Pierre to Hot Springs was granted. There were nineteen intervenors who gave testimony in person and two online. They were joined in person by Hot Springs Mayor Bob Nelson, as well as Allyssa Comer and Wendell Yello Bull from the Oglala Lakota County Commission, who came to support the request to move the actual hearing from Pierre to Hot Springs.

A press release from the primary organizer Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA) said their appearance was a significant milestone. “The presence of the mayor and commissioners really made a difference. Holding the hearing in the affected area will allow us to fill the room with concerned and potentially impacted community members.”

“It went way better than I could have hoped,” Rapid City attorney Jay Davis told Native Sun News Today. Davis appeared as an intervenor on his own behalf and in coordination with the Sierra Club. Many of the comments made during the public comment period requested that the hearing be held near the affected community. Davis and other intervenors argued that this issue was of great concern to residents not only in the local area but surrounding tribal and non-tribal communities. Intervenors argued for many of those who made comments during the public comment period but couldn’t be present that holding the final hearing in Pierre, especially for a multi-day hearing, would be difficult for many citing time, and travel and hotel costs as hardships.

Nexus Uranium Corporation, a Canadian company and parent of CNEC, expanded and consolidated its U.S. uranium holdings by acquiring Basin Uranium Corporation in September 2025, according to the company’s website. Nexus, which previously operated under the name Golden Independence Mining, has been seeking to increase its asset base and implement a share consolidation as part of restructuring its equity and corporate structure. The strategy uses a Hub and Spoke model which consolidates separate properties into a unified portfolio centered on a single flagship project. The Chord project is the flagship or hub, which will be the anchor to the company’s overall operations estimated to be about 3,640 contiguous acres in Fall River County. It’s situated in the historic uranium district north of Edgemont.

The spokes of the project are the satellite claims. They are: the 800-acre RC Claims which is less than a mile from the Chord Hub; Deadhorse Claims located within three miles of the Chord Hub and estimated to be 340 acres; and Wolf Canyon, ten miles away approximately 1,600 acres in size. The three spokes are not within the Chord boundary but are close enough to eventually share it’s infrastructure.

These are the claims that were originally discovered and mined in the early 1950’s. In the 1970’s, Union Carbide Corporation conducted extensive exploration and drilled one-thousand holes. They had attempted to start mining operations in the Craven Canyon area before being halted by legal action in 1979 taken by the Black Hills Alliance (BHA) to stop Union Carbide’s mining operations in Craven Canyon without the required permit.

The Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA) is the modern successor to the BHA and has carried forward the legacy of the original coalition that halted further mining in Craven Canyon.

In all there were six appeals in review including the request for change of venue. The Board decided to dismiss the Fall River County ordinance approved by citizens in 2022 to declare uranium mining an unlawful nuisance as irrelevant after CNEC argued that mining is entirely different than mining exploration and that the ordinance declared uranium mining a nuisance but not exploration.

The Board overturned the exclusion of evidence regarding mining. This will allow evidence of past or potential future impacts can be admitted at the actual permit hearing. “This is a big win,” said BHCWA, “This means that we will able to present the dirty history of uranium mining in the Craven Canyon area as well as the possibility that mining impacts could worsen with new drilling.”

The Board agreed to allow interpretive services for Lakota speakers, even though the newly passed Helen’s Law mandating these services be provided in contested cases doesn’t go into effect until July 1, and extend the hearing from three days to five, both big wins. BHCWA said that if additional days are needed, then the law requires that more days must be granted.

The Board did deny the request to update how documents are exchanged. The current regulation says documents can only be officially given to the people involved in a hearing either in person, by paper mail, or by fax. Intervenors argued that these are outdated methods and asked to allow service by email or other electronic means.

The October Jinx project is the federal portion of the Chord Project. It sits on the rim of Craven Canyon within the Black Hills National Forest and will be up for final review before the US Forest Service in July. Approval of the Chord state exploration permit next month wouldn’t legally grant permission to drill on the October Jinx federal lands but would establish permitting precedent and create a significant domino effect. BHCWA believes that if the state sees massive opposition by local and tribal leaders it may feel increased pressure to extend its own review timeline for October Jinx.

(Contact Marnie Cook cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Citizens secure key wins ahead of Craven Canyon uranium hearing first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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