Citizens rally for Craven Canyon’s future against Edgemont’s toxic legacy

FALL RIVER – Things are moving quickly now. There is a public comment period underway for citizens to comment on exploratory uranium drilling in Craven Canyon, as well as a public hearing next month.

The canyon is considered a sacred site by several Indigenous nations including the Lakota and Cheyenne. It is still used today for ceremony and spiritual study and by the wider population of locals and tourists who want to spend time with nature.

Canadian company Clean Nuclear Energy Corporation (CNEC), a subsidiary of Nexus Uranium formerly Basin Uranium, has proposed two exploratory uranium drilling projects in Fall River County in the historic Edgemont uranium district. One, the Chord Uranium Project is a state project on state lands and is currently under consideration by the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment. The other is called the October Jinx project, which is currently under consideration by the Forest Service. Jinx is a part of the larger Chord Project which Nexus considers its flagship project and forms the core of the company’s South Dakota uranium portfolio.

The proposed drilling area is a world-class cultural and historical site north of Edgemont that is estimated to be at least seven thousand years old. Craven Canyon in the Southern Black Hills in western South Dakota is a hidden gem featuring red sandstone cliffs and prehistoric rock art. There are pictographs and petroglyphs – human figures, floating antelopes, elk, bison, and abstract symbols painted and carved into the rock. The area also contains teepee rings, stone circles, and evidence of ancient toolmaking, such as scrapers and projectile points, according to the National Park Service. Numerous tree species live there. It’s also home to elk, mule deer, pronghorn, mountain lions, and golden eagles. The area is also known for occurrences of Carnotite, a uranium bearing mineral that is found within the sandstone formations.

Ongoing efforts to protect the canyon were finally supported by formal documentation of the canyon’s attributes conducted during a 1980 rock art survey. That work helped bring it to the attention of archeologists and get it listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it also brought it to the attention of the wider public, requiring more safeguarded by over the decades to prevent looting and vandalism. In 1999, vandals carved graffiti over the ancient petroglyphs and caused severe damage to the historic carving. In another incident, vandals used the ancient pictographs for target practice.

Decades of mining activity and exploration of Craven Canyon have also left a legacy of environmental, cultural, and health-related damage. There are thousands of unreclaimed drill holes that can facilitate the movement of radioactive materials into fragile hydrologic systems. Radioactive dust and waste materials known as tailings have often been left exposed, uncontained, and unprotected allowing particles to spread widely across the landscape.

Runoff from abandoned mine sites has caused elevated levels of uranium and heavy metals in local water reservoirs and they Cheyenne River. South Dakota School of Mines (SDSMT) studies have found impacts of uranium mines on the areas soil, water, and air. Results showed that historical mining caused significant degradation, with uranium concentrations exceeding background levels in watershed sediments and surface water. The studies have indicated that these old sites continue to contaminate regional water systems. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says no matter how uranium is extracted from rock, the processes leave behind radioactive waste.

Despite overwhelming opposition to exploring and drilling for uranium in the canyon, CNEC is expanding. “This company just last month secured over eleven hundred acres of new mineral claims in Fall River County,” said Rebecca Terk from Dakota Rural action. “One of the claims areas is called RC Project and the other is the Deadhorse Project.” According to Nexus Uranium Corporation, RC Project located within a mile of the Chord project, there are 40 unpatented lode mining claims totaling about 800 acres. Deadhorse is 17 claims covering about 340 acres within three miles of the Chord project. The company’s total South Dakota land holdings is about 6,380 acres. The state lands project plans for 50 drill platforms while the federal lands project would involve 17 drill platform ear the rim of the canyon, with drilling depths of up to 700 feet.

“This company intends to build a standalone, in situ recovery uranium mine in Fall River County,” said Terk. While currently in the exploration phase with permits pending, CNEC on its website says that they have designed this project to be a centralized hub for future uranium mining in the region.

CNEC is looking to drill in an area along the rim. Terk said that portions of literally wrap around the rim of the canyon.

Lilias Jarding from Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA) said there are reclaimed uranium exploration sites that dot the landscape of the proposed project. Unreclaimed drill holes are a potential conduit for contamination between aquifers.

She said it is significant that this area drains into the Cheyenne River. Scientists from the SDSMT and California State University-Fresno found elevated levels of uranium at Angostura Reservoir, a popular recreation destination. The study tested stream sediments along the Cheyenne River watershed from old, abandoned uranium mines to the reservoir.

Jarding says South Dakota has a legacy of contamination and neglect. There was so much waste from the Edgemont mill, which operated from the 1950’s to the 1970’s, that a massive cleanup effort was required to remove 4-million tons of contaminated soil tailings.

There was also a spill of radioactive uranium waste into the Cheyenne River in 1962 when an industrial tailings dam failed and released one hundred tons into the river.

The U.S. imports most of its uranium and Nexus has highlighted their “hub” as securing a domestic supply of uranium, will be an economic driver, and create jobs. BHCWA and the Grand Canyon Trust say otherwise and point to cost estimates by the EPA that the backlog for cleaning up abandoned uranium mines in the U.S. is between twenty billion and fifty-four billion dollars and say this shows that costs of cleaning up environmental damage are far higher than the total revenue generated from selling uranium.

By 2000, the Department of Energy had spent $1.5 billion dollars to stabilize radioactive tailing at 24 former mill sites that were abandoned after the Cold War mining boom, including the Edgemont mill. The cleanup extended to 137 properties in the area including homes, businesses, and public areas where radioactive sandy tailing shas been used as construction fill or for landscaping by locals.

Jarding said that there are three dozen people and groups who are participating as intervenors in the process for the overall Chord project hearing, which has been scheduled for March 18-22.

Currently, the 30-day comment period on October Jinx is open and comments are due by March 3, 2026, at 11:59 pm central standard time.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

The post Citizens rally for Craven Canyon’s future against Edgemont’s toxic legacy first appeared on Native Sun News Today.

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