Forest Service greenlights exploratory drilling by Pete Lien & Sons at Pe’Sla

“We oppose this decision to allow exploratory drilling at Pe’ Sla,” said NDN Collective President Wizipan Little Garriot (Rosebud Sioux) told Native Sun News Today, following the Black Hills National Forest’s( BHNF) approval of a request by Pete Lien & Sons to drill for graphite without a full environmental review. The decision came late on Friday afternoon. Pe’ Sla a sacred landscape at the heart of the Black Hills and it also provides drinking water for Rapid City. Opponents say the decision places drinking water, treaty rights, and religious freedom at risk.

“This is a direct attack on Indigenous lands our right to religious freedom – all in the name of potential profit for an extractive corporation,” said Taylor Gunhammer, leader organizer for NDN Collective’s Protect The He Sapa campaign.

Pe’ Sla is just one of the many areas in the Black Hills that is threatened by exploratory and drilling projects for gold, lithium, uranium, limestone, and construction aggregates, which are the most mined materials in the world.

“Graphite activity can contaminate water sources with sediments, heavy metals, and chemicals. PLS’ proposed Rochford Mineral Exploratory Drilling Project and any resulting mining risk contaminating our drinking water. Located in an essential supply zone within the Rapid Creek Watershed, the project endangers the water supply for Rapid City, Ellsworth Air Force Base, nearby communities, and reservation and ranch lands along the Cheyenne River,” said Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA) in a press release.

Efforts have been ongoing to protect this specific area. Pe’ Sla shares a watershed with the Pactola reservoir. In 2024, the Interior Department signed legislation protecting twenty thousand acres of land in the area from all mining efforts, a decision that had been the result of years of advocacy by BHCWA, NDN Collective, tribes, local officials, and numerous other advocate groups. Nearly two thousand comments had been gathered supporting the mineral withdrawal.

In 2014, four tribes raised $9 million to purchase back the Pe’ Sla area and worked with the federal government to put the central prayer site, and a 2-mile buffer zone around it, into federal trust. The purpose of these efforts was to recognize the religious and cultural significance of the area and therefore protect it from harmful mining and drilling activity.

The Black Hills Clean Water Alliance as of earlier this year said that there are over thirteen thousand active mining claims in the Black Hills that cover anywhere about 259 thousand to 271 thousand acres, roughly twenty percent of the entire Black Hills region.

Dakota Gold and F3 Gold are the largest holders of acreage with a minimum of ninety thousand, according to the Forest Service.

Patriot Lithium and Midwest Lithium, with an estimate acreage of nearly twenty-one thousand, are among the nine operators wanting to explore lithium.

Uranium projects proposed by enCore Energy and Nexus Uranium Corporation at the Dewey-Burdock, Chord, and Wolf Canyon sites are estimated to be a minimum of twelve thousand acres.

There is also a forest service vegetation management projects that cover an estimated fifty thousand acres. One of those is the Ridgeback Project. While the Forest Service says these projects include thinning, prescribed burning, and reforestation for forest health and to reduce wildfire risk, BHCWA also tracks these projects because forest management activities facilitate increased mining access. In this case, the increased mining threatens the watershed integrity in the Battle Creek area.

The Pe’Sla project would consist of 18 drill pads, each one drilling up to 1,000 feet deep. Drill pad areas go through a process of vegetation removal, toxic drilling mud pits, and destruction or degradation of all other uses of the land. This project would threaten the Rapid Creek Watershed and the underground water sources in the area.

BHCWA said that the sacred site had been put in trust to safeguard it from damaging mining activities exactly like the one proposed by PLS.

NDN Collective and the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA) are urging community members and concerned citizens to take action regarding the proposed drilling at Pe’Sla. They recommend contacting the US Forest Service’s Mystic District at 605-343-1567 to formally request the reversal of the decision permitting exploratory drilling in the Pe’Sla area. Specifically, they are asking for the rescinding of the permit and the withdrawal of the Categorical Exclusion that allowed the project to move forward.

(Contact Marnie Cook at cookm8715@gmail.com)

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