Lakota tribes, grassroots organizers unite against ‘modern gold rush’ in Black Hills

 

Part four: Prospecting Proliferates

Part 4 of a 4 part series

 

Mining opponents insist the critical situation be addressed before any more permitting is allowed. They note that in January 2022, five companies had 148,000 acres of the Black Hills under active mining exploration claims. By October 2023, 10 companies had 293,000 acres claimed, nearly doubling their stakes. 

An ongoing citizen mapping project led by Mato Ohitika Analytics LLC highlights “the vast extent of potential mining projects, as well as the modern gold rush that threatens Black Hills water, health, wildlife, and our recreation and tourism economy,” the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance said at a news conference in early 2022.

The Forest Service says no public property remains for mining claims in the northern Black Hills. The entire area has already been pocketed by gold companies. The claims cover acreage along both sides of Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. The agency has approved a draft permit for Colorado-based Solitario Resource Corp. to drill for gold at 23 sites on about 27,800 acres as part of its Golden Crest Project. 

Just downstream on Spearfish Creek, the Spearfish City Council unanimously passed a resolution against it in June and called for an Environmental Impact Statement study. More than 1,000 people have signed a petition calling on Black Hills District Ranger Steve Kozel to require “a complete Environmental Impact Statement before beginning exploratory drilling in the northern Hills.”

In the petition: “An examination of the Plan of Operations submitted to you reveals Solitario’s threats to every beneficial use of Spearfish Canyon.” The threats include damage to the natural environment, the local economy  – which is reliant upon outdoor recreation and tourism – as well as tribal cultural resources, and human, social and physical health.

On Dec. 12, the Forest Service opened a comment period for its draft exploration permit. “Now is our opportunity to object to this plan,” the alliance announced. “We have until January 26, 2024, at 11:59 pm to object.”

It was Minnesota-based F3 Gold LLC’s application for the Jenny Gulch Project that moved the Forest Service to propose a moratorium on new claims, said forester Buchanon. F3 Gold targeted the community of Silver City, S.D. for drilling within a 62-square-mile area.

Breaking Point

The project would take place in a prized recreational location around the inlet to Pactola Reservoir. Its draft permit immediately stirred leaders of the Great Plains Tribal Chairmen’s Association to meet with Forest Service brass at U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack’s office in Washington, D.C.

A tribal missive to Vilsack demanded the USDA withdraw “any and all gold mining-related approvals in the Jenny Gulch, including exploratory permits because you have failed to obtain our consent in violation of Articles 2 and 16 of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty.”

The treaty “requires consent of the Great Sioux Nation for non-Indians even to be present in our territory, let alone to rape it by mineral extraction. The USDA and the USFS did not ask the Great Sioux Nation for consent on this mine, and you did not obtain it,” the elected tribal leaders’ letter states.

A Lakota warning at a Rapid City Common Council meeting helped prompt a resolution against large-scale upstream gold prospecting. Oglala Lakota tribal member Dennis Yellow Thunder spoke just two days before the Black Hills National Forest closed its comment period on the F3 Jenny Gulch Exploration Drilling Project.

“First of all, let me remind you of the sacredness of the Black Hills,” Yellow Thunder told the council during a Feb. 3, 2020 hearing on the resolution submitted by the Planning and Zoning Committee at the urging of the grassroots organizations. 

“Remember what happened the last time gold was discovered? It was the end of our way of life,” he said about the 1800s gold rush that resulted in the Fort Laramie Treaty violations and theft of the Black Hills. The subsequent homesteading and jurisdictional framework imposed on the area abridged the freedom to hunt, fish and worship for the Oceti Sakowin, Seven Council Fires, in their own territories, said Yellow Thunder, who is a Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board member.

“You draw a lot of tourism dollars from these Black Hills. It will be the end of your way of life when it dries up because no one wants to fish or swim or kayak or hunt in these hills because of the contamination that will occur,”

Dennis Yellow Thunder- Oglala Lakota, Black Hills National Forest Advisory Board member

“This time, should this proposed exploratory drilling activity go on, it will be the end of your way of life,” he warned. “You draw a lot of tourism dollars from these Black Hills. It will be the end of your way of life when it dries up because no one wants to fish or swim or kayak or hunt in these hills because of the contamination that will occur,” he said.

“So, think really hard about that and vote in support of this resolution,” he said.

‘Perpetuity Forever’

In April, with the Rapid City claims withdrawal hearing serving as a lightning rod, the Forest Service learned that many constituents want the protected area enlarged and shielded for eternity. Organizers are circulating a petition for an act of Congress to create a larger permanent boundary of the waterway. The draft legislation would be named the Rapid Creek Watershed Recreation Area Act, which would elevate the protection level.

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed a resolution for funding to save the environment and cultural resources from gold exploration. The resolution calls upon Congress to withdraw the Black Hills National Forest from the scope of the 1872 Mining Act.

A sixth-generation descendant of a treaty negotiator, Reno Red Cloud, who is the Oglala Sioux Tribe Water Resource director, arrived at the withdrawal hearing fresh from another meeting in the nation’s capital with the USDA. “We do support the withdrawal, but we want to do it in perpetuity forever because this is our treaty lands, our homelands. You guys are on sacred ground. We need to have it protected,” he said.

Oglala Lakota citizen Mark Kenneth Tilsen testified: “If we expand this we can protect the waters, so we’re not having to take on these issues one by one anymore. We can get them all. We are slowly transitioning from the idea of management to the idea of stewardship,” he said. “In our Indigenous way, we would say ‘treating the land as a relative.’” 

Unci Maka is not a resource to be managed and extracted, said Tilsen, but should be recognized as a “life-giving force.”

(Contact Talli Nauman at  buffalo.gal10@gmail.com)

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