For Immediate Release: February 1, 2024
Pine Ridge, SD – Today, the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council passed a resolution requesting the immediate approval of the U.S. Forest Service’s proposed mineral withdrawal (effectively a mining ban) surrounding the Pactola Reservoir in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The council also requested that the withdrawal be extended to encompass the remaining 90 percent of the Rapid Creek Watershed area and the entirety of the Black Hills National Forest.
For the last year, local organizers at NDN Collective have been working closely with Oglala Sioux Tribe officials to foster support for the proposed mineral withdrawal. Now, organizers are looking to the other 15 tribes recognized by the federal government as having a legal say in the development of the Black Hills to stand behind this resolution in order to protect sacred land from destructive mining operations.
“The Pactola withdrawal is a way for this entire community – not just Tribal citizens – to protect lands and a critical drinking water source from powerful international mining interests,” said Taylor Gunhammer, local organizer at NDN Collective. “Indigenous peoples protect 80 percent of Earth’s remaining biodiversity – we have demonstrated a deep care for the land for millennia, and will not allow mining companies to ravage it.”
“Any mining company that tries to desecrate the land or water of the sacred Black Hills will be entering a battle that the Lakota have been waging for over two hundred years,” said Mark K. Tilsen, action organizer at NDN Collective. “We are honored that the Oglala Sioux Tribal Council is committed to fighting for the Black Hills. We all love our sacred lands.”
In the opening prayer to the Council’s regular session, former tribal president and elder statesman John Yellowbird Steele solemnly said, “Let us get this done so the Oglala can once again be leaders in the United States.”
After the resolution passed, Reno Red Cloud, Director of the OST Water Resource Department, added “Tribes going forward together in this way, united in our message concerning the upholding of our treaty rights and the protection of our water, land and air is of the utmost importance right now. It is absolutely paramount.”
The next step is to get the Mineral Withdrawal expanded to all of the Black Hills which would create a last change for generations to come. NDN Collective will continue mobilizing local communities to protect this critical source of drinking water for Rapid City, Ellsworth AFB, Cheyenne River, and Pine Ridge.
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NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.
