Defenders of the Black Hills
Otter Creek Mine
Hello Defenders,
The following message is being sent to ask if you will voice your concerns on the Otter Creek Mine. This surface strip coal mine is within the area covered by Defenders of the Black Hills. We have visited the area and it is nestled in a beautiful valley and historic place that will be completely destroyed.
Please voice your concern for no more coal mining and the protection of the environment of the Otter Creek area.
Thank you.
Sent by Charmaine White Face, Coordinator
World Heritage Committee Decision on Selous Game Reserve PAVING THE WAY for URANIUM DEVELOPMENT
Dear Defenders, I am sending this on to you even though it is not in our Treaty Territory. It is sent by our good friend and ally, Gunder Wippel. The information is so sad. When will the insanity stop? Please pass it on if you wish. Thank you. Charmaine White Face, Coordinator Defenders of the Black Hills PO Box 2003 Rapid City, SD 57709 www.defendblackhills.org
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July, 2012 Newsletter - 3rd QuarterThe third Quarterly meeting was held on Saturday, July, 7, 2012. The meeting had originally been planned for June 23, but scheduling conflicts occurred and the meeting had to be postponed. In the Opening Remarks, Charmaine White Face, the Coordinator, explained that there are so many issues, and have been fr om the beginning, that she sees her job as letting others know about projects, and the time and place for comments or meetings. She thanked those that attended the South Rochford Road Meeting in Hill City which she couldn’t make, and also those that sent comments letters in to the National Guard. This kind of participation by many people is what helps to have an effect on the issue. If many people attended the meetings, what kind of cumulative effect would we have?
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Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,
"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
July 26, 1963 upon signing the ban on above ground nuclear tests
"The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima Nuclear disaster...." Nuclear Physics Professor Kimberly Kearfott, University of Michigan, in comparing the readings obtained in northwestern South Dakota at the Cave Hills open-pit, abandoned uranium mines.
“It must always be remembered that the various Indian tribes were once independent and sovereign nations, and that their claim to sovereignty long predates that of our own government.”
Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice
(McClanahan v. Sate Tax Commission, 1973)