Defenders of the Black Hills
12th Annual "Walk for a New Spring, Walking for Peace"
Click here to view the brochure for the 12th Annual "Walk for a New Spring"
Madison Aquifer Levels 2000-2008As we have been objecting to Powertech Uranium Mining Companies plans for many years, we have researched the Historical Aquifer Levels of the Madison Aquifer. Powertech plans on taking out 551 gals per minute from the Madison. This same aquifer is used by Rapid City and many people in Pennington County. From a US Geological Survey Study near Jackson Springs, located on the western edge of Rapid City, the Madison aquifer dropped thirty feet from the year 2000 to 2008. That is a considerable drop in a water level and should alarm everyone. How much has it continued to go down in the past 4 years, especially with the drought? If Powertech is allowed to take water out of the Madison, it will also affect the Dakota aquifer which is used all over Eastern South Dakota. It will not just affect western South Dakota. The Madison aquifer refills the Dakota aquifer. For our complete explanation of this, go to denr.sd.gov/powertech/WhiteFacePetition.pdf This project if permitted will harmfully affect the whole state.
Click here to view full size. Pesla (Rochford) Road Project After the New York Times, a large East Coast newspaper, mentioned Defenders of the Black Hills in an article about the selling of a sacred place, Pe Sla, small donations started trickling in to the organization to help with the purchase of Pe Sla, a sacred place in the Black Hills. The organization then hosted a Benefit Masquerade Pow Wow, and on Nov. 21, 2012, sent a check to the Rosebud Sioux Tribe for $1,520.00 to help with the purchase of Pe Sla. Although the asking price is $9 million, Defenders has held a Prayer Gathering and the Benefit hoping their intentions and prayers will cause the miracle to protect this sacred place. This all volunteer organization brings people together on environmental issues, especially those that hurt places sacred to Native American people.  |
"Defenders of the Black Hills is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment of the 1851 and 1868 Treaty Territories, Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation."
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)