Defenders of the Black Hills
Update on Pesla Road Project
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There are some meetings scheduled for the Pesla Road Project. Information was sent to you before about plans to blacktop this road through an area that is sacred to many Native American nations. Called Pesla, meaning Bald, the area is in the west middle portion of the Black Hills and can clearly be seen by satelite. It is being handled by the Pennington County Road Department.
If you can, please attend both of the meetings and voice your concerns. More sacred places in the Black Hills should not be impacted by paved roads.
1. A Community Information meeting will be held on Thursday, March 1, 2012, from 5 - 7 PM at the Rochford Firehall in Rochford, SD.
2. A Public Scoping Meeting to begin the Environmental Impact Study process will be held on Thursday, April 19, 2012, from 5 - 7 PM at the Hill City High School in Hill City, SD. This will be the most important one to attend.
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Professional Statistician Analyzes Beetle-Fire Risk on BHNFHello Defenders, The following is from our Treasurer, Brian Brademeyer, and Friends of the Norbeck. Now we have scientific evidence that the pine beetles do not cause wildfires. The Norbeck Wild Life Area is currently being logged by the US Forest Service in violation of federal law.Our efforts to protect it by asking President Obama to transfer it to the National Park Service have been ignored. We will keep you up to date on other ideas to protect this last wilderness area in the Black Hills, only 0.05% of the entire Black Hills. Charmaine White Face, Coordinator  Â
South Dakota of In Situ Leach miningHello Defenders, The following is a message from the Clean Water Alliance of which we are a part. Lilias Jarding has been following this House Bill to reinstate the regulation by the state of South Dakota of In Situ Leach mining. The uranium mining company, Powetech, last year had the legislature drop the state regulations after their own state office, the SD Department of Environment and Regulation refused to give a permit to Powertech until they answered all of DENR's regulations. Powetech lobbied the state legislature and won. This year, one of the SD Representatives has introduced House Bill 1098 to reinstate the state regulations. Please make a call, write a letter, and-or attend the hearings in the House Committee on State Affairs. Thanks so much. Charmaine White Face, Coordinator ************************** Â
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"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)