Amelia Schafer
ICT
RAPID CITY, S.D. – Natural resource mining company Pete Lien & Sons has canceled its plans to conduct exploratory graphite drilling 0.6 miles north of Pe’ Sla, a sacred site within the Black Hills of South Dakota, according to two organizations opposed to the project.
The company sent a letter to the U.S. Forest Service on Friday morning withdrawing the permit that the agency granted on Feb. 27 for 18 graphite drilling sites within the two-mile buffer zone around Pe’ Sla, said NDN Collective and the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. The buffer zone was created in 2016 by a memorandum of understanding between the Forest Service and several tribes.
Pe’ Sla is a sacred site to the Oceti Sakowin (Lakota, Dakota and Nakota) tribes and part of the Lakota people’s creation story.
ICT reached out to Pete Lien & Sons and the U.S. Forest Service for comment but hadn’t heard back from either by the time of publication.
The decision comes after a weeklong occupation of the project site by Indigenous treaty defenders, including Lakota youth who “locked down” or tied themselves to the drilling equipment. Four days prior, a temporary restraining order issued by a U.S. judge prohibited all drilling at the site until further court proceedings.
“Today’s successful protection of Pe’ Sla, which is the result of courageous land defense by the community, strategic legal action, and collective prayer, marks a great victory for the people and Mother Earth,” said Wizipan Garriott, president of NDN Collective and Sicangu Lakota, in a statement Friday.
NDN Collective, which helped organize the occupation, said on May 5 that Pete Lien & Sons removed all drills and equipment from the Rochford Mineral Exploratory Drilling Project areas.
“The Pe’ Sla Protectors Camp successfully accomplished their goal of evicting the drills from the area,” NDN Collective said Friday. “We made the decision to demobilize camp and then developed plans with partners to continue monitoring the site until the injunction hearing later this month to ensure that the drills do not return.”
All drilling at the site was ordered to stop following U.S. District Judge Camela C. Theeler’s ruling on the matter on Monday. Theeler ruled in favor of the two lawsuits against the drilling project, one by nine Oceti Sakowin tribes and another by nonprofit organizations NDN Collective, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance and Earthworks. Theeler granted a temporary restraining order on the project, causing all drilling to stop until the cases could be heard before the court.
NDN Collective said information revealed during the restraining order hearing Monday showed drilling was already completed at 7 of the 18 permitted drill sites prior to the group beginning its occupation of two sites April 30.
“Given this pace of work by Pete Lien & Sons, we know that they likely would have completed drilling for most if not all their samples before the (temporary restraining order) was even granted, making our action to protect Pe’ Sla even more consequential,” NDN Collective said in a statement.