FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: March 2, 2026
Rapid City, SD – Last Friday (2/27), the U.S. Forest Service Black Hills Regional Office issued a permit for exploratory drilling for graphite at Pe’sla, a sacred Indigenous site and place of ceremony for thousands of years. The Rochford Mineral Exploratory Drilling Project (RMEDP), a project of Rapid City mining company Pete Lien & Sons, is a violation of constitutional treaty rights and religious freedom. RMEDP endangers drinking water in the watershed, including for Ellsworth Airforce Base.
Pe’sla is sacred to the Lakota, who have visited the site for thousands of years. It is actively utilized for prayer, ceremony, and cultural activities. Drilling activity would disrupt religious and cultural activities and cause permanent damage to the site. The U.S. Forest Service has declared that, though Pe’sla is recognized as an Indigenous sacred site by Tribes, the State of South Dakota, and Pennington County, it does not represent an “extraordinary circumstance” that would prevent them from rushing the permit through.
“The U.S. Forest Service’s decision is a direct attack on Indigenous lands and our right to religious freedom – all in the name of potential profit for an extractive corporation,” said Taylor Gunhammer, lead organizer for NDN Collective’s Protect The Hesapa campaign. “Mining at Pe’sla could contaminate drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people in the area, cause irreparable ecological damage, and set the stage for more mining companies to permanently contaminate – and destroy – more land in the Black Hills. We cannot let this deal go through.”
It’s notable that Pe’sla shares a watershed with the Pactola reservoir – 20,000 acres of land and water that in 2024, then-U.S. Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland signed legislation protecting from all mining efforts for 20 years. Haaland’s decision was the result of years of NDN Collective’s advocacy and community organizing; work with tribes, local officials and the U.S. Forest Service; and successful effort alongside partner organizations to gather nearly 2,000 public comments supporting the mineral withdrawal.
In 2014, four tribes raised $9 million to purchase back the Pe’sla area and worked with the federal government to put the central prayer site, and a 2-mile buffer zone around it, into federal trust. The purpose of these efforts was to recognize the religious and cultural significance of the area and therefore protect it from harmful mining and drilling activity.
The Pe’sla project would consist of 18 drill pads, each of which could see drilling up to 1,000 ft deep. Drill pad areas go through a process of vegetation removal, toxic drilling mud pits, and destruction or degradation of all other uses of the land. This project would threaten the Rapid Creek Watershed and the underground water sources in the area.
NDN Collective is calling for everyone to call the U.S. Forest Service to demand they rescind the permit for Pe’sla drilling and the decision to grant a Categorical Exclusion (CE) for their exploratory drilling permit.
Link to U.S. Forest Service Decision Memo
Link to U.S. Forest Service Appendix and Agency Responses
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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.
