FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 2, 2026
Rapid City, SD – Last night, NDN Collective, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, and Earthworks filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service for their decision in February to grant a permit for exploratory drilling in Pe’ Sla, a sacred and protected Indigenous site.
To request the full complaint, filed in the United States Federal District Court for the District of South Dakota, please contact [email protected].
“The U.S. Forest Service’s use of a categorical exclusion for this project is unlawful because the project cannot be completed in less than one year, which is a requirement for a categorical exclusion,” said Tracey Zephier, General Counsel for NDN Collective. “The project will adversely impact the religious and cultural uses of Pe’ Sla and such impact is an ‘extraordinary circumstance’ that prohibits the issuance of a categorical exclusion under NEPA. We are asking the federal court to vacate the U.S. Forest Service’s approval of the permit for this project and enjoin (stop) any further proceedings.”
“We will not stand for the desecration of our sacred sites, land, and water by extractive mining companies like Pete Lien,” said Wizipan Garriott, President of NDN Collective. “The laws of the United States are often rigged against us, but we are confident this categorical exclusion was unlawful. We will defend this land in the courts, but as the original people of this land sovereignty in this matter is inherent. The United States has a duty to honor the Constitution and 1868 Treaty to protect Pe’ Sla for our grandchildren and all people to enjoy its sacred beauty.”
“In addition to its violation of the rights of the Lakota and other Indigenous peoples, this proposed mining project is in a unique and fragile biological and geological area,” said Dr. Lilias Jarding, Executive Director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. “It is in the Rapid Creek watershed and threatens water for Rapid City, Ellsworth Air Force Base, tribal communities, and ranching operations downstream along the Cheyenne River. Rapid Creek’s water also fills our area’s groundwater sources. It is critical that we take action to protect the surface and ground water that make our lives and our communities possible.”
Pe’ Sla has been a place of ceremony for the Lakota and other Indigenous peoples for thousands of years. It is a site encompassing several thousand acres, with part of the site owned by sovereign Tribal nations of the Oceti Sakowin and part of the site within the U.S. Forest Service lands. A 2014 Memorandum of Understanding between the U.S. Forest Service and representative Tribal nations of the Oceti Sakowin acknowledged and agreed that Pe’ Sla was of great cultural and religious importance to the Oceti Sakowin. The 2014 MOU created a 2-mile buffer zone around Pe’ Sla, and the U.S. Forest Service made a commitment to protect that area.
Despite that, on Friday, February 27th, 2026, the U.S. Forest Service issued a permit to Pete Lien & Sons, an extractive mining company, to conduct exploratory drilling for graphite on federal lands adjacent to tribal lands where Indigenous people continue to pray and conduct cultural activities. The closest borehole is less than ½ mile from the legal boundary of Pe’ Sla. The drilling permit was deemed by the U.S. Forest Service to be eligible for a “categorical exclusion,” meaning the project would be exempt from a more in-depth federal environmental review process required under the National Environmental Policy Act.NDN Collective, Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, and others have been fighting to protect Pe’ Sla for over a year. They mobilized community members to submit thousands of public comments last spring, testified against the project at hearings and information gathering meetings, collected over 6,000 signatures on a petition calling on the U.S. Forest Service to rescind the permit to Pete Lien and Sons, and educated audiences about the importance of this sacred site through the LANDBACK For the People podcast, social media, news interviews, and more.
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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.
