Nine Native American tribes sue US Forest Service over approval of drilling at sacred site
Nine Native American tribes have filed a lawsuit against the US Forest Service over its approval of a graphite drilling project near Pe’ Sla, a site in the Black Hills that holds cultural and spiritual significance for Native Americans.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, Lower Brule Sioux Tribe, Santee Sioux Tribe, Sisseton-Whapeton Oyate, Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and Yankton Sioux Tribe — also known as the Oceti Sakowin, or Seven Council Fires of the Great Sioux Nation — are all plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
The lawsuit challenges the decision to allow Rapid City-based Pete Lien and Sons to allow exploratory drilling for a potential graphite mine. Graphite is used in electric vehicle batteries, lubricants, pencils and other products.
The drilling is planned near Pe’ Sla, also known as Reynolds Prairie, which is owned and used by the tribes for prayer, ceremony and cultural activities.
The lawsuit says the US Forest Service improperly used a process known as a “categorical exclusion” to bypass environmental and cultural reviews. The tribes never ceded the land in the Black Hills to the United States, Oglala Sioux Tribe President Frank Star Comes Out said in a press release.
“The Black Hills remain the spiritual center of the Great Sioux Nation, and they are not for sale, lease, or exploitation by energy companies,” Star Comes Out said. “This lawsuit represents a united tribal response to protect a sacred site from those who continue to desecrate our ancestral lands.”
The tribes argue the drilling activities “will harm the land and natural and cultural resources in the Black Hills,” and will especially harm Pe’ Sla by “disrupting and interfering with sacred ceremonies and practice there,” according to the press release.
The lawsuit alleges a categorical exclusion was improper because the project includes drilling, road work and other activity near Pe’ Sla, which goes beyond what a categorical exclusion allows. The plaintiffs also argue that Pe’ Sla’s religious and cultural importance should have triggered a fuller review, rather than the abbreviated process.
Neither Pete Lien & Sons nor the Forest Service immediately responded to requests for comment, and neither entity has filed a response to the tribes’ complaint, which was filed on Thursday in U.S. District Court for the District of South Dakota.
The tribes’ legal action is the second federal lawsuit to challenge the graphite project. The first was filedearlier this month by the Rapid City-based advocacy organizations NDN Collective and the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance.
Taylor Gunhammer, an Oglala Lakota advocate who works with both groups, said in a press release last year on the groups’ opposition to the project that “drilling at Pe’ Sla would be like drilling under the Vatican or at a sacred site in Jerusalem.”
In response to that press release, a representative of Pete Lien and Sons told Searchlight the company was reviewing the plan’s potential impact on sites of cultural and historical significance in the proposed project area.
A hearing in the NDN Collective case against the Forest Service is scheduled for Monday afternoon at the federal courthouse in Rapid City. No dates have been set in the separate lawsuit filed Thursday by the tribes.
