Whitewood building live/work space below tailings dam, former Superfund site

Part of a massive toxic slag pile below Deadwood sloughs into Whitewood Creek

Whitewood, South Dakota stinks and the smells are not just coming from the Ridley Block Plant on the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad tracks.

Today, the remaining combined sewer segments are not the only suspected source of E. coli in Whitewood Creek. The draft biennial report on the state’s surface water quality, known as the Integrated Report for Surface Water Quality Assessment, additionally identifies aging septic systems, wildlife and livestock as possible E. coli sources. [Lead struggles to keep sewage out of Whitewood Creek]

If the slag in Whitewood Creek was harmless or benign it would be added as aggregate to concrete destined for highway repairs. Nevertheless, Whitewood wants to spend $2 million on a live/work project.

Whitewood aims to attract a bigger workforce housing with work-live buildings, where the business is on the first level, with the living space situated on the upper floors. Whitewood officials say they are hopeful this could serve as a template and other communities will follow suit. [Whitewood group gets grant for building development]

No doubt Sturgis Rally developers will simply buy this stuff up and rent it out for ten days a year.

Homestake Mining Company dumped cyanide and other hazardous substances into Whitewood Creek for a hundred years so the waterway was named a Superfund site in 1981 but before selling to Canadian miner Barrick, Homestake restored some of it in 1994 and the stream was taken off the Superfund list in 1996. How Whitewood's water supply is safe for human consumption remains a mystery.

The GOP-owned South Dakota Department of Ecocide and Natural Ruination says the Grizzly Gulch tailings impoundment above both Deadwood and Whitewood is good to go until 2035.

Unless it's not.