In 1951 after uranium was discovered near Edgemont more than 150 uranium mines were gouged into the Earth where the Oglala Lakota once made their winter camp. Since then, radioactive tailings from those mines have been detected in Angostura Reservoir after a dam on the Cheyenne River broke in 1962.
In 1967 the military sold the former ordnance depot to the City of Edgemont who sold it to local cattle ranchers and some of the contaminated buildings were moved to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation on the Oglala Lakota Nation.
In 2017 Del Mar, California-based Robert Vicino entered an agreement with S&S Land and Cattle Co., and its partner corporation, Fort Igloo Bunkers. Vicino bought much of the 18 square mile property and 575 bunkers in 2020 for nearly $2.5 million. Boasting remote off-grid survivable spaces with two deep wells the Vivos xPoint bunkers are being marketed and leased to doomsday preppers.
In 2021 the Fall River Director of Equalization reported a total of 99 bunkers had been leased and that 201 bunkers were being valued by the county assessor’s office. Now, the State of South Dakota Office of Hearing Examiners has determined the tax value of the property is nearly $4 million or almost three times as much as the value that was used to assess 2021 taxes.
If all the bunkers were residences the compound’s population could exceed that of Edgemont’s 700 souls.
The average lot lease price has increased from $25,000 in 2017 to $41,389 in 2022. The properties are currently on a 99-year lease that costs $45,000. There is an additional cost of $1,000 per year for the ground lease, and a one-time $3,000 cost for a water hook-up. Heat and electricity come from generators and propane tanks located near each bunker, and water comes from a centralized cistern. [Decision rendered in Vivos bunkers tax valuation]The move comes as militants in the extreme white wing of the Republican Party and loyal to Donald Trump threaten to end all life as we know it. The Trumpistas want something like the Spanish Civil War so christianic nationalists, some of whom live in South Dakota, want Trump to declare himself emperor, dissolve the constitution then rule by executive fiat slaughtering every dissenter who resists.
In the last few weeks alone:
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) August 25, 2022
*Militia members were convicted of a plot to kidnap a Dem governor
*Threats and attempts at violence toward the FBI have escalated
*The IRS has undertaken its first security review since...the 1995 Oklahoma City bombinghttps://t.co/WxKQWbIzoo pic.twitter.com/1zicXHlLWe
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