Indigenous water protectors band with non-Natives to stanch Black Hills bleeding

Organizers from the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, Dakota Rural Action, NDN Collective were part of a 2023 community meeting that gathered to oppose F3's assaults on the southern and central Black Hills. 

Using up to ten thousand gallons of water from a municipal source (probably Newcastle, Wyoming) every day, out of state F3 Gold plans to execute the Newark Exploratory Drilling Project on the Hell Canyon Ranger District west of a South Dakota town named for a war criminal. Land seized from the Great Sioux Nation had been remanded to the tribes under the Treaty of Fort Laramie but Congress broke the agreement to pay down Civil War debt then exploited the Custer Expedition's discovery of gold in the Black Hills.

Water protectors from Indigenous group NDN Collective again joined area residents and others opposed to the attack on public lands citing fears of polluting groundwater after the Black Hills National Forest approved the scheme to drill some 390 5000-foot holes in the heart of Indian Country.

“Through our shared opposition to F3 Gold’s exploratory drilling project, local Native and non-Native communities realized we have similar ideals about how this land should be cared for – and that the only way for us to protect ourselves from toxic mining is to band together as a united force,” said Taylor Gunhammer, organizer at NDN Collective and member of newly formed community board opposing the Newark project. “By pushing F3 Gold’s Newark project through, The U.S. Forest Service has eliminated both environmental review and meaningful tribal consultation altogether.” [NDN Collective]

Colorado's mineral extraction industries have effectively stolen over $500 billion from the Apache of Oklahoma, Cheyenne & Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma, Comanche, Kiowa, Northern Arapaho, Northern Cheyenne, Shoshone, Ute Tribe of Utah, Southern Ute, and Ute Mountain Ute. Read that here.

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