Another foreign miner would rip into sacred Black Hills

In 2000 now-dead Republican South Dakota Governor Bill Janklow sold the state cement plant in Rapid City to Grupo Cementos de Chihuahua (GCC). Democratic legislators voted against Janklow's folly because GCC was exempted from mineral severance and was allowed to mine on ground owned by School and Public Lands. Limestone-rich state trust land near Dewey was leased for a dollar for 99 years and could be renewed twice so for three bucks GCC received the mineral rights for 297 years and school kids got screwed. 

Today, West Rapid routinely endures blowing dust and air quality alerts from GCC's quarry operations and in 2026 Piedmont could suffer a similar fate.

Residents and government leaders in this small western South Dakota city are in shock that the state approved a limestone mining operation without notifying them in advance about the project. What they discovered is that Simon Contractors, a French-owned, Wyoming-based mining and materials company, has acquired state approval and private landowner agreements to allow limestone mining on 10 parcels of land that are either within the Piedmont city limits or that directly border its western boundary. A rare combination of a lax state mining law and a lack of county land-use regulations allowed the Piedmont mine to gain approval without input from the public or local government. [Piedmont residents shocked by new mine coming to their city]

Just south of Piedmont the town of Black Hawk is already facing the failure of the State of South Dakota to properly reclaim a gypsum mine. 

On Sunday, the entire Black Hills region will experience high fire danger and the grassland fire danger index will reach the moderate category in Piedmont.