Norbeck Society pushing back on Neiman influence in LawCo

After a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest has been broken for decades. The collapse of the Black Hills hydrologic region was forecast in 2002 even as the mountain pine beetle raced to save Paha Sapa water supplies. Nevertheless, Hulett, Wyoming-based Neiman Enterprises bought the former Homestake mill in Spearditch in 2008 after logging most of the Black Hills National Forest into the dirt. 

In 2018 after the Trump Organization gutted the National Environmental Policy Act then was thrown from the White House Neiman closed its Hill City, South Dakota sawmill and is threatening to shutter another in Spearditch announcing layoffs and production cutbacks while blaming the US Forest Service. Earth hating US Senators John Thune and John Barrasso introduced the Save Jim Neiman's Ass Black Hills Forest Protection and Jobs Preservation Act of 2022 but it died in committee. The downsizing came despite Neiman's successful operations in blue states while enjoying the fruits of socialism as Republicans found a way to funnel taxpayer dollars to the Black Hills timber mogul under a partnership between the US Forest Service and the National Wild Turkey Federation. 

 

In June, 2023 an interested party asked former acting Black Hills National Forest Supervisor Jim Zornes to comment on an article appearing in South Dakota Searchlight about the heinous state of affairs on the Forest then the publication followed up on that piece with another describing the unheard of turnover of supervisors so an interested party asked Dave Mertz to comment on it. Mertz is a retired natural resource officer for the BHNF who attended a roundtable discussion in Spearditch hosted by South Dakota's lone US Representative Dusty Johnson when he sicced two fellow Earth haters on Regional Forester Frank Beum and BHNF Supervisor Shawn Cochran. 

Historian Paul Horsted, the Norbeck Society, People for Sustainable Logging in the Black Hills and the Black Hills Environmental Coalition joined the condemnation of Rep. Johnson's attack on the Forest Service.

The subtext: 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘭𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘯𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘺.

Until recently the Lawrence County “Natural Resources Committee” was called the “timber committee”. To the best of our knowledge, since the name change a few years ago, they have not addressed any resource except timber.

Since 2011, science has repeatedly shown that logging on the Black Hills National Forest is unsustainable.

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙇𝙖𝙬𝙧𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝘾𝙤𝙪𝙣𝙩𝙮 𝙉𝙖𝙩𝙪𝙧𝙖𝙡 𝙍𝙚𝙨𝙤𝙪𝙧𝙘𝙚𝙨 𝘾𝙤𝙢𝙢𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙚 𝙝𝙖𝙨 𝙞𝙜𝙣𝙤𝙧𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙥𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩𝙨 𝙗𝙮 𝙩𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖 "𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙗𝙚𝙧 𝙝𝙖𝙧𝙫𝙚𝙨𝙩". In addition to the widely available information about the depletion trend of saw logs, the committee has disregarded the resulting consequences to aesthetics, habitat, wildfire risk, and how the pressure they exert on the Forest Service to cut down big trees will run the timber industry out of business for lack of suitable trees for logging.

By our calculations, within 6 years at the current pace of logging, the Lawrence County Natural Resources Committee will likely have no more “expertise” to offer to the Forest Service. Maybe at that time they will move on to other resources.

Concerned residents might consider a visit with Lawrence County Commissioners and/or Committee members about the influence the County is exerting on the Forest Service and management of the national forest lands within the county. [Norbeck Society]

Lumber prices are depressed as wildfire salvage floods mills.

In a request for comment on the status of the cooperative agency status and what it means for the Forest Service and the private timber industry, Cochran’s office said they felt the issue had been resolved and refused further comment. [Lawrence Co. regains cooperative agency status with Forest Service]

Republican ranchers are pushing back on Trump Organization well drilling in southern NM

Under provisions of the 1906 Antiquities Act President Joe Biden's America the Beautiful initiative includes protecting some 245,000 acres of Chihuahuan Desert and Florida Mountains in Luna County, New Mexico. Most of the proposed Mimbres Peaks National Monument is on US Bureau of Land Management ground and could provide nearly $12 million in new economic activity, support over eighty new jobs and generate thousands of dollars in new state, county, and local revenues. 

But of course Republicans like Yvette Herrell and the Earth hating American Farm Bureau Federation are leading opposition to the plan. AFBF is notorious for conflicts of interest and denying the human effects on a warming climate while lobbying extensively for crop insurance in the federal farm bill and against Waters of the United States or WOTUS rules. 

However, public land designations face heavy scrutiny under the current administration, which has prioritized rolling back federal protections and downsizing monuments. While supported by a collaborative local coalition of business owners, conservationists, and a Luna County Commissioner, the proposal faces opposition from neighboring conservative county boards (such as Roosevelt and Lea counties) that view the Antiquities Act as an overreach.

The Roosevelt Act of 1907 provided for reservation of a 60-mile-wide tract along the U.S.-Mexico border to prevent smuggling and enforce immigration laws. It came at the tail end of the 1906 Antiquities Act. Unhappy with one aspect of the Trump administration’s implementation of that law, a group of concerned ranchers and farmers met Thursday to voice their opposition to what they called “illegal drilling” along the border. “They’re drilling on my land right now,” said Bill Johnson, a multi-generational farmer and rancher along the border who said water is key to his family’s livelihood — and has been for more than a century of farming and ranching in Luna County. “If my well dries up, my land will be worth nothing, and my cattle and crops won’t have water.” 

New Mexico law requires a drilling permit for such projects. The Office of the State Engineer became aware of the drilling, and attempted to stop the company which began work near Hachita and is now drilling in Luna County. Catron County rancher Tom Paterson, the president of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, urged citizens to reach out to state and federal lawmakers to voice their concerns about the well drilling along the border. [Border ranchers raise concerns about federal well drilling]

Trump's reckless behavior is exactly what Democrats hope will keep Republicans away from the polls in November.

Anderson cartoon implicates SD governor

Larry Rhoden is a criminal.

ICE Shootings Follow my cartoons and accompanying written commentary on Substack: nickanderson.substack.com

[image or embed]

— Nick Anderson - political cartoonist (@andertoon.bsky.social) July 16, 2026 at 12:48 PM

Erase Denny Sanford, too

New Mexico is erasing Cesar Chavez' name because of his predatory past so South Dakota should do the right thing, too.

Blogger's home town to host solar farm as wind power blows out

The cost of subsidizing, manufacturing, transporting, erecting, maintaining then removing and disposing of just one wind turbine eyesore bat and bird killer would take about six hundred subscribers to energy self-reliance. Microgrid technologies are destined to enhance tribal sovereignty, free communities from electric monopolies and net-metering only gives control back to utilities enabled by moral hazard. 

No corporate taxes, a compliant regulator, a dearth of environmental protection and cheap labor make South Dakota the perfect dumping ground for Earth killers like coal and eyesores like wind farms. 

Nevertheless, according to Earth hating Public Utilities Cartel Commissioner Chris Nelson the amount of wind power generation may have reached its plateau. In a 2019 interview with WNAX Radio Nelson said he believes there will be rapid development of solar power production facilities instead. But, the predicted shift toward solar, wind energy didn't stop entirely; major projects like the $400 million Crowned Ridge Wind Farm still moved forward around that timeframe. However, his prediction accurately foreshadowed a broader regional and national trend of diversifying renewable portfolios with rapid solar deployment to balance out the grid. 

Walworth County has a population of about 5,300 souls; it's rural, backwards and overwhelmingly Republican so Doral Renewables targeted slightly less primitive Brookings County for a solar farm instead.

Doral Renewables has much of the land it needs for a proposed 1,000-megawatt solar farm near Elkton in Richland and Elkton townships. “We’re at an endpoint regarding acquiring enough acreage to host the construction of the entire project,” Curtis Nordick, a senior development manager with Doral, told The Brookings Register in a recent interview. The proposed project has a lot of hoops to jump through at the state and local levels, including permitting processes, before it can even hope to break ground. But if it does, it’ll provide jobs for 200 to 300 workers during its multi-year construction phase that would start in early 2029 and continue into at least 2031. “We’re not taking the land out of production, necessarily; we’re just changing the use to be kind of an accommodation regarding the solar project,” Nordick said. [Proposed solar farm near Elkton reaches land milestone]

Utilities are not your friends so don’t tie your photovoltaic system to the grid but if you use it as a backup keep your own electricity completely separate from the utility that reads your meter.