Rochford residents rankled over Canadians increasing road traffic, noise, dust

Canadian miners with permission to drill some 120 exploratory holes near a site sacred to American Indians in the Black Hills are still trying to secure enough off-site water to resume operations.

Mineral Mountain Resources is drilling on some 7,500 acres in the Homestake Gold Belt on public lands and at a private site known as the Standby Mine Target.

John Hopkins is one of the few residents in Rochford, South Dakota and one of those concerned there about the gold project they believe is taking over their town. "If they wind up getting water and they're going to have to haul it in, you can imagine trucks coming down through this territory here and tearing up the roads," Hopkins expressed. [KEVN teevee]

The Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe passed resolutions condemning what they say are abuses of the General Mining Law of 1872 that led to the Custer Expedition's discovery of gold in the Black Hills and to pay Civil War debt.

Mineral Mt. Resource’s Plan of Operations is too loose and will require a rigorous NEPA analysis. We submit that an environmental impact statement would be the best method of accomplishing such an evaluation. It would provide your agency and the public with the best information to evaluate the proposed project and determine necessary and adequate mitigation measures for problems which may result from the implementation of the project, and to determine whether the Forest Service should require a bond from the project applicant. [South Dakota Chapter of the Sierra Club]

Area residents say the Vancouver-based miners have destroyed Black Hills National Forest Service Road 184A.