Canadian miner wants more water for South Dakota uranium project

South Dakota is no stranger to ecocide because it's a way of life in the chemical toilet. Under the General Mining Act of 1872 even foreign miners have carte blanche to rape the Black Hills, so they are. 

Nearly all of the 300 mile long Cheyenne River flows through Indian Country. Powertech USA, part of Canadian firm Azarga Uranium, wants to mine near a tributary of the river even though tailings from uranium mining near Edgemont have been detected for years in Angostura Reservoir on the Cheyenne River in the southern Black Hills. South of Edgemont at Crow Butte near the headwaters of the White River above Crawford, Nebraska Canada-based Cameco, Inc. obtained rights to use 9,000 gallons of water per minute to extract raw uranium ore through 8,000 holes bored into the Ogallala and Arikaree Aquifers. The foreign miners have already pumped over half a billion gallons of radioactive waste water into disposal wells and have rights to bury more. 

In 2014 Cameco, the world’s largest uranium producer, paid a million dollar fine for environmental damage in Wyoming. The White River also flows through much of Indian Country in South Dakota. In northwestern South Dakota radioactive waste in the Cave Hills area went for decades without remediation because the Board of Minerals and Environment is an arm of the SDGOP. Recall that the South Dakota Republican Party ceded regulatory authority to the US Environmental Protection Agency for uranium mining after the legislature realized there is no competent oversight from state agencies. 

Powertech's parent, Azarga Uranium is expected to be bought out next month by enCore Energy, a Canadian firm with headquarters in Texas. It has uranium claims or operations in Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, and South Dakota.

South Dakota Assistant Attorney General Ann Mines Bailey wrote in opposition to giving the miner more water.

Powertech plans to appropriate 9,051 gallons of water per minute from underground aquifers that are also used to supply water to communities in Fall River and Custer counties. By comparison, Rapid City uses 2,551 fewer gallons per minute. [Rapid City Journal]

Interested parties can sign a letter of concern at the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. 

ip photo: the Nebraska Pine Ridge just north of Crawford.