Sioux Falls, SD – Siedler brought a gold rush to South Dakotas Black Hills about 150 years ago, followed the dream of prosperity and replaced the American indigenous people.
Now a new harvest of miners who are driven by gold prices at more than 3,000 US dollars per ounce are striving to return to the estimated landscape, and promises an economic boost and arouses fear of how modern gold acquisition could change the region forever.
“These effects can be long -term and do it in such a way that tourism and relaxation outdoors are negatively influenced,” said Lilias Jarding, managing director of Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. “Our enjoyment of the black hills as a peaceful place, a sacred place, is disturbed.”
The Black Hills comprise over 1.2 million tomorrow (485,622 hectares), rise from the Great Plains in the southwest of South Dakota and extend in Wyoming. The jagged peaks are smaller than those of the Rocky Mountains, but the lush pine hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux people and are the goal of millions of tourists who visit Mount Rushmore and State Parks.
A gold mine is now working in the Black Hills, but companies have proposals to state and state authorities for another and exploratory drilling spaces, from which they hope to lead to full -fledged mines. This has caused the opposition by Indian tribes and environmentalists who argue that the projects are near sacred sites, contaminate the waterways and become the landscape permanently scars.
Gold extraction has changed dramatically in the decades, since prospectors started in the Black Hills for the first time. The industry is usually based on massive trucks and excavators that create profound, diverse pits and use chemicals such as cyanide to extract gold.
The country can never return to its original state. The homestake mine, once the largest and deepest gold mine in the western hemisphere, is now a barren in lead in South Dakota and is used for scientific research.
The interest in Black Hills Gold Mining has increased together with the price of the metal. When the Mine of the Homestake closed in 2002, gold sold for around 300 US dollars per ounce. Now it takes about 10 times as much.
Joseph Cavatoni, Senior Market Strategist at the World Gold Council, attributes the top price to global economic uncertainty.
“Gold tends to be a stable good,” he said. “This is actually a good performance in inflationary times and keeps its value in the recession times. That is why gold is a capital in investment.”
President Donald Trump also increased the industry by issuing and accelerating and checking an executive order to increase American mineral production in March.
Colin Paterson, emeritus professor of geological engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, finds that Black Hills is surrounded by gold. To extract it, the rock is crushed and then chemicals such as cyanide are used to dissolve and remove the mineral.
Coeur mining leads the only active mine to Black Hills, but the Dakota Gold company has plans for an open boxing mine in 2029. The company also aims at the area near the old household place to build an underground mine in which workers off hundreds or even thousands of feet in waves.
Jack Henris, President and Chief Operating Officer from Dakota Gold, estimated that the Open boxes create up to 250 jobs and would lead to the company paying the state up to 400 million US dollars taxes on the life of the mine. Dakota Gold will carry out an environmental study and surveys of soil and vegetation to ensure safe operation, said Henris.
“Most people who work here come from this area and just love to live here,” he said. “So we are a large part of the hills and we love them just like other people.”
The gold mining has contributed to a great extent to create the region of modern Black Hills.
The US government signed a contract in 1868 that recognized the right of the Sioux nation on the Black Hills, but the government conquered the country after the discovery of gold and allowed settlers to the region. The US Supreme Court later decided that the Sioux was entitled to compensation, but they did not accept and keep their entitlement to the country.
Tribes have largely spoken out against mining in the Black Hills.
“There is a central truth about mining in the black hills, since there has never been the most mineral place that ever existed,” said Taylor Gunhammer, local organizer of the indigenous representation of interests NDN Collective and an Oglala Sioux, one of the Lakota people. “It is not even the actual mineral content of the Black Hills that are so attractive for mining companies. It is the permissible character of the civil servants who monitor mining.”
Some proposed projects such as the Dakota Gold Mine are located on a private country and are only subject to the state rules, not the regulations required for projects for the US forest service.
Environmentalists have concentrated their opposition on the possibility of chemical leaks. They find that Coeurs Wharf Mine had almost 200 sponsors and that the former mine of the farm was closed because it contaminated a nearby stream.
The environmental manager of Coeurs, Jasmine McCauley, said in a statement that every spill “thoroughly examined, reduced and corrective measures were taken to prevent resumption”. The company always improves its processes, added it.
Jarding from Black Hills Clean Water Alliance said that she was still concerned about the number of projects.
“It is really important that people understand the exponential growth of mining activities that have been taking place in Black Hills in the past five years,” said Jarding. “There are currently active mining claims at 271,000 tomorrow in the Black Hills. That is 20% of the total black hills that may be exposed to mining.”