When federal agencies responded positively in 2023 to citizen pleas to prevent a “modern gold rush” in the fabled Black Hills, it was a milestone for a decades-long grassroots movement defending the region’s habitat from looming mega-mining. Tribal and nonprofit organizations celebrated with a December appreciation dinner after mounting a successful public pressure campaign to protect water.

The USDA Forest Service in March proposed a halt to mining claims and exploration on more than 20,500 acres under public jurisdiction. It was a response to a barrage of comments on gold prospecting applications. The tract is about 10 percent of the Rapid Creek drainage upstream from South Dakota’s second-largest urban area, Rapid City. If the BLM agrees, this important water source will be off-limits to new mining development for at least 20 years.

“Getting to the Forest Service’s proposal took five or six years of hard, focused work involving a broad alliance,” Black Hills Clean Water Alliance Executive Director Lilias Jarding told Buffalo’s Fire. “Longer than that, if you consider that the alliance had been under construction since the 1970s."

The Forest Service proposal was a departure from the government’s standard operating procedure of granting permits for any mineral exploitation using the premise of the 1872 General Mining Act.

Land managers from both federal agencies held a 90-day comment period and an April 26 hearing in Rapid City on the proposal they call a mineral claims withdrawal. The resounding turnout demonstrated public awareness was at a crest in the wake of a campaign to fend off the “modern gold rush.”

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