Defenders of the Black Hills
Oct 2008 Update
This Update is being sent to report on recent activities, and a number of new developments in which we need to be involved. The following is a list of what is included in this Report.
2. Sioux Ranger District Travel Management DEIS available for comments.
3. Comments sought on Craven Canyon exclusion from mining.
4. Black Hills Pow Wow Table and Banner
5. Defenders Financial Status Report
6. Powertech applies for 30 more exploratory wells.
7. TSNTC Statement to the United Nations Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Populations.
Congratulations Defenders!!! Six years and still going strong!! Dear Defenders,
The picture of our logo was drawn in the Fall of 2002 by artist, Corbin Conroy, after he listened for an entire afternoon as we all gave our ideas of what Unci Ina Makoce (Grandmother Mother Earth) and the Black Hills meant to us. When he brought in the final picture a few weeks later, we all felt he captured Her beyond our imaginations. I still get a lump in my throat whenever I see our logo. The printing at the bottom says “Sponsored by Tetuwan Oceti Sakowin Treaty Council Standing Rock†who paid for its printing on a large banner…which we still use. Â
Important information regarding UraniumThe Nuclear Regulatory Commission is accepting public comments on a Draft Generic Environment Impact Statement until Oct. 7, 2008.
The Generic Draft Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach (ISL) Uranium Milling Facilities looks at the potential impacts from construction, operation, aquifer restoration, and dismantling of In-Situ Leach mining operations. The Draft is only available on the computer at [Click Here ] This leaves out all those with no computers or access to computers.
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"Defenders of the Black Hills is a group of volunteers without racial or tribal boundaries whose mission is to preserve, protect, and restore the environment of the 1851 and 1868 Treaty Territories, Treaties made between the United States and the Great Sioux Nation."
Speaking about radioactive fallout, the late President John F. Kennedy said,
"Even then, the number of children and grandchildren with cancer in their bones, with leukemia in their blood, or with poison in their lungs might seem statistically small to some, in comparison with natural health hazards. But this is not a natural health hazard and it is not a statistical issue. The loss of even one human life, or the malformation of even one baby who may be born long after we are gone, should be of concern to us all. Our children and grandchildren are not merely statistics toward which we can be indifferent."
July 26, 1963 upon signing the ban on above ground nuclear tests
"The radiation levels in parts I visited with my students were higher than those in the evacuated zones around the Fukushima Nuclear disaster...." Nuclear Physics Professor Kimberly Kearfott, University of Michigan, in comparing the readings obtained in northwestern South Dakota at the Cave Hills open-pit, abandoned uranium mines.
"It must always be remembered that the various Indian tribes were once independent and sovereign nations, and that their claim to sovereignty long predates that of our own government."
Thurgood Marshall, US Supreme Court Justice
(McClanahan v. Sate Tax Commission, 1973)