RAPID CITY, S.D. – A federal lawsuit filed against the South Dakota Board of Minerals and Environment has postponed upcoming hearings and temporarily halted a controversial drilling proposal in the Black Hills region near Rapid City.

The lawsuit, brought by community members and Craven Canyon intervenors, alleges a lack of due process during the public hearing for Project Chord. Clean Nuclear Energy Corp., a Canadian mining company, is proposing to drill 38 holes up to 750 feet deep near Craven Canyon, located just outside Rapid City.

“This Canadian company is coming from thousands of miles away to destroy our earth and threaten our water, with no consequence to their own homelands – we need to keep them out of our sacred Black Hills,” said Alex White Plume, former vice president and president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe. “The Black Hills legally belong to the Sioux through a treaty that has never been respected because they thought they could buy us off. Well, we’re here to say the Black Hills are not for sale. We will continue to fight for Craven Canyon and all our land so we can practice the ceremonies we’ve had since time immemorial.”

Opponents hope the legal pause will draw more attention to the thousands of active mining claims across the broader region surrounding Rapid City.

“There are 256,000 acres of the Black Hills that are under active mining claims – any one of those claims could become a mine, but we intend to stop that process, and encourage all community members who care about our shared water and land to join us,” said Dr. Lilias Jarding, Executive Director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. “We have kept uranium mining out of the Black Hills since the 1970s, and we cannot allow uranium mining to return to this area today.”