They don’t have to pay any federal royalties for the privilege. Once someone or some company has a claim, they have the right under this 1872 law to explore and -if they find something - to mine. You can see them along many hiking and riding trails in the Hills. ![]() These are marked initially by wooden stakes and eventually by yellow metal plaques hammered onto trees. Four years later, the 1872 Mining Act (150 years old in May!) gave anyone the right to stake mining claims on federally controlled lands. Claims cover most of northern Lawrence County starting a few miles south of Spearfish and go from the Wyoming border to about 10 miles east of Deadwood, and the rare earths minerals project is 10 miles north of Sundance in the Bear Lodge mountains.Īll of this territory was reserved to the Lakota under the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty. Some geography: The claims stretch from western Custer and Fall River counties (uranium), to a large block of land directly west and northwest of Custer, to two large gold projects in the Rapid Creek watershed in the central Hills. This is 12.3% of the entire Black Hills National Forest. As of the end of January, 148,000 acres of the Black Hills were under active mining claims. Bureau of Land Management’s mining claims database: 148,000. If this sounds alarmist, here is one number from the U.S. Add in proposed uranium and rare earths minerals mining, and we’re talking about the potential for a wholesale change in the Black Hills. ![]() If you haven’t been out in the Black Hills lately, you may have missed the fact that there’s a gold rush - one that could have far-reaching negative impacts on outdoor recreation, agriculture, tourism, water, cultural resources, and our state’s long-term economy.
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