South Dakota mining company cancels Black Hills drilling after tribal opposition

Tribal opposition and courtroom pressure forced a Rapid City mining company to abandon a graphite drilling project near Pe’ Sla, the central Black Hills meadow Sioux tribes treat as sacred ground for ceremonies, prayer and buffalo grazing.

Pete Lien & Sons told the U.S. Forest Service in a Thursday letter that it was withdrawing its plan of operations and did not intend to file another plan for the project. The withdrawal became public on Friday, May 8, 2026, after a federal judge had already issued a temporary restraining order that blocked drilling for two weeks.

The fight centered on Pe’ Sla, also known as Reynolds Prairie, where opponents said some drill pads were placed within about a half-mile of the site and inside a two-mile buffer zone tied to a memorandum of understanding with the Forest Service. Nine tribes in South Dakota, North Dakota and Nebraska sued the agency, arguing it violated the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Policy Act by allowing permits without an environmental review. NDN Collective and environmental groups brought a separate case arguing the Forest Service improperly used a categorical exclusion to sidestep review.

The retreat carried added weight because the Black Hills remain one of the most contested landscapes in the West. The 1868 Treaty of Fort Laramie recognized the Black Hills as part of the Great Sioux Reservation for the exclusive use of the Sioux people. The United States later seized the land after gold was discovered there, and the Supreme Court eventually ruled that the tribes were owed compensation for the taking, money the tribes have refused to accept.

Pe’ Sla itself was protected in 2012, when tribes bought roughly 2,022 acres to preserve the site after nearly 2,000 acres of the ranch that encompassed it went up for auction. That history made the drilling proposal a direct test of whether sacred places in the Black Hills would be treated as industrial ground or as living cultural territory. NDN Collective called the result a victory for land defense, while the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance said community action had forced the company off shared land. Pete Lien & Sons and the Forest Service did not immediately comment when the withdrawal became public.