Update, May 11: As Indigenous groups organize, Pete Lien & Son is withdrawing its plan for exploratory drilling near Pe’ Sla, according to a letter the mining company sent the U.S. Forest Service on May 7.

Update, May 5: A federal court on May 4 granted a temporary restraining order, pausing drilling near Pe’ Sla for two weeks as the wider lawsuit proceeds.

Community members held a ceremony at two drill pads near Pe’ Sla on April 30 in direct action against exploratory drilling that has started close to the sacred Lakota site in the Black Hills around South Dakota. Multiple drill pads are now actively operating, including some within a 2-mile buffer zone that tribes and the U.S. Forest Service had previously agreed to protect through a memorandum of understanding, according to a press release from Indigenous-led advocacy group NDN Collective, one of the Indigenous groups organizing.

The group’s action to defend the land escalated a legal and grassroots fight over the Forest Service’s approval of exploratory graphite drilling near Pe’ Sla, a sacred Indigenous site used for prayer and cultural practices for years by the Lakota people and other Indigenous nations of the Oceti Sakowin. According to NDN Collective, at least 10 drill pads are within the protective buffer zone around Pe’ Sla, and some proposed drilling sites are less than half a mile from Pe’ Sla’s legal boundary.

“Pe’ Sla is our sacred land, and we are doing everything we can to protect it,” said Valeriah Big Eagle, director of He Sapa Initiatives at NDN Collective, in the press release. “We will not cease our ceremony in the face of destruction, disrespect, and illegal drilling.”

NDN Collective, South Dakota-based Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, and national nonprofit Earthworks filed a lawsuit against the Forest Service on April 1, challenging the agency’s February approval of exploratory drilling near Pe’ Sla. The plaintiffs argue that the Forest Service violated federal environmental law when it allowed mining company Pete Lien & Sons to move forward with exploratory graphite drilling through a categorical exclusion, bypassing a deeper environmental review.

Read the full article about the fight to block drilling near Pe’ Sla by Alexandra Martinez at Prism.