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S.D. to return grant for Bear Butte shooting range
Friday, September 19, 2003
The state of South Dakota is returning an $825,000 federal grant it was using to fund a shooting range near the sacred Bear Butte.
The state said it will repay $313,800 already spent on the project and cancel the remaining $511,200.
The move was disclosed in a letter the state sent to the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
HUD officials are already threatening to cancel the grant, and possibly punish the state, for providing misleading information to Community Development Block Grant program.
According to an August 18 report cited by The Rapid City Journal, HUD officials found that the state supplied faulty Census numbers to justify the award.
The return of the grant leaves the shooting range in limbo, the paper said. Four tribes and the Defenders of the Black Hills, a Lakota grassroots organization, are suing HUD for allowing the grant. HUD lawyers had told a federal judge it wouldn't allow the shooting project to move forward without court approval.
Get the Story:
State returns shooting range grant to feds
(The Rapid City Journal 9/19)
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