Contractors left their skidder in the woods and shut down operations in April after their heavy machinery and their truck traffic made U.S. Forest Service roadway impassable. Photo courtesy John Hopkins

Environment | National

Native Sun News Today: Drilling resumes near sacred site in Black Hills

Friday, May 11, 2018

Drilling near Pe’ Sla resumes

By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Today
Health & Environment Editor
nativesunnews.today

ROCHFORD – Canadian gold prospectors expected to resume drilling operations near here and the Indian trust land of Pe’ Sla during the week of May 6, they said in a media advisory.

Their announcement came May 3, following their assertion that they have secured a source of water unregulated by the South Dakota state public hearings and monitoring process.

“Nine (9) additional drill holes are planned to resume next week,” said the advisory from the Vancouver, British Columbia-based Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd.

The company had been operating on its second consecutive state permit to use 1.8 million gallons of Rapid Creek water. It shut down operations in April after its heavy machinery and its truck traffic made U.S. Forest Service roadway impassable. The permit expired April 30.

By then company contractors already had drilled three of the 120 holes permitted by the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, or DENR.

Analysis showed “classic Homestake-style gold mineralization in all three drill holes,” the advisory said. Curt Hogge, chief geologist for the company, said the core sampling from the third hole, “from a visual standpoint, looks as good as any hole that I have logged in the Rochford District during my career in the Black Hills spanning over 30 years.”

In that hole, the prospectors found a nearly 100-foot stretch of rock sample, ending at a drilling distance of 600 feet from surface, that has the characteristics of the ore that led to the largest gold operation in the hemisphere at the defunct legendary Homestake Mine, some 16 miles to the north in Lead.

A comparison of samples from the second and third hole presents a “dramatic increase” in indicators of high quality gold, which makes the Rochford lode a “compelling target” for further exploration, Hogge said. The mining company has state permission to drill as far as 5,000 feet on each hole in its 7,500-acre block of claims in Pennington and Lawrence counties. The initial work has been in the vicinity of the historic former Standby Mine.

The company’s wholly owned South Dakota subsidiary withdrew its application for a third consecutive 1.8-million-gallon temporary water-use permit when the DENR agreed to a public hearing on it.

The withdrawal letter states Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. “has made alternative arrangements for a water supply, and therefore hereby withdraws the pending request for a temporary water permit.”