On Friday, February 27, 2026, the U.S. Forest Service’s Black Hills Regional Office issued a permit allowing exploratory graphite drilling at Pe’sla, a sacred Indigenous site that has been used for ceremony and prayer for thousands of years.
The Rochford Mineral Exploratory Drilling Project (RMEDP), proposed by Rapid City-based mining company Pete Lien & Sons, threatens treaty-protected lands, violates Indigenous religious freedom, and endangers drinking water within the surrounding watershed, including supplies serving Ellsworth Air Force Base.
Pe’sla is sacred to the Lakota and remains an active site for prayer, ceremony, and cultural practices. Drilling would permanently damage the area and disrupt religious use. Although Tribes, the State of South Dakota, and Pennington County recognize Pe’sla as an Indigenous sacred site, the Forest Service determined it does not constitute an “extraordinary circumstance” that would prevent the permit from being fast-tracked.
“The U.S. Forest Service’s decision is a direct attack on Indigenous lands and our right to religious freedom — all in the name of potential profit for an extractive corporation,” said Taylor Gunhammer, lead organizer for NDN Collective’s Protect the HeSapa campaign. “Mining at Pe’sla could contaminate drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people, cause irreparable ecological damage, and open the door for additional mining operations to permanently destroy more land in the Black Hills. We cannot let this deal go through.”
Pe’sla shares a watershed with Pactola Reservoir, a 20,000-acre area protected from mining for 20 years under legislation signed in 2024 by then-Interior Secretary Deb Haaland. That decision followed years of advocacy by NDN Collective, collaboration with tribes, local officials, and the Forest Service, and nearly 2,000 public comments supporting the mineral withdrawal.
In 2014, four tribes raised $9 million to repurchase the Pe’sla area and worked with the federal government to place the central prayer site — along with a two-mile buffer zone — into federal trust. The effort was intended to formally recognize the area’s religious and cultural significance and protect it from mining and drilling.
The RMEDP would include 18 drill pads, with drilling depths reaching up to 1,000 feet. Each pad would require vegetation removal and the use of toxic drilling mud pits, resulting in the destruction or degradation of the land and threatening the Rapid Creek watershed and underground water sources.
NDN Collective is urging the public to contact the U.S. Forest Service and demand that it rescind the drilling permit and reverse its decision to grant a categorical exclusion for the exploratory project.
U.S. Forest Service Decision Memo:
PeteLienRochfordExplorPrjt-DM-
U.S. Forest Service Appendix and Agency Responses:
PeteLienRochford_AppendixA_