Emvironment

The curse of Uranium has fallen once again on the Black Hills of South Dakota, ancestral home to the Lakota Indians - now fighting a massive mining project that threatens land, rivers and groundwater. But this time, writes Ben Whitford, the Lakota are not alone ... To the Lakota Indians of America's Great Plains, the Black Hills of South Dakota are sacred ground - the site, legend has it, where the first humans entered the world. Today, the craggy, tree-lined mountains are known to the Lakota as "the heart of everything that is", and remain home to countless burial places and ancient ceremonial sites. Unfortunately for the Lakota, however, the Black Hills are also peppered with valuable mineral deposits, including rich veins of uranium ore.