The mission of Black Hills Clean Water Alliance (BHCWA), an environmental justice organization founded in 2009, is to protect our valuable resources – especially water – for future generations by preventing destructive mining in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Founded in Rapid City, the Alliance is a diverse collection of citizens concerned about the health, environmental, and economic impacts that mining projects and their contribution to the climate crisis are having on our communities, people, economy, and natural resources. Water system contamination caused by mining represents the greatest threat to the Black Hills. BHCWA has identified and mapped thousands of active mining claims on federal lands in the region, highlighting the vast extent of potential mining projects, as well as the modern mining rush that threatens the Indigenous nations who revere the Black Hills as sacred. Once aquifers are contaminated by mining, restoration is an impossibility.
The site of a proposed uranium mine in South Dakota.
Constant vigilance is crucial to the group’s mission, as twenty percent of the entire Black Hills is under active mining claims for graphite, lithium, gold, and uranium. The Alliance monitors mining companies’ permit filings, reviews legal regulations, files information requests with government agencies, and does extensive public education in defending their communities through citizen action. Promoting preemptive measures, the Alliance also champions local government initiatives such as a 2020 Rapid City Council resolution opposing gold exploration. It was a key member of an alliance that won a 2025 federal mineral claims “withdrawal” that protects over 20,000 acres in the watershed that includes the City’s water supply from mining.
Black Hills Clean Water Alliance members standing advocating about the dangers of mining to the community.