Who Owns The West? Mining Claims in America's West

Summary of Mining Plans of Operation in South Dakota.

Jump to: Plan/Notice Owners | Claims | Patents | Map

Currently on file with the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) are 4 mining plans and notices filed by 1 companies and 0 individuals, encompassing a total estimated area of 181 acres of BLM-managed public land in South Dakota. These plans and notices are filed on public land laden with gold, silver, copper and other precious metals and minerals worth billions of dollars. And these operations are only those on BLM lands, not on Forest Service lands, for which mining plans and notices are not entered into the government's LR2000 database that forms the backbone of this site. But whether the mines are on BLM or Forest Service land, none of the corporate revenue is reimbursed to the public. Instead, companies leave behind unfathomable amounts of waste. In 2001 alone, the industry dumped enough mercury nationally to fill a billion thermometers and arsenic in quantities that would pollute all public drinking water supplies for 350 years. In 2001, mines generated 45 percent of all pollution reported in the U.S. while accounting for just 0.36 percent of all industrial facilities.

Quick facts about mining plans on BLM land in South Dakota
• Acres of U.S. public land (BLM land only) under mining plans and notices, estimated: 181 • Pollution from all US mining operations, ranking among all U.S. industries: : #1 in total toxic releases • Pollution from top 89 mines in US: 5 times pollution from entire U.S. chemical industry (3,600 plants) • Western water polluted by mine waste: 40 percent of Western headwaters • Proposed mining operations that have been blocked by the Department of Interior because they posed a risk to public health or the environment: None • Other land uses that supercede rights of mining companies to operate on public lands: None
EWG analysis of data compiled by the Bureau of Land Management.

Quick facts about mining plans on BLM land in South Dakota

• Acres of U.S. public land (BLM land only) under mining plans and notices, estimated: 181

• Pollution from all US mining operations, ranking among all U.S. industries: : #1 in total toxic releases

• Pollution from top 89 mines in US: 5 times pollution from entire U.S. chemical industry (3,600 plants)

• Western water polluted by mine waste: 40 percent of Western headwaters

• Proposed mining operations that have been blocked by the Department of Interior because they posed a risk to public health or the environment: None

• Other land uses that supercede rights of mining companies to operate on public lands: None

EWG analysis of data compiled by the Bureau of Land Management.

Top Mining Plan/Notice Companies/Individuals on BLM land in South Dakota Ranked by Acres Affected

Companies have been consolidated to account for subsidiaries. View this table without consolidation.

	Company/Individual	Headquarters	Number of Mining Plans & Notices on BLM land	Estimated Acreage	Plan Date(s)
1	AMCOL International Corp	Arlington Heights, IL	2	170	1981 to 2002
2	Gold Corp Inc	World HQ in Canada	2	0	1988 to 1996

Counties in South Dakota Ranked by Acres Affected by Plans and Notices

	County	Number of Mining Plans & Notices on BLM land	Estimated Acreage
1	Butte County	2	175	details	map
2	Lawrence County	2	6	details	map

Examples of Mines in South Dakota

Name of Mine	Location of Mine	Mine Status	Metal Mined	Owner or Parent Company of Owner
Homestake Gold Mine	Lawrence County, SD	Closed	Gold	Barrick Gold Corporation
Gilt Edge (brohm Mine)	Lawrence County, SD	Closed	Gold	Dakota Mining Company
The Wharf Mine	Lawrence County, SD	Open	Gold	Gold Corp.
Golden Reward Mine	Lawrence County, SD	Closed	Gold	Wharf Resourced Ltd./dakota Mining Corp

Source: EWG analysis.

Source: EWG analysis of Bureau of Land Management's Land and Mineral Records 2000 (LR2000) data system. For claims, acreages are estimated based on maximum allowable size of claims. For patents, acreages are taken directly from the LR2000 database where available, and are estimated based on maximum allowable size of claim that preceded the patent where acreages are not noted in LR2000. All notices are assumed to be five acres in size, and the size of plans are calculated directly as the size of the land represented by the legal land description in the LR2000 database. The acreages we estimate through these methods would tend to overestimate the actual amount. We welcome corrections here, and would welcome a federal data management system that included the acreages involved in these important federal land transactions.