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Rounds’ plan could ease Bear Butte pressure
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FarkGov. Mike Rounds is negotiating with landowners around Bear Butte State Park to buy conservation easements to prevent further commercial development.
"Bear Butte is a very sensitive area," Rounds said at a Rapid City Chamber of Commerce luncheon Friday.
The butte rises straight out of the prairie northeast of Sturgis off S.D. Highway 79, dominating the landscape for miles around. Native Americans consider the butte sacred.
Tribes and other groups have protested in recent years that bars, campgrounds and concert venues catering to the Sturgis motorcycle rally are encroaching on Bear Butte. The butte is a state park, but Native Americans often use it for quiet prayer ceremonies.
On Tuesday during his budget address, the governor proposed an emergency appropriation of $250,000 to help pay for the conservation easements. Rounds also hopes to get about $900,000 in matching funds from the federal government or private sources.
The easements, which would cost more than $1.1 million, would allow ranchers to continue to use the land, but the property could never be used for commercial or residential development.
Rounds said some of the land in question "comes right up the side of the mountain." The landowners, he said, "are listening to us."
So far, the governor's plan is getting positive reviews.
Rapid City attorney Mario Gonzalez, who is a member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe and an expert on treaty law, applauded the idea. "The proposed action is consistent with the position of the Sioux tribes, and it's certainly a step in the right direction."
Charmaine White Face, director of Defenders of the Black Hills, one of the groups protesting encroachment, also welcomed Rounds' plan. "That would be great," she said.
Her group is raising money to buy land near Bear Butte. However, she added, "The Bear Butte trust fund is very small."
White Face said conservation easements are at least a partial solution. "That would be great," she said.
White Face supported a bill the legislature considered last winter that would have established a 4-mile buffer zone around Bear Butte, but that measure died in committee.
Sen. Tom Katus, D-Rapid City, supported the buffer legislation. He said easements might accomplish the same thing. "I don't care what they call it, as long as you can maintain its spiritual nature and not have it developed with bars."
The Meade County Commission objected to the 4-mile buffer zone last winter, but Commissioner Curt Nupen this week agreed that easements might solve a problem. "I don't have any objection to it," he said. "If a landowner is willing sell easement, that's an appropriate way to do it."
Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com
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