Come to the South Dakota for the freedom! You’ll love how government doesn’t get in the way of starting a business with zoning and environmental regulations… until a business pops up next door that threatens your environment.
Simon Construction and Materials, a regional road builder owned by Colas, a road/rail firm owned by Bouygues, a Paris-based engineering group, is starting up a limestone mine in and around Piedmont. The project surprised Piedmont’s residents, because South Dakota’s lax regulations and Meade County’s lack of zoning laws—the anarcho-capitalist freedom that people move to Piedmont for—mean Simon can pretty much start digging without any public hearing or dilatory democracy:
A rare combination of a lax state mining law and a lack of county land-use regulations allowed the Piedmont mine to gain approval without input from the public or local government.
South Dakota has two levels of permit requirements depending on the type and scope of a proposed mine, said Rich Williams, an attorney who represents the city of Piedmont.
A more invasive mine, such as a gold or silver mine, requires a specific state permit that mandates an environmental impact study, an analysis by state regulators and public input, Williams said.
But for a limestone, sand or gravel mine like the one proposed for Piedmont, a mining company only needs to obtain a general state mining license, submit project maps and pay a bond that enable it to mine on any piece of private property where it secures the right to do so.
No public hearings or notifications are required for that type of mine, so Piedmont residents and town leaders were not required to be notified in advance, Williams said.
They were also kept out of the process by the lack of land-use regulations in Meade County, which has no zoning laws, said Phil Anderson, chairman of the Piedmont board of trustees. Attempts at public votes to enact zoning laws in the county have failed over the years, Anderson told News Watch.
“The responsibility for this resides on our people a little bit because they don’t want government telling them what to do, though sometimes we need government to be involved,” he said [Bart Pfankuch, “Piedmont’s Residents Shocked by New Mine Coming to Their City,” South Dakota News Watch, 2025.10.24].
Lots of Piedmonters are grousing, but can’t these good South Dakotans inhale the limestone dust and sigh, “Ah, the smell of money!” the same way they do when they smell cow shit?
Piedmont’s Republican legislators, who campaign on exactly this sort of freedom for people (including corporations) to do whatever they want with their private property, are inexplicably complaining about this nicely unregulated free market:
South Dakota Rep. Terri Jorgenson, a Meade County Republican, was one of four state lawmakers to attend the meeting.
Jorgenson said she has contacted several state agency officials – including those at the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources – to learn more about the limestone mine but was unable to find any firm path to opposing or blocking the project at this point.
“Basically what the state is doing is just reclamation,” she said. “After mining is complete, the state’s responsibility is to make sure the land goes back to what it was before.”
Jorgenson said she has concerns about the mine’s potential impacts on air and water quality, property values and on the local elementary school, where children could be exposed to dust or noise. She promised to continue to push for answers on how to mitigate resident worries.
Jorgenson and others said it might take innovative thinking and a grassroots effort by locals to find ways to control the activities of the mining company or to mitigate negative impacts from the mine [Pfankuch, 2025.10.24].
Rookie Senator John Carley was with Rep. Jorgenson at the October 21 public meeting at Piedmont City Hall; he too encouraged grassroots opposition to capitalism and Simon’s free use of its private property:
Sen. John Carley, R-Piedmont, who represents the district, attended the meeting and said he had never seen such a rapid public response.
“The room was packed, residents from Blackhawk, Summerset, and Piedmont all came together within 24 hours of learning about this,” Carley said. “People are very concerned.”
Carley outlined five potential levels of action for citizens: start a grassroots organization, neighborhood and homeowner associations need to get together and speak up, city involvement, county-level engagement, and, if needed, state intervention – may need to even bring bills that address this issue.
“We’re already talking with DANR and may need to look at legislation addressing how these permits are handled,” Carley said. “Clearly, this has struck a nerve” [Tim Potts, “Piedmont Valley Residents Organize to Oppose Limestone Mine,” Black Hills Pioneer, updated 2025.10.23].
Rookie Rep. Kathy Rice complains that citizens need more than the public notice posted in the Black Hills Pioneer on October 7:
“The newspapers is an older way to get notifications out, so we need to do something digital, something electronically or something to widespread to the area,” said South Dakota Representative Kathy Rice [Bryan Savic, “Many Meade County Residents Outraged over Proposed Mining in Piedmont,” KOTA-TV, 2025.10.24].
Something digital, like the South Dakota News Media Association’s website of all public notices in South Dakota? Maybe part of the grassroots effort the legislators are talking about includes turning off Fox and the Charlie Kirk podcast and paying attention to real local media that provides real information about real local issues.
Rep. Rice is also turning AOC-green and threatening big-government obstacles to freedom:
Rep. Kathy Rice, R-Black Hawk, who also represents the area, echoed residents’ environmental concerns.
“People are worried about their air, water, and the safety of their families,” Rice said. “This proposed mine is right next to homes. There should be an environmental impact review before anything moves forward.”
Rice said she first learned about the proposal from concerned citizens only days before the meeting and is open to pursuing legislation requiring such assessments in future mining projects [Potts, 2025.10.23].
All these reborn greenies really shouldn’t worry: Simon is part of a French conglomerate, and the French are all about protecting the environment. Simon says so, right on its Corporate Social Responsibility webpage, which avows its commitment to Colas’s approach to CSR:
Colas’ approach to corporate social responsibility is based on the dual conviction that its businesses help fulfill essential needs and aspirations, and that they must be conducted in a responsible manner. Colas has to take into account the expectations and contradictions of contemporary society, including social cohesion, climate change, biodiversity loss, preserving resources, transportation and housing needs, improving living conditions, energy transition, resource management and rising expectations with regard to ethics.
Our social responsibility approach seeks to foster a deep and lasting culture of continuous improvement in the field, across all construction business and production units in all the regions where we operate [Colas, CSR webpage, retrieved 2025.10.28].
Simon says it shares Colas’s 8 CSR Commitments:
- Offer our customers and users solutions that meet the challenges of sustainable development in local communities
- Roll out a low carbon and biodiversity strategy to preserve the planet
- Promote circular economy solutions to preserve natural resources
- Reduce the impact of our activities to bolster acceptability
- Attract, develop and retain talent through managerial excellence
- A health and safety culture shared by all
- Build a responsible supply chain rooted in sustainable performance
- Shape an exemplary culture of ethics and compliance [Colas, “The 8 CSR Commitments of Colas (The Act Project),” retrieved 2025.10.28]
See? Simon promises to mine responsibly to protect Piedmont and the planet.
Oh, but Republicans are supposed to oppose all such pinko-commie corporate social responsibility talk. Republicans say businesses are supposed to focus on profits, not airy-fairy social goals like clean air and pleasant quality of life.
I don’t know what playbook Jorgenson, Carley, and Rice are reading to their largely Republican constituents to agitate for hippie rebellion against the proper and ceaseless expansion of extractive capitalism, but it certainly isn’t their own Republican playbook.
There’s a big mistake in one of the passages you quote:
“A more invasive mine, such as a gold or silver mine, requires a specific state permit that mandates an environmental impact study, an analysis by state regulators and public input, Williams said.”
Partly true, but there is no requirement for an environmental impact statement. There should be such a requirement, or some sort of environmental review process. I don’t know how many times I requested an environmental impact statement on various projects, but it was always denied. South Dakota has a law that allows various agencies to require an environmental impact state, but I think only the PUD has actually required them from time to time.
I suspect they may need an air quality permit, which is a federal program that the state administers. They may also need a water permit. I don’t know if the company has applied for these yet and been granted them, but that would be something the community could look out for.
Isn’t that the same area that had a housing district built over old mines and the land was falling in. Secrets of South Dakota.
Well, I’m a strong Democrat, but I worked with Republicans on the mining issue in the Northern Black Hills. Republicans were actually first to oppose the Wharf Mine, the first of the heap leach operations. They convinced the Janklow administration to oppose the permit, but the Board of Minerals and Environment gave them a permit anyway in a close vote. All through the mining issue Republicans bankrolled a lot of the organizations that were fighting the mines.
Simon does not own the land your article is false
And since when does capitalism in SD mean if you have enough money you can do anything and ruin the place for others?
So, Sam, who does own the land?
In response to your question, isn’t that the definition of capitalism that Donald Trump offers? And isn’t that definition somewhat like the definition Meade County voters endorsed when they overwhelmingly rejected a county zoning ordinance?
Mr. H, perhaps this is some of the land that Mr. Aker owns. He has raped much land around that neighborhood. Back in grudznick’s day, Mr. Aker was in the legislatures, and he often weighed in on these kind of issues. He carved up logs, too.
From my quick internet search, it appears that over 14 years have elapsed since Meade County attempted to adopt zoning. I hesitate to adopt the unfortunately commonplace attitude of, “we tried that x-number of years ago, and it didn’t work then, so it will never work.”
Perhaps the population and property tax base under threat in this case are large enough to get enough folks over their fear of government control over what one can and can’t do on their own land. And, of course, it’s a myth that there isn’t government control now–it’s just that the state’s “control” looks like permitting just about anyone doing just about anything they can make money at (and some things they can’t).
Counties with no zoning controls are ripe targets for companies to propose, and the state to permit, projects no one else wants. Perhaps Meade County residents will finally get over that zoning fear-hurdle. Or perhaps they’re excited for their prosperous (for developers, anyhow) future as a prime site for mini-nukes and data centers?