The following is a report I received from Carolyn Carlson, who wrote previously about the Hyperion Project. In this report, she reports how she felt she and other residents were treated by the South Dakota Board of Natural Resources at their hearing last week.

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Hi Todd,

Wed. & Thu. morning I attended the hearings in Elk Point & for much of it wondered if the whole thing was going through the motions as it had been at every stage before. Even though it turns out the fellow running the proceedings is a long time acquaintence I figured there was no telling what was going on behind the scenes in the form of pressure from Rounds.

I was one of the last few to sign up to speak & am so grateful for having done it. I got the sense that many others not aware of the factors of graves, virgin prairie, & other parts of this situation that Hyperion has been covering up seemed to care about the importance of those issues. I pointed out that Dr. Bradley had me do the homework to learn that out state laws protect people who know where graves are located, from being forced to disclose their location so as to protect them from desicration, and that anyone disturbing human remains for purpose of financial gain commits a felony.

Image by The City Project via Flickr

I told about seeing documentation of the remains of 6 Native Americans exhumed in the early 1900's by Dr. ID Weeks who studied them, reinterred 4 of them in the same place and sent the other 2 plus artifacts to the Smithsonian to be added to the national collection in Washington DC, and of my spouse & others who have found artifacts & know of remains. Some artifacts are part of the collection at the Union County Museum in Elk Point.

It was different from the approach of others not supportive of the refinery and I'm pretty sure it didn't hurt.

The best part was a fellow who spoke after me, from the National Park Service. He explained that the stretch of the Missouri River between Ponca Neb. & Yankton is also part of the Nat'l Park Service system due to it's being a national recreation area, and that there was an extended area around that stretch of waterway protected by NPS.

He then pointed out that on the other side of the proposed refinery site happened to be the 'Lewis & Clark Trail', which was also an area of protection under NPS. I've mentioned the documented Lewis & Clark signal hill well inside Hyperion's target site, owned by the holdout Harknesses, I suspect that may be considered part of the trail.

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It was great the way he explained that both areas protected by NPS overlapped & that the proposed refinery is in that area of overlap. I regret I didn't get the fellow's name, but he also went on to point out several laws that applied to the situation that the state of SD didn't seem to be aware of based on its behavior so far. In a nutshell he informed the board they had no choice about the Environmental Impact Study. I wanted to cheer- I did hand the fellow the contact info for the Corps of Engineers fellow I've spoken with at the regional office in Omaha, though it wouldn't surprise me if they already worked together and know one another.

After that I sensed a change in the fellows on the board, their mood seemed to lift. After they adjourned I went to find Dr. vanBruggen's book I'd brought and passed up for them to look at. The guy who had it spoke at length with me, about knowing quite a lot about native prairie species of flowers and grasses, and had followed the history of Dr. vanBruggen's writing of the book.

He shared he owns land near Box Elder, also near the boarding High School location where my mom went and graduated from in the 20's. The best part was that for some reason he seemed to feel the need to look up a plant in the book to show me that is something I've been trying to figure out for years. It was such a blessing!

The Board announced before they adjourned that they thought there would be a decision some time this summer. After, when getting my book, I asked (I wasn't sure) about whether Rounds was a lame duck, one of the fellows on the board cheerfully said he is.

I get the sense that, if they were under some pressure prior to the hearings, that the National Parks fellow gave them something useful to allow them not to be vulnerable to it. I hope what I shared helped too. When speaking I used your blog posting as a guide but was so nervous I couldnt focus well, so I took off my glasses (so I could 'forget' there were so many people) and spoke from my heart, it felt good.

Before I forget, Denny Larson , the executive director of the refinery reform watchdog group gave me his card: Global Community Monitor, PO Box 1784 ElCerrito, CA 94530

tel: 510-233-1870 denny@gcmonitor.org www.gcmonitor.org

Keep up the good work! Bless you & thank you again-

Carolyn Carlson in Burbank

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No, Carolyn, thank you for being an informed, honest, and brave citizen!