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scenarios and evaluate all aspects of the planning and execution of missions.
• Personnel, vehicles and aircraft from the state's six squadrons will be active throughout the week. The wing has squadrons in Sioux Falls, Brookings, Rapid City, Pierre, Custer and Spearfish with about 300 members, six light aircraft and 17 multi-purpose vehicles.
• The week will culminate with a major ground and air mission activity on both sides of the state on Saturday.
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Volunteers replacing trees at Rapid City kids park
• RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) -- Volunteers are donating their time this weekend to replacing trees at a Rapid City children's theme park that were destroyed last fall in a blizzard.
• About 100 people from the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology and city, campus and community organizations have committed to the project at Storybook Island.
• They'll plant trees in the park, refurbish the entrance landscaping, replace fencing, shrubs and plants and clean up the debris left by the storm.
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SD group urges uranium mine cleanup on Earth Day
NORA HERTEL, Associated Press
• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- A South Dakota group says old uranium mines across the state and U.S. are contaminating water and the air with radioactive chemicals. The group, Defenders of the Black Hills, is helping to lead an effort to educate people and clean up old uranium mines across the country with an Earth Day event Tuesday.
• The event is part of a "Clean Up The Mines" project launched on Earth Day.
• The state event will take place on the Highway 40 Cheyenne River Bridge near Hermosa. Charmaine White Face, founder and coordinator for Defenders of the Black Hills, said the river, among others, contains runoff from abandoned uranium mines in South Dakota and Wyoming. Most of the 10,000 abandoned uranium mines are in the western U.S., including more than 250 in South Dakota.
• White Face, a former science teacher, said the issue came to her attention more than 10 years ago, but she didn't understand the extent of it.
• "We've been hollering about this to the state and anybody that would listen," White Face said. "The state could do quite a bit if they would."
• She said some of the mines in question are on private land and some on federal (Continued on page 17)
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