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land, including a large percentage around Mount Rushmore.
• "All those 2 million visitors (a year) to Mount Rushmore, they're breathing in radioactive dust and they don't even know it," White Face said.
• Mike Cepak, an engineering manager with the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, said the state doesn't have an abandoned mine program. He said the U.S. Forest Service has reclaimed some mines in the western part of the state, but the process is expensive. It involves rearranging drainage so water doesn't pass through the mine, filling it in and returning vegetation to the area.
• "It's mainly a funding problem," Cepak said.
• He said there hasn't been much uranium mining in the state for the past 40 years.
• "All the rivers in western South Dakota contain uranium. It's pretty much, by-and-large natural," he said, adding that the uranium levels are low.
• Cepak couldn't comment on the potential health risks of uranium exposure, but White Face attributes it to cases of cancer and brain tumors in the Northern Plains.
• She's concerned that people don't realize the number of old mines in the state and their potential effects. White Face has given speeches on the East Coast to drum up support for federal legislation that her group is collaborating on.
• Defenders of the Black Hills is working with a U.S. congressman to draft legislation mandating mine reclamation. White Face said they're on the fourth draft. She hopes it will be complete in a few weeks and sent to Washington, D.C., to be reviewed then presented as a bill for lawmakers' consideration.
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• PIERRE, S.D. (AP) -- Four candidates are on the list to become the next president of Black Hills State University.
• The South Dakota Board of Regents on Monday announced the finalists to replace Kay Schallenkamp, who is scheduled to retire in June.
• The list includes: Lorrie Clemo, provost and vice president of academic affairs at the State University of New York at Oswego; Mary Holz-Clause, vice president for economic development at the University of Connecticut; Tom Jackson Jr., vice president for student affairs at the University of Louisville; and Mark Nook, senior vice president for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin System.
• The finalists are expected to visit the Spearfish campus Wednesday and Thursday.
• About 4,400 students attend Black Hills State. It is the third-largest among the six public universities in South Dakota.

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