SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Gov. Kristi Noem said on her X account she plans to submit an application to allow fireworks at Mount Rushmore in July.
Her post was confident. “I can’t wait to see you all there!,” Noem said in her social media post. She cited celebrating the election of Donald Trump as president and the 250th anniversary of America in her post.
If the state’s application is successful, it would mean the return of fireworks for the first time since July 2020 when President-elect Donald Trump was president. Trump also attended the fireworks event.
KELOLAND’s Bob Mercer noted a scene from the Independence Day fireworks display at Mount Rushmore that Noem hosted for then-President Trump in 2020 was part of his closing pitch to voters this year. She was at the Trump victory party in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Tuesday night.
Applications for fireworks since the 2020 event have been denied each year since then.
The July fireworks do not have a long history at Mount Rushmore which opened in 1941. They started in July of 1998 and continued through 2009. The show was canceled in 2002 because of the elevated fire risk.
The National Park Service receives the fireworks application. The NPS decides to approve or reject them. The NPS discontinued the display in 2010 because of concerns about fire dangers and groundwater pollution.
Although an environmental study from the U.S. Department of the Interior cited moderate fire risk and risks of negative impact to water quality and the structure of the monument, fireworks were allowed at Mount Rushmore in 2020.
Tribal groups have spoken against fireworks at Mount Rushmore.
“We’ve always maintained, you know, that’s a sacred, very, very sacred site for us Indians and, you know, we feel that fireworks and things like that is a desecration to, you know, our place, our land,” Harold Frazier, who was then the chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said in a March 16, 2022, KELOLAND News story. “So we’re staunchly opposed to it.”
Noem is serious enough about fireworks at Mount Rushmore she’s gone to court over it.
In 2021, the state of South Dakota filed a federal lawsuit that said the National Park Service’s denial of the state’s application for fireworks was “arbitrary and capricious.”
The state lost that lawsuit when federal judge Roberto Lange ruled against it. Lange said in his ruling “this Court cannot say that NPS’s decision was arbitrary and capricious under (law).” The reasons for the denial of the fireworks permit were sound, Lange said.
Those reasons were concerns about eroding relationships with Indigenous tribal groups, environmental and wildfire risks, disruption of enjoyment but the public as a whole at Mount Rushmore and disruption of construction at the Memorial.
But Noem wasn’t done. A June 2, 2021, post on a since deleted Gov. Kristi Noem X account said “But rest assured, this fight is not over.”
Noem filed an appeal and the appeal was denied in July of 2022.
The state has applied for a fireworks permit every year since 2020 but those have been denied.
The NPS cited multiple reasons for the rejection in 2024.
The reasons included that fireworks continue to be viewed by multiple tribes as an adverse effect on the traditional cultural landscape, an NPS rejection letter to the South Dakota Department of Tourism said. Other reasons include the risk of causing injury or damage to park resources such as the groundwater and species that live in the area and the risk of fire as well as other reasons.
“The NPS has determined that multiple such criteria are present for the requested event, each of which would be sufficient to deny the request for a permit based on the information provided in the permit application,” the NPS letter said.
Mount Rushmore drew 2.43 million visitors in 2023, the NPS said in February 2024. July was the busiest month with 624,615 visits with more than 63,00 visits during July 3 and July 4 celebrations, the NPS said.
The fireworks at Mount Rushmore has drawn national attention before 2020 and after 2020.
Mount Rushmore also gained attention in 2023 when Republican Rep. Joe Donnell said the memorial was a portal for demonic entities to enter and spread communism throughout the country. Donnell was a representative from District 1. He did not run for re-election in 2024.
