Fireworks arguments date set
By:
Leslie Silverman
Oral arguments for the Mount Rushmore fireworks lawsuit take place Jan. 12 at the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St Louis.
The case, No. 21-2542 South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, et al. v. Deb Haaland, et al., will be heard before a three-judge panel comprised of judges Duane Benton, Bobby Shepherd and David Stras, according to the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals website.
Both Benton and Shepherd were nominated by President Goerge W. Bush and both have been with the court for over 15 years.
Stras is a 2017 nominee of President Trump’s and was confirmed in 2018.
The appeal comes after the National Park Service (NPS) rejected a permit application for the 2021 fireworks celebration to return to the Memorial.
Noem filed the appeal Aug. 23, 2021, in which she requested 30 minutes of oral argument. Both sides will be given 15 minutes.
Noem has repeatedly called the NPS and Department of Interior’s denial of the permit to host the fireworks at Mount Rushmore “arbitrary and capricious.”
Shortly after submitting the brief she stated, “The Biden Administration cancelled South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore Fireworks Celebration on completely arbitrary grounds. They’ve displayed their hypocrisy on this issue time and time again.” The decision to file an appeal was so that Noem could “return the fireworks celebration to Mount Rushmore and honor our nation’s birthday at America’s Shrine of Democracy for next year and in the future.”
The Independence Day fireworks at Mount Rushmore were last held at Mount Rushmore in 2020, when 7,500 tickets were given out via a lottery system. The state spent over $1 million on the event, which is estimated to have cost $4 million in total.
Independence Day fireworks were set off yearly between 1998 and 2009. In 2010 the NPS suspended the event due to wildfire and water contamination concerns. An environmental assessment was done prior to the 2020 event. The 66 page document which was released in Feb. 2020. It stated “ A fireworks display in 2020 would contribute minimally to wildfire risk,” assuming certain mitigations were met. The assessment further stated “the likelihood of adverse impacts” to water quality “increases with the long-term continuation of fireworks.”