The Lower Brule Sioux Tribe of South Dakota says a television station shouldn't rebuild a broadcast tower on sacred Medicine Butte.

KELO-TV built the tower 50 years ago, when “statutes and regulations protecting Native American historic and cultural resources and traditional cultural properties were nonexistent," the tribe said in a letter, The Mitchell Daily Republic. So the tribe wants to be consulted by the Federal Communications Commission.

“It ties into a whole sacred set of buttes that figure predominately in our culture and I would like to have our folks comment more on that," Chairman Michael Jandreau told the paper in an interview.

The broadcast tower fell down during the major winter storm that crippled reservations in South Dakota last month. KELO is seeking FCC permission to erect a temporary tower and, eventually, a permanent one.

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Tribe to KELO: Find new TV tower site (The Mitchell Daily Republic 2/24)
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