Attacks on environmental protection continue East River

As the “dog days” of summer roll on, South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks officials are warning pet owners of blue-green algae blooms appearing in ponds and lakes across the state.https://t.co/w5lzerPWTX

— Brookings Register (@brkgsregister) August 8, 2019

South Dakota State University President Barry Dunn says the chemical toilet should simply accept more confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).

Mitchell Peterson, an attorney from the Davenport Evans law firm in Sioux Falls who is representing the Living River Group, Sierra Club told Clay County commissioners acting as a board of adjustment Tuesday that they have heard a lot of reasons from their constituents stating why a conditional use permit issued to Travis Mockler should not be approved. Peterson noted that the county’s ordinance dealing with CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) and AFOs (Animal Feeding Operations) states that ‘the applicant shall obtain a letter from the NRCS to determine if the application should be considered an AFO or a CAFO. Peterson said he believed that allowing the maximum number of two medium livestock operations on a single site and not defining it as a CAFO supported his statement. [Sierra Club Attorney: ‘You Have To Say No’]

This isn't self-reliance; it's moral hazard. Instead of empowering stakeholders to harvest snow melt and rain water rural communities continue to be dependent on politicians who exploit need.

Like most of East River South Dakota southwestern Minnesota is a Republican stronghold where dairies, swine units and other concentrated animal feeding operations have devastated water supplies by contaminating wells with nitrates. The United States Geological Survey has found elevated levels of arsenic in ground water near hog confinements.

South Dakota is struggling to keep white workers, infrastructure is crumbling, industrial agriculture is failing, South Dakota churches are girding for gun violence, meth is replacing alcohol as the state's drug of choice, Pierre's culture of corruption and rape violence threaten open government, socialism is quietly replacing free enterprise, pheasant numbers are dwindling, environmental degradation is increasing, wildlife are being exterminated to make way for disease-ridden domestic livestock and exotic fowl, jails far outnumber colleges, ag bankers continue to enslave landowners and the state's medical industry triopoly operates without scrutiny.

Nevertheless, the Yankton County Commission has approved a conditional use permit for a hog nursery barn in the northern part of that county.