More South Dakota ranchers and farmers headed for the shitter

The number of suicides in South Dakota has increased by 40 percent in the past decade. State officials announced a new five-year plan this week to try to reverse the trend. https://t.co/8WjdOHJfwR

— Lisa Kaczke (@LisaKaczke) January 23, 2020

In 2018 the Rapid City Journal blamed the South Dakota Republican Party for spikes in suicides and depression then a Sanford Health executive did the same in 2019. South Dakota is ranked 6th highest in the nation for suicides reporting more than 22 self-administered terminations per 100,000 people or an increase of 59% since 1999 and the 11th highest increase in any state.

Passing South Dakota’s farms on to a new generation won’t be easy. That was evident Thursday morning as South Dakota Agriculture Secretary Kim Vanneman discussed her goals with the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee. Rep. Bob Glanzer, R-Huron, told the secretary that bankers are concerned about the future of farms in his area, where some farmers have no future generation waiting to take over. Before lenders foreclose on a farm, they must file for mediation with the agriculture department. Since 2015, there has been a steady increase in mediation requests. [Rapid City Journal]

Restoring and rewilding American ecosystems are parts of the Green New Deal. Throughout its history the US Army Corps of Engineers has had purview over water that flows into bodies that can support navigation and in 2014, through the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Obama White House moved to more closely identify the sources of non-point pollution. Despite a judge's ruling EPA went forward with a new federal rule protecting small streams, tributaries and wetlands. The Waters of the United States legislation sought to give authority to the EPA to use some teeth to enforce the rights of people downstream to have clean water even from some sources that the US Geological Survey has already identified as impaired.

The Anthropocene is now and time to rewild some of the American West eventually becoming part of a Greater Missouri Basin National Wildlife Refuge connecting the CM Russell in Montana along the Missouri River through North Dakota to Oacoma, South Dakota combined with corridors from Yellowstone National Park to the Yukon in the north and south to the Canadian River through eastern Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, western Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas.

Clear the second growth conifers and restore aspen habitat, prescribe burns, begin extensive Pleistocene rewilding using bison and cervids, empower tribes and buy out ranchers or lease private land for wildlife corridors, turn feral horses from Bureau of Land Management pastures onto other public land to control exotic grasses and elect Democrats to lead the way.

What are the Trump Organization and his earth hater party doing about it? Accelerating the end of all life on Earth, of course.

BREAKING: Today, the administration announced its final #WOTUS rewrite, gutting clean water protections across the country. This marks their second rollback of key environmental protections in two weeks. #ProtectCleanWater #ProtectNEPA https://t.co/iw5TuLxZz4

— National Parks Conservation Association (@NPCA) January 23, 2020