Earth hater Powers turns against SD House Majority Leader

Update, Representative Liz May - SD District 27:

if you're cheering on "growth at all costs," ask yourself: what happens when the water runs out? West River aquifers aren't protected under current law, they recharge slower than we're draining them, and nobody pushing these bloated TIF schemes seems to care. The moment you ask the hard questions, you're labeled "anti-growth." But what's truly anti-growth is letting our water supply dry up while developers and big-money consultants cash out on the backs of South Dakota taxpayers. This isn’t about building community—it’s about building subsidies for special interests. Pete Lein & Sons gets praised for “donating” land under a TIF? That’s not generosity—it’s a calculated play for massive returns. And guess who’s stuck paying for the infrastructure, water systems, and the long-term maintenance? We are. Groups like Dream Design International, Elevate Rapid City, and South Dakota Strong are running the same revolving-door playbook across every city they can exploit. They’re not growing South Dakota—they’re extracting it. Meanwhile, they’ve ignored the electric grid for years, and now they want to load it up with data centers? This is classic cart-before-the-horse planning, and the taxpayer is the one getting run over. So no—we’re not anti-growth. We’re anti-stupid. Anti-water-mining. Anti-shell games with public funds. If we don’t start protecting our aquifers and our wallets, there won’t be a next generation left to enjoy the South Dakota these people claim to care about. This isn’t real growth. It’s a fire sale on our future.

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There aren't any litigators to sue the Forest Service allowing Republicans to infiltrate management of the Black Hills National Forest and there is no evidence to support the claim that logging is effective insect control. So, some imaginary war with the bark beetle on the BHNF is really more a fight for clean water because dead trees don't suck aquifers dry. Until forest managers and South Dakota's Republican congressional delegation get that they are preyed upon by the Neimans who take legacy trees and leave the doghair pine for someone else to deal with instead of focusing on hardwood release, prescribed fire and restoring the Hills bioregion to what it was 150 years ago.

South Dakota's House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach (R-Spearditch) has been alerting voters to impaired waterways and failed forest management since at least March.

But, fat slug Pat Powers is so angry at the civil war being waged in his own political party that he denies the fact that the Black Hills watershed is being depleted faster than it recharges. He clearly hates Indigenous Americans every bit as much as Orange Hitler does but begs for more federal money for a Missouri River pipeline that would lift water nearly two thousand feet in elevation then pump it a hundred and fifty miles for lawns, Rally campgrounds, a data center and worse with tax dollars spent on carving through Native America for white privilege instead of empowering communities to harvest snowmelt and rainwater while residents are still dependent on politicians who exploit need. 

Yet, Powers helps to make the Big Sioux River downstream of Brookings a sewer of biblical proportions by flushing his offal into the Waters of the United States but for every 1” of rain and 1,000 square feet of surface (roof, driveway, etc), about 620 gallons of fresh water are generated.

Either we want places where we can live, grow, and have our families decide to return to because we have a quality of life and jobs. Or we are just going to be a bunch of old farts who die alone, lamenting that we wish our kids could have lived here after we made it impossible for them to do so. [Powers, South Dakota War Toilet]

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Image: morbidly obese Powers poses with South Dakota's junior US Senator Reich Mike Rounds.