Rapid City's Laura Armstrong would be a formidable gubernatorial candidate

Editor's note: In the years after my 1997 vision at Orman Dam, a quest for redemption overtook me. I pursued numerous concepts nearly simultaneously including a recycling initiative that would look much like Rapid City's Material Recovery Facility does today: metals, paper, plastics, glass, the whole schmear. 

Laura Armstrong is a local speech language pathologist who served on the Rapid City Common Council from 2017-2023 serving twice as Council President. This interested party has asked her to enter the Democratic gubernatorial primary.

Rapid City residents are being told — once again — to brace for higher waste service fees and reduced recycling pickup. We're told it's necessary. We're told it's inevitable. We're told that someday, eventually, something might improve "depending on market demands."

But let's be honest: this isn't about markets. It's about leadership. Or more accurately, the lack of it.

At the Dec. 1 City Council meeting, City Hall voted to raise waste service fees and cut recycling pickup in half. And they did so while admitting that our landfill is nearly full, the cost of the last waste cell doubled from projections, and we only have about twenty-five years of capacity left. We are running out of room, out of time and- apparently -out of vision.

The city now acknowledges not everything we carefully rinse and place into our blue bins is actually recycled. Plastics labeled three through seven simply end up in the landfill, because markets are unstable. Glass is often crushed and discarded. Shiny cardboard goes straight to the trash heap. Even the city's own outreach staff confirms that major categories of recyclables are landfilled because we lack the local capacity to do anything else with them. If this is the best we can do, then why aren't we doing more to change it?

It appears we have a problem of short-sightedness. The Material Recovery Facility (MRF) does impressive work with the limited tools it has. It is old but functional; and thankfully, staffed with dedicated workers making the most of aging equipment. And yes, it generates revenue: Around $350,000 a year. But the bigger story, the one city leaders seem unwilling to confront, is that our current system is fundamentally reactive, not proactive.

We increase fees instead of increasing capacity. We reduce services instead of expanding partnerships.

We shrug at global markets instead of building local solutions. And all of this in a state that is growing by thousands of new residents every year-people who bring with them jobs, families, energy, and yes, their garbage. Yet our planning for solid waste has not kept pace with our growth. Leadership matters, and on this issue, leadership has been missing.

Years ago, I approached the School of Mines to explore a potential collaboration for local waste innovation, recycling science, and sustainable materials research. That conversation could have sparked a long-term partnership between our city and one of the nation's most respected engineering institutions. We have worldclass minds right here in Rapid City. People from all over the world come to our local university to learn, innovate, and take on the complex problems that shape our future.

Why weren't we leveraging that talent? Why aren't we now? Imagine the workforce development opportunities. Imagine local businesses built around materials recovery. Imagine becoming a regional center for waste innovation, instead of a regional dumping ground.

We could be training engineers, creating jobs, and establishing Rapid City as a leader in sustainable waste solutions across the Upper Midwest. Instead, we are patching gaps and raising rates.

Our landfill is reportedly $8.3 million in the hole. That number will only grow unless we do the work now to rethink our waste stream, engage real partners, and invest in solutions that reduce what we bury in the ground.

Other communities have already moved in this direction: waste-to-energy technologies, reprocessing clusters, advanced sorting systems, and public-private innovation labs. Rapid City has the brainpower, the institutional partners, and the regional role to lead. What we lack is leadership willing to do more than approve annual fee hikes and incremental service cuts.

I believe we can choose a better path. Residents deserve a system that innovates, not one that throws up its hands. We deserve planning, not patchwork. We deserve leaders who understand that waste management is not a burden-it is an opportunity.

Rapid City can either plan for the future or keep paying for the past. That starts with engaging in real, productive conversations with the School of Mines and other regional universities-institutions filled with people who come here to learn, innovate, and tackle the complex problems that shape our future. Let's bring those experts, alongside industry partners and community leaders, to the table. Let's choose meaningful, forward-looking solutions instead of settling for higher bills and smaller bins.