1/3/17

SDSU enlisted to train Elkton's dairy wage slaves


Oak Lake in extreme eastern South Dakota is a Brookings water supply.
A phallus competes for the skyline with ubiquitous wind turbines on Buffalo Ridge


As Hendricks, Minnesota sues to prevent the effects of cattle shit from another South Dakota dairy and cross-state pollution rules evaporate my home town is struggling to digest the numbers of Spanish speaking wage slaves.
ELKTON – When faced with an influx of students whose first language was not English, the Elkton School District turned to South Dakota State University for help. “Teachers had told me over the years that ‘I don’t know how to help my ELL (English-language learners) students, I don’t know how to reach my ELL students or I’m struggling how to do this,’” said Kelly Neill, Elkton’s principal. [Brookings Register]
The crony capitalism that keeps South Dakota the 8th worst state for the working class is destroying lands promised to native peoples by treaty and Elkton is struggling to find enough housing for migrant workers often living in squalor.

The state is second in addiction to gambling and teachers' salaries are 51st in the nation. Wage slavery is the state's biggest claim to fame and South Dakota dairies are wreaking habitat havoc. Infrastructure is crumbling and the state's bureaucracy is overbearing and unwieldy. Ag groups want federally subsidized crop insurance and the right to pollute. Corruption and graft are commonplace.

Pollution from industrial agriculture has made waterways poisonous, the state has no modern statute addressing financial assurances for pipeline leaks. Trophy fishing for threatened species is a tourist activity. East River, South Dakota is a dead zone and could be a new repository for nuclear waste.

"Water ignores any political boundaries." The source of the Mississippi River is likely in South Dakota.

Meanwhile, climate change denier Republican Governor Denny Daugaard is presiding over an exodus of educators fleeing the failed red state as his cronies plot to prevent medical insurance for South Dakota's least fortunate even as his office touts a budget surplus. He has virtually hand-picked a compliant extremist legislature.


rare stand of aspen on Minnesota/South Dakota border north of Elkton near divide between the Missouri and Mississippi River drainages

1 comment:

larry kurtz said...

Little wonder workers are fleeing South Dakota: "South Dakota doesn’t have a state law that explicitly requires companies to provide workers' compensation insurance coverage for employees..."