11/6/17

South Dakota lakes are at risk to state law

Since South Dakota statehood the US Army Corps of Engineers have had purview over water that flows into bodies that can support navigation and a corps attorney says the Army has wide discretion to enforce Clean Water Act laws.
Back in 2005, a landowner on the northeast side of Enemy Swim Lake began dumping dirt into wetlands that filter water as it moves into the lake. Meanwhile, the Tribe, which owns a majority of the land around Enemy Swim filed suit in federal court attempting to stop what it believes is an aggravated assault on one of South Dakota’s better lakes. The only organization with the courage to challenge this travesty is the Tribe. Native Americans, after all, have a special connection to the land and water.
Read the rest here.

Nearly every moving stream, intermittent or not in South Dakota, has supported a pre-settlement Amerindian or European explorer pulling and propelling a canoe over it. Last July the Bennett County Commission passed a resolution calling for more federal impact aid funding in lieu of property taxes on Indian trust lands.

In South Dakota, once it leaves its source, all surface water that flows from or through private property is owned by the state.

Ranchers and farmers who pump aquifers to water hay crops are out of hay after giving it to other ag welfare recipients this Spring.

That's not self-reliance; it's moral hazard.

Largely created by tiling East River lakes are mostly eutrophic shit holes filled with toxic algae and unable to even support fish populations: why they're not tapped for irrigation instead of pumping fossil water from depleted aquifers remains a mystery.

No comments: