Almost 37 years ago, Frank and Deborah Popper’s collaborative academic article was published in a small magazine for planning professionals. On March 27 the couple visited Montana State University in Bozeman for a public presentation and discussion about how things have changed since their article was first published. [Buffalo Commons authors look back at evolution of their Great Plains bison concept]The Oakland Zoo just sent fourteen more buffalo for a total of 38 to the Blackfeet Nation. But, whether it's American Prairie's bison grazing on Bureau of Land Management ground in Montana, the US Department of Agriculture killing cattle on the Gila or feds shooting goats in the Tetons socialized grazing just isn't enough to keep some Republicans happy.
4/26/24
ITBC, Heinert move ten buffalo to Taos Pueblo
4/24/24
South Dakota still addicted to gambling
It also has a high prevalence of gambling through lottery tickets, with the 10th highest lottery sales per resident age 18+. South Dakota has legalized betting on fantasy sports, regular sports and horse races, and it allows gambling machines to be put in stores. With so many different legal ways to gamble, it makes sense that many residents have a problem. The grip that gambling has on the Mount Rushmore State is evident in the fact that it has a high number of Gamblers Anonymous meetings per capita. [Most Gambling-Addicted States (2024)]The reasoning is hardly mysterious. It’s all about the money video lootery, a too big to jail banking racket, a medical industry triopoly, prostitution, the Sturgis Rally, policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the SDGOP destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule.
Gamers visiting Deadwood in March dropped $127.2 million in machines, on tables, and sports betting for just over an eight percent increase compared to March 2023. Thus far this year, the collective handle in Deadwood is $358.3 million, up less than half a percent, compared to the same period in 2023. [Black Hills Pioneer]When i was still playing Ricky Jacobsen, Chuck Baumann and Jeanette Fraser took their own lives after losing everything in Deadwood's poker games. No doubt there have been others.
4/23/24
Brookings listened: rainwater harvest encouraged
Yes, the Big Sioux River is a sewer of biblical proportions.It’s probably better than nothing but stormwater from city streets is every bit as toxic as runoff from ag, maybe more. #ecocide #southdakota #redstatefailure #sdleg https://t.co/V6JxvwGbJE https://t.co/SKyL5HuNd2
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) December 7, 2021
Starting Monday, April 22, 2024, City residents can register for and pick up a voucher at the Engineering Division office in Suite 140 of the Brookings City & County Government Center at 520 Third St. Vouchers are limited to one per residential property and are for City of Brookings residents only. A total of 40 vouchers will be available on a first-come, first-served basis until they are gone. [2024 Stormwater Incentive Program]Let's see: Brookings owns a research park, the hospital, the liquor store, the water, the phone company, the power company, an entertainment venue, the golf course, it's home to South Dakota's largest public university and a federally subsidized cheese and dairy industry.
4/22/24
Expect a contested Republican convention
— Ashleigh London (@ashleighlondon) April 22, 2024
4/21/24
Another mountain town turns to ice farming
Lake City is an old silver-mining town — population 432 — tucked in a valley in the San Juan Mountains. The Lake City Ice Park was created by a motley crew of carpenters and raft guides who shared a passion for the sport. They began “farming,” or creating their own ice in the Lake City area in the late 1990s — a scheme fueled by a mischievous curiosity and thousands of feet of hose. In Ouray, the climbers can scale more than 150 named routes along the Uncompahgre River Gorge at what has become the world’s largest man-made ice-climbing park. During the winter of 2021-’22, the Ouray Ice Park pumped $18 million into Ouray County. [Can ice climbing bring life to an isolated Colorado town in the dead of winter?]
The Ice Park in Ouray is a unique place that continues to bring ice climbers from across the world. Often called the Switzerland of America, Ouray is a year-round destination. You can learn about the work of the Rural Opportunity Office and what all the local businesses say… pic.twitter.com/n2CfDVGVGo
— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) February 16, 2024
We're excited to be heading to this year's Bozeman Ice Climbing Festival, which supports the Montana community with education and mentorship on one of the most renowned frozen waterfalls in US ice climbing.https://t.co/Ius7GVChr5
— Rab (@rab_equipment) December 5, 2023
📽️ Marcus Garcia#TheMountainPeople #WeAreRab pic.twitter.com/tYzeJgJgrl
4/19/24
Cancellation of flights between Minneapolis and Pierre could boost passenger rail
Denver Air Connection and the Pierre Regional Airport gave flights to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport a try, but that’s coming to an end June 9, 2024. [Lack of use leads to quick end to flights from Pierre to Minneapolis-St. Paul]My proposal for passenger rail from Minneapolis to Denver is a multi-modal route from the Twin Cities to Mankato on the right of way owned by the Rapid City, Pierre and Eastern Railroad to Brookings, South Dakota and Pierre then to Rapid City and to Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks at Alliance via Chadron, Nebraska then to Cheyenne and Denver. Service to Sioux Falls and Omaha could diverge at Florence, Minnesota.
Rail advocate Dan Bilka disputed that during the Wednesday meeting. The current study is meant to identify routes that would best serve both rural and urban transportation needs, enhance existing long-distance routes and “reflect public engagement” on passenger rail. “That’s why we might be actually a higher priority than some of these other ones that might overlap with state supported services,” Bilka said of the South Dakota proposals. [State transportation head doubts passenger rail service is a real possibility for South Dakota]Yes, socialized agriculture, socialized dairies, socialized cheese, socialized livestock production, a socialized timber industry, socialized air service, socialized freight rail, a socialized nursing home industry, socialized water systems and now a socialized internet are all fine with Republicans in South Dakota but then they insist single-payer medical insurance is socialized medicine.
4/18/24
Earth hating Farm Bureau wants more socialism in farm bill
“It’s time to get it passed, this year,” said Scott VanderWal, president of South Dakota Farm Bureau. “We didn’t really want to be in a presidential election year when we had to do this, but that’s where we’re at. We have to deal with it.” Tensions between ranchers and farmers sometimes arise when policies that favor crop subsidies encourage the conversion of grassland to cropland or reduce grazing areas for livestock. Thune told South Dakota Searchlight that balancing those interests can be achieved within the framework of the farm bill. [Cattlemen tell Thune: ‘More ranch’ needed in already overdue farm bill]Yet, Republicans in red states are howling because the federal government and states are buying land to protect it from desertification.
Don't miss this terrific new piece by Eric Schlosser: The Cartel on Your Dinner Plate - The Atlantic https://t.co/CGbIHBDCQb
— Michael Pollan (@michaelpollan) April 10, 2024
4/17/24
After SCOTUS ruling American Rivers names New Mexico's waterways most imperiled
To address the gap in clean water protections left by the Supreme Court decision, New Mexico must secure durable funding to establish a state-led surface water permitting program to protect its rivers, streams, and wetlands. The state’s heritage, environment, people, and economy depend on it. [American Rivers]Watersheds in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico provide between 50-75% of the water found in the Rio Grande but irrigators in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas take at least 80% of that from the 1,885 mile long river. At least fifteen native fish species and their aquatic habitat once found in the southern portion of the Rio Grande are now gone because the river dries up every year.
4/16/24
Rounds, Republicans paved the way for Trump's Covid ethnic cleansing
Americans cannot afford to look back with rose-colored glasses to act as if Trump wasn’t so bad. Certainly, Indian Country cannot afford another four more years of Trump. [When Trump Said, “They Don’t Look Like Indians to Me”]We all know South Dakota's current Republican governor is a racist so it comes as no surprise to anyone that she has been barred from four reservations and counting.
4/14/24
Saving the planet from Republican money no easy task
With governments of the world facing a 2025 deadline for new and stronger plans to curb carbon pollution, nearly half of the world's populations voting in elections this year, and crucial global finance meetings later this month in Washington, United Nations executive climate secretary Simon Stiell said Wednesday he knows his warning may sound melodramatic. But he said action over the next two years is “essential.” If emissions of carbon dioxide and methane from burning of coal, oil and natural gas continue to rise or don't start a sharp decline, Stiell said it “will further entrench the gross inequalities between the world’s richest and poorest countries and communities" that are being worsened by climate change. And behind it all is money. [UN climate chief presses for faster action, says humans have 2 years left 'to save the world']Margaret Byfield is the daughter of a couple with ties to the so-called Sagebrush Rebellion and in Nevada they grazed their cattle without permits on federal land. In 2022 her group, American Stewards of Liberty or ASL presented anti-Earth resolutions to a receptive Otero County Commission and the San Juan County Commission heard two resolutions dealing with land use issues after watching Byfield's dog and pony show. Her husband, Dan has been a lobbyist for the Texas Farm Bureau.
Alfredo Herrera is kinder, and softer-spoken, a young rancher whose ancestors first homesteaded their family plot in northern New Mexico 100 years ago. All weekend long, there has been talk of “grassroots.” At the time, ASL’s website declares that 54 percent of its hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual revenue comes from small donors. (The vast majority of that money is spent on the couple’s salaries.) The group’s 990s tell a different story: “Service fees”—money that comes presumably from their county-level consulting and, lately, their summits—make up more than two-thirds of ASL’s revenue. Who do they want to own this country? If I squint a bit, this conference starts to look like a front on behalf of the oligarchs who pay the bills—the people who, if our public lands are ever privatized, will wind up the new owners. [This Land Is My Land: Inside the Growing Movement to Fight Conservation]Learn more at the Wisconsin Examiner.
4/13/24
No significant impact? BHNF, Spearditch Canyon under attack
There were 383 formal objections from the public, and the Forest Service determined that 122 objections were “eligible for review.” However, no objection resolution meeting was held, as is typical with this process. Instead, the Forest Service will move directly to a decision. Its draft decision was that there would be “no significant impact” and to let the drilling go forward. Like 382 others – and like hundreds more in other phases of the project — Black Hills Clean Water Alliance put time and effort into this process. To see the Forest Service brush off our concerns with its repeated assertions that they did the minimum necessary is insulting. [GOLDEN CREST GOLD DRILLING PROJECT: BLACK HILLS NATIONAL FOREST ISSUED A “RESPONSE” TO PUBLIC OBJECTIONS]While exploratory drilling wastes millions of gallons of water it tends to have minimal impact on the Forest itself but the drillers usually sell their data to bigger miners like Barrick, a Canadian earth raper.
4/12/24
Snowflake Neiman announces layoffs at Spearditch sawmill, blames Forest Service
4/10/24
Corps advances Spring Pulse in upper MO basin
“Even with the lower than average runoff forecast the hydrologic conditions are sufficient to conduct a flow test from Fort Peck Dam,” said John Remus, chief of the Corps’ Missouri River Basin Water Management Division, in a news release. The goal is to boost flows from Fort Peck by 1,700 cfs each day until the peak flow at the Wolf Point gauge reaches 16,000 cfs. [Fort Peck Reservoir water releases planned for pallid sturgeon research]During heavy Spring runoff Fort Peck Dam partially failed in 1938 then was tested by flood waters again in 2011 when this interested party was living in Montana.
Pallid sturgeon larva need eight to 14 days of drift time after hatching to mature, instead they are dying before then in the oxygen starved environments found at the head of reservoirs like Sakakawea and Fort Peck. https://t.co/WHXQJQphCd
— Tom Lutey (@TomLutey) September 30, 2021
Geomorphic classification framework for assessing reproductive ecology of Scaphirhynchus albus (pallid sturgeon), Fort Peck segment, Upper Missouri River, Montana and North Dakota, https://t.co/0bEHlhuBia pic.twitter.com/2EuAOo197P
— USGS Pubs Warehouse (@USGS_Pubs) October 11, 2023
4/9/24
Managing the managers won't be enough to save the BHNF
My real education came as chief of staff to then-Governor Dennis Daugaard during the mountain pine needle epidemic, when I spent a lot of time focusing on state efforts. And so I think part of the question is, what do you want to manage to? Do you want to manage to 20% off the all-time peak, or do you want to manage to a different number? And Dave can say, “Oh, it’s just not out there.” That’s not what the GTR says. The GTR doesn’t say that the annual harvest target should be zero or 5,000 or 20,000 CCF. [Q&A: Johnson calls criticism of his forestry hearing ‘absurd’]Wildland fire expert Joe Lowe even called Dusty Johnson's former boss, Denny Daugaard, incompetent and uninterested in governing. Lowe obviously believes that Daugaard didn't take the ecological collapse taking place on the Black Hills seriously enough. And, after a century of fire suppression, a decades-long moratorium on prescribed burns, a lack of environmental litigators and GOP retrenchment the Black Hills National Forest and surrounding grasslands remain at risk to more blazes like the Legion Lake Fire.
Well, I don’t think it’s absurd to think that Rep. Johnson and Senators Thune and Rounds have pressured the Forest Service to continually raise the timber cut off of the Black Hills NF. We have copies of numerous letters from them to the Forest Service to prove it. If Rep. Johnson thinks that Custer State Park knows how to better manage a forest, he needs to know they have not had a timber sale since 2018, when the salvage was done on the Legion Lake Fire. The reason the Black Hills NF continues to have timber targets of 120,000 ccf is due to the pressure that he and others put on the Washington Office and the Regional Office. That’s how it works. It has not been based on what the Forest can provide. I agree there needs to be constructive dialogue. I am going to contact his Rapid City office and see if he will meet with me. In addition, I would like to actually take him to the Forest so he can see what is going on out there. Maybe Seth Tupper could tag along. [Dave Mertz, Faceberg comment]John Wrede studied Park Management and Wildlife Management at South Dakota State University, had a long career with SD Game, Fish and Park and lives in the occupied Black Hills. He has called what South Dakota Republicans have done to habitat, "managerially inexcusable" and also commented on Johnson's lack of forest acumen.
The man hasn't got an ecological bone in his body. And his so called forestry experience is rooted in political thinking and rhetoric no differently that his colleagues he brought to the Black Hills to strong arm the Forest Service. This wouldn't be an issue at all if business wasn't squealing and he understood ecological sustainability and the differences between even age and uneven age stand management. He uses the false equivalent of Norbeck and Black Elk to glorify CSP mangement that is completely different in legal mandate. No where does he mention Daschles work or the Burns Carter Memorandum law suit that now governs how Norbeck is to be managed nor does he acknowledge the federal agreement to treat The Forest, that portion of Custer State Park in The Needles and Mt Rushmore to protect the old growth and aesthetics in that region from Pine Beetle damage. The only thing that guy understands is money and the [weird] notion that the government has a duty to abuse public resources in subsidy to private enterprise. He isnt a student of Gifford Pinchot and neither are his colleagues in congress. [John Wrede, Faceberg comment]
The Forest Service is proposing to treat up to 8,000 acres of National Forest land four miles south of Beulah, WY, 13 miles east of Sundance, WY, and nine miles west of Spearfish, SD through mechanical and manual fuel reduction, prescribed fire, management of oak shrubs, and tree planting. The area includes lower Grand Canyon/Sand Creek, Dugout Gulch, and Boundary Gulch. Adjacent developments include historic Ranch A, Red Canyon subdivision, and the Sand Creek Country Club. The Forest Service is partnering with the Wyoming State Forestry Division, Crook County Natural Resource District, and Bureau of Land Management in an all-lands approach to managing forests in and adjacent to the project area. [Public Comments Sought for North Sand Project on Bearlodge Ranger District]Using the word, "manage" thirteen times a Republican Lawrence County commissioner offered his two cents about the BHNF in the Black Hills Pioneer.
4/8/24
Freedom means driving drunk in South Dakota
South Dakota’s score: 98.78 out of 100
- South Dakota has the highest number of DUI arrests per 100,000 licensed drivers (879.12), ranking the state second among the worst states for drunk driving.
- More than one-third (35.14%) of traffic deaths are caused by drunk drivers in South Dakota, the 11th highest percentage in our study.
- South Dakota has the eighth-highest rate of drunk drivers under age 21 involved in fatal crashes (0.57 per 100,000 licensed drivers).
- According to our study, South Dakota has the ninth-highest percentage of traffic deaths caused by drivers with a relatively low blood alcohol concentration of 0.01 to 0.07 (6.76%).
- The Mount Rushmore State has the 11th-highest rate of people killed in crashes involving a drunk driver (4.66 per 100,000 state residents).
4/6/24
RFK, Jr. gunning for Trump voters
In a statement Friday seeking to clarify his position on the Capitol attack, Kennedy questioned whether the riot qualified as an “insurrection”; echoed Trump’s claims that the prosecution of its participants was politically motivated; and said he was “disturbed by the weaponization of government” against the former president. This is part of a pattern for Kennedy. [RFK Jr. parrots Trump on ‘weaponization’ over Jan. 6 prosecutions]As recently as 2023 former New Mexico governor and presidential candidate, Gary Johnson said he'd support Bobby if he ran as a Libertarian.
4/5/24
Noem losing her grip on reality?
4/4/24
Spearditch Republican concerned about poisoned waterways
The report also covers the state’s 577 lakes and reservoirs, of which 180 have been assessed. Eighty percent of tested lakes were too polluted to support all of their assigned beneficial uses, and the report primarily blames mercury detected in fish. Agriculture also contributes to lake pollution, according to the report: “These lakes have sizeable watersheds of nutrient-rich glacial soils that are extensively developed for agriculture. Runoff carrying sediment and nutrients from agricultural land is the most significant source of nonpoint pollution.” The EPA praised the state for finishing the report but suggested making the data easier to understand. [80% of tested surface water in South Dakota fails to meet state standards]Because of the failures of South Dakota's Republican governors and legislature to control pollution some $172 million has been set aside for pipelines and drinking water improvements including in this interested party’s home town of Elkton where dairies and nitrates have ruined wells.
4/3/24
Prayers for violence splitting Republican Party
When a Republican colleague threatened to read aloud from a 2-foot stack of books — including a biblical guide to leadership and a tome by anti-tax activist Grover Norquist — to protest inaction on his bills last week, Missouri state Sen. Rick Brattin quickly took up the cause. “It’s hard to do stuff even when everybody’s acting in good faith,” said Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Republican. But the Freedom Caucuses formed because some Republicans saw the rest of their party as not conservative enough. That has led to intraparty conflict in many GOP-dominated state capitols. In Arizona, Freedom Caucus members, led by chair Sen. Jake Hoffman, spearheaded a drive that resulted in the state Board of Education delaying until next year a proposed new handbook governing how parents use state-funded educational savings accounts to send their kids to private schools. [Freedom Caucuses push for conservative state laws, but getting attention is their big success]Nothing says freedom like driving women out of state for medical care, praying for martial law so you can kill anyone you want, burning textbooks and denying the protections of the First, Fourth and Ninth Amendments to people who enjoy cannabis, right?
Members of the right-wing Freedom Caucus announced an effort to expel Reps. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) and Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) from the House Republican conference https://t.co/UEew8geYZb pic.twitter.com/YfNUzkZp98
— Forbes (@Forbes) July 29, 2021
4/2/24
South Dakota's medical industry triopoly ensures doctors stay rich
2. South Dakota
South Dakota’s score: 93.41 out of 100
South Dakota is the second most-expensive state for healthcare. It has these key statistics:
- South Dakota ranks fourth highest for its percentage of children whose families struggled to pay for their child’s medical bills in the past 12 months (11.9%).
- It also has the fourth highest average deductible for residents with single health insurance coverage through an employer ($2,433 annually).
- South Dakota features the fifth highest average deductible for residents with family health insurance coverage through an employer ($4,330.67 annually).
- The state also has the sixth highest average premium for residents with plus-one health insurance coverage through an employer ($4,599.33 annually).
- Additionally, South Dakota has the sixth highest health insurance premium for those with silver plans in the Affordable Care Act marketplace ($596.67 annually).
3/31/24
Montana county leaves BSPRA but loves air service subsidies
A train has been a topic of conversation for years around Colorado, you have the chance to hear from RTD and Front Range Passenger Rail right on The Colorado Sun's virtual stage.
— The Colorado Sun (@ColoradoSun) March 29, 2024
Join us for free on April 4 by RSVPing today: https://t.co/FslMekP6HW pic.twitter.com/wtgbVMVOPh
3/30/24
Pe'Sla meeting pits sovereign nations against state government
3/28/24
Wildfire salvage driving lumber glut
Back in graduate school in the late 70s my major Prof Jim Peek, used to talk about proximate and ultimate causes. The proximate cause of the Calf Canyon, Hermits Peak fires was ignitions by the Forest Service. The ultimate cause was a century of fire suppression, that followed a cessation of Native American burning in the 1800s. In essence the Forest Service is put in the position of being the the bomb squad. When detonating the bomb does not go right and damage happens there are people who point fingers. The obvious thing is these horrible fires would happen sooner or later, because all of the prerequisites (ultimate causes) are there. We need to support prescribed fire knowing it won’t always go as planned, because fire is inevitable. [John Marshall, blog comment]Missoula, Montana sits in a dry lake bed surrounded by mountains so when this scribe lived there in the late 1970s and early 80s and the pulp mill in Frenchtown was operating the valley would fill with stinky water vapor and wood smoke creating a toxic ice fog during winter months. Now, sawmills in Montana that rely on ponderosa pine are closing in part because of low lumber prices driven by salvage sales after record wildfire seasons caused by human influences on global climate patterns.
“It’s not just the facilities and jobs that are impacted at those facilities,” said Todd Morgan, director of the University of Montana’s Forest Industry Research Program. Oregon-based Roseburg Forest Products cited challenges competing with more modern plants with the 1969 building’s aging manufacturing platform as the main reason for closing the Missoula facility. For Pyramid Mountain Lumber, Missoula County’s last remaining sawmill, sawn timber prices are back down to where they were before the COVID-19 pandemic, but not terrible, Todd Johnson, president and general manager, told Montana Free Press. Montana still has milling capacity, but problems in other Western states illustrate reviving lumber infrastructure is more difficult than maintaining it, Morgan said. For example, Arizona and New Mexico are struggling financially to complete fire hazard treatments with a shrunken wood products industry, he said. [Missoula-area wood industry closures mean ripple effects for workers, tax base, forest management]Smurfit-Stone declared bankruptcy in 2009, closed the mill in 2010 and sold it for scrap in 2011 leaving taxpayers a US Environmental Protection Agency Superfund mess polluted with PCBs and dioxins that make the Clark Fork River America's fifth most endangered waterway in 2023.
Over a human lifespan, the modeled impacts of the suppression bias exceed those from fuel accumulation or climate change alone, suggesting that suppression may exert a significant and underappreciated influence on patterns of fire globally. Managing wildfires to safely burn under low and moderate conditions is thus a critical tool to address the growing wildfire crisis. [Fire suppression makes wildfires more severe and accentuates impacts of climate change and fuel accumulation]Koch Industries owns Georgia-Pacific LLC, one of the largest forest products ravagers in the United States.
Foreign investors fund Missoula Sawmill District projects: https://t.co/NPIo0IWVdZ via @missoulian cc: @tomlutey @coralhei #eb5
— interested party (@larry_kurtz) October 22, 2015
Public Comments Sought for North Sand Project on Bearlodge Ranger District https://t.co/nOkIziNovC pic.twitter.com/fMaezyyxop
— Black Hills NF (@BlackHillsNF) March 26, 2024
After they read my story, Roseburg’s corporate office sent out this press release https://t.co/LifTvEaUBJ pic.twitter.com/CqIvXu2zlF
— David Erickson (@David__Erickson) March 20, 2024