Brookings County screwing taxpayers, shitting in their own water supplies

There was a time when settlers could make a living by clamming on the James, Big Sioux and Vermillion rivers but the industry dwindled in the 1940s due to over-harvesting and environmental degradation in the rivers. Since then the number of acres in agroecosystems tripled but poor ag practices like tiling have made soils unable to absorb rainfall creating toxic runoff and flooding. 

None of that is lost on the Brookings County Commission. In 2024 nine of eleven sites below Watertown tested positive for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances including a hot spot in Falls Park in Sioux Falls but researchers found thirty two samples with nine types of PFAS compounds all the way to the Iowa border. That same year Brookings provided rain catchment barrels with hopes to reduce stormwater runoff. Tiling by farmers increases water flow into the Big Sioux and more hard surfaces, such as roads, parking lots and driveways are increasing stream bed scouring in the river. 

Now, after spending some $70 million granted by federal and state governments on a water treatment plant Brookings officials have admitted the system fails at removing all the PFAS created mostly by 3M. Contaminated stormwater often overwhelms the collection pond on Solventum (3M) property then spreads the contaminants into aquifer recharges, to soils under George S. Mickelson Middle School and to the already polluted Big Sioux River because the State Senators and Representatives of Brookings County and the Mayor of Brookings are all Republicans.

Media should investigate the collusion between the state and polluters instead of pandering to the South Dakota Republican Party as it destroys watersheds by deconstructing the Waters of the United States rule protected under the 1972 Clean Water Act because South Dakota will flout WOTUS until the cows come home.

Yes, the grassland fire danger index will reach the extreme, very high, high and moderate categories again Monday for parts of the horrible red state even in Brookings County.

Learn more at the Brookings Register.