Lucas Murray asked the Aberdeen City Council last night why the public can’t fish near the dam on the Elm River next to the city’s water treatment plant. The city replied that a Department of Homeland Security assessment of city property for terrorist risks concluded that it was too dangerous to allow public access to the dam:
“Dam number one is truly the most important portion of our system,” [water treatment plant manager Janel] Ellingson said. “If that were to go away, it would take months to restore the water there. Even if we restored the dam, within hours the water that was lost, it could take months for water to get down to that point of the river” [Elisa Sand, “Access to City Property for Fishing Is Security Issue,” Aberdeen American News, 2016.12.06].
Fisherman Murray despairs for the Republic:
In comments to the council following Ellingson’s explanation, Murray made it clear he wasn’t happy with the city’s answer.
“Essentially you’ve told us the terrorists have won,” Murray said. “It’s changed the enjoyment of this spot” [Sand, 2016.12.06].
Fish and security, beware: shore access is verboten, but pole-bearing marauders can still approach the dam by boat.
Terror in Aberdeen? The more fishermen the less right wing terrorists.
It is frightening, those fish are probably terrorists anyway.
Can the Aberdeen City Council say ‘paranoid’?
Dam politics….
If it weren’t for the dam terrorists we’d have a damn fishing spot!
How hard could it be for the average Joe to spot Muslim kids with backpack bombs sneaking along the face of the damn? Really, Syrians fish? Rushmore would be a more likely target.
The reality is that the water coming into the treatment center is polluted, and they don’t want people eating fish that congregate there. It has nothing to do with terrorists who could still plant a bomb there without much trouble – even easier without fishermen watching them.
I question the Department of Homeland Security’s judgment. They believe that on a plane my itsy bitsy fingernail scissors are more dangerous than a pen.
Rohr- on a DC-10 yer scissors could be used to sever all 3 sets of redundant hydraulic lines in the tail section, similar to Flight 232. You could never sever them with a pen. I suppose you could right about severing them and that could be taken as a terrorist threat.
This is the first I have heard about Aberdeen giving a care about their water. They did not seem to mind the ruckus upriver from their intake for the WEB, didn’t bother them a bit that there water could become unusable.
I deal with hydraulic lines on a daily basis. Any hydraulic line that can be severed with a pair of scissors is no hydraulic line at all.
Noem can no longer claim that the WOTUS rule is the biggest government land grab in history. Aberdeen seems to have risen above that.
Rushmore? Nuts to that—all symbolic, no solid infrastructure damage. A better target is the Pactola dam. I don’t know how much explosive it would take to breach, but drive a truck with enough explosives onto it, and you wash a good chunk of Rapid City away really fast.
Cory,
Why not shoot it with a gun, as do all terrorists?
They don’t make a truck that big, stupid, but if I see you driving ANY truck around the Black Hills, you are toast,you terrorist scumbag.
Shoot it with a gun and claim-“Stand your ground”? Riiiiight. You’d do better dressed as Nazis and sneak into the bowels of the dam with high explosives and hope the resistance waits around outside to help you get away. Then, afterwards, the good guy Americans get to make out with Barbra Bach and live happily ever after.
Then how about a submarine?