Senator Helene Duhamel (R-32/Rapid City) is proposing more big government welfare to help all those new freedom-seekers in the Black Hills get the most basic necessity of life:
There are $131 Million dollars in ARPA money available to the state government that must be allocated by the end of next year and spent by December of 2026. ARPA is the American Rescue Plan Act.
…State Sen. Helene Duhamel, speaking in support of a new water pipe to the Black Hills, said there is room in this budget.
“Go back a few years and we gave $600 million to water projects, and only $150 million of that has been spent,” Duhamel said. “So, all these unspent dollars and another $95 million from these ARPA dollars that are just sitting there are going into existing water projects. That’s great, water is an investment where every citizen benefits, but nothing for new pipelines. That’s heartbreaking to me.”
She said West River, which frequently cycles in and out of drought, needs a proactive government.
“Western South Dakota is in trouble now,” Duhamel said. “Current water needs in a situation of drought, and we’re growing. We’re asking for a one-time investment, ARPA dollars or general funds, of $3.5 million to finish our engineering study for our pipeline bringing Missouri River water all the way to the Black Hills.”
…“All we’re trying to do is finish this study,” Duhamel said. “Until you have this study done, you can’t even get on the feds radar – you can’t move forward. We can do the engineering, no we can’t build it, but we can engineer it. Until that’s done, we can’t move forward with any federal funding or land acquisition or easements or anything” [C.J. Keene, “Water Investments Major Piece of Governor’s Budget Address,” SDPB Radio, 2023.12.06].
Duhamel tried unsuccessfully to get $100 million of those ARPA dollars to help fulfill her great vision of a pipeline to carry Missouri River water to the often dry Black Hills. (Hey, at least Duhamel has a great vision, unlike the Governor, whose greatest monuments will be her dress-up videos shot by out-of-state consultants.) Now she’s saying a mere $3.5 million would help finish the study phase and set the stage for seeking another source of federal funding for actual construction.
Wait—federal funding, for a massive water project necessitated by the influx of “Blue State Refugees” who purportedly fled more liberal states to escape big government and enjoy their Gibsonesque Freedom™? Do those newcomers need to remind their Senator that they came to South Dakota to escape exactly the kind of wasteful government spending that Duhamel wants to pour into this water pipeline? Those Blue State Refugees may be thirsty, but they’d rather be parched than entangled in the inevitable strings attached to federal cash or drowned in the deadly inflation that federal funding unleashes.
Come on, Blue State Refugees! Rise up and save your Freedom™ from Duhamel’s dastardly plot to reënsnare you in the government dependence from which you so recently escaped! Call your Senator now—and your Representatives, and the high holy Freedom™-riding Governor herself— and tell them not to spend one Red cent on a water pipeline that you don’t need! If you really need water, buy a rain barrel. Buy 100 90-gallon barrels to meet your monthly household water needs. If you start running out before the next gullywasher, buy yourself a couple cube tanks, throw ’em on a trailer with a Honda water pump, and drive out to the River every weekend to get your own darn water.
That, my friends and fellow lovers of the Hills, is real freedom, dependence not on government to build and maintain (not to mention steal land for—ranchers, you know there’s going to be some eminent domain involved here, Senator Duhamel and her big-city friends taking your land for their convenience) some great costly waterworks but on yourselves, to secure by your own efforts and ingenuity and conservationist (that sounds tellingly like another word you use to describe yourselves) efforts to secure the resources you need to survive.
My recommendation assumes, of course, that you Blue State Refugees mean all that stuff you say about your conservative (there’s that word!) principles. But if you’re just having trouble flushing the toilet or washing your Jeep Rubicon because you moved someplace that lacks sufficient water resources to support your new housing development in addition to existing homes and businesses and now you just want government to bail you out from your short-sighted choice… well, just keep turning up your Newsmax to drown out the critiques of your rank hypocrisy… which fits right in with the Republicans who serve you in Pierre.
Bam. Take that.
But, really.
Reminds me of the time years ago when Pat Powers was whining about Mid-Dakota Rural Water System not having enough water to serve his realtor buddies’ spec lots along the banks of the Missouri around Pierre. For some reason he thought they all were entitled to the federal water trough to help them cash in on developing those little wind-swept arid patches of shale hills with the magnificent view.
has the law changed, or don’t you need a perrmit for a rain harvesting system the size Cory is proposing? Not to mention checking on prior water rights before drawing down the local streams. Pesky government regulations
Yes, Jakc, the Dumahel pipeline would require a water rights permit. Individuals driving out to fill their cube tanks can draw 25,910 gallons per day for domestic use without a permit. That’s all the more reason to for Duhamel’s constituents to resort to self-reliance, not Biden bucks.
They should also drive out to the River and back by gravel county roads, to minimize their reliance on those fancy but depraved highways that the federal government subsidizes.
So Dirty Johnson voted YES on the so called Impeachment Inquiry of Joe Biden?
What is the crime? Financial misdeeds, none.
Dirty, how’s that impeachment about nothing going?
The Lewis and Clark water system enables ecocide. Instead of empowering communities to harvest snowmelt and rainwater rural communities continue to be dependent on politicians who exploit need.
And speaking of pooping in your own water supplies then begging for money for pipeline boondoggles: watering lawns, golf courses, feedlots, a ramen factory in Belle Fourche, the Bismarck Trail Ranch and Rally campgrounds with tax dollars is a boondoggle—taxpayer money spent on carving through Native America for white privilege?
For every 1” of rain and 1,000 square feet of surface (roof, driveway, etc), about 620 gallons of fresh water are generated.
Mayor Mike Verchio? Hill City wants some of that federal water, too.
https://myblackhillscountry.com/content/have-coffee-mayor
I’m sorry, there is absolutely no reason for a water pipeline to the Hills. There’s plenty of good water in the Hills area, if they don’t destroy it through bad growth policies, nuclear dumps, and uncontrolled and poorly regulated mining. Thus, there is no reason to study it.
This study boondoggle reminds me of how the old Black Hills Water Conservancy Subdistrict used to operate before several counties voted to withdraw from the Subdistrict. In my next installment of the History of the Nuclear Waste War in South Dakota I will describe some of the corruption that occurred back 40 years ago in the water development lobby.
When I lived in Rapid, the City wasted incredible amounts of water. They need to get that under control.
Duhamel. A one-watt bulb flickering intermittently.
This is so wasteful. Don’t they realize all that money will be for naught when the zebra mussels colonize within the water conduits and get all up in the pump house and seize the whole operation? Kick over some STATE cash to study on the economic and infrastructural havoc our little invasive pals are going to wreak. Some of the million$ used for a year’s worth of studying could have been better spent on the $10,000 study to investigate the foster system where Native American children are vastly over represented. But nooooo, that was too much for the legislature to approve of. They voted no twice in mere seconds when it came to appropriating a few racks for the kids.
Senator Duhamel did vote yes to remove certain out of state sex offenders from the registry, though. And she stands against donating loose change to people. That’s who she is.
In the meantime, the legislature and minerals board need to cease and desist selling us out to the mining crooks and start to suggest the folks relying on Pactola and Rapid Creek adopt a water conservation lifestyle. Especially Rapid City’s landscape engineer, who likes to install sprinklers that run during downpours and aim water at the asphalt.
Helene is from Stanford where water wars are real.
City engineers spray sidewalks and asphalt—Oh my!
It is AG that owns and uses most of the water in the west. (well, and “ Homestake” in the northern hills.)
Cory doesn’t let me post much here anymore.
Corporate agricultural industry goes through a lot of water, that’s for sure. When I lived there, South Dakota water law is stuck back in the days of family farming and ranching. It made sense to that a family farm would use a little bit of water for their garden and domestic stock. There was little reasons to be concerned until the irrigation projects and medium to large CAFOs started sucking up water. Dairy has gotten to be a big user of water, too. But, municipalities and the people who live there also use way too much water for lawn watering. All Mammal was telling the truth. The City wastes a lot of water trying to keep the parks green. I mean, really, most of Rapid City should not be planted to bluegrass.
Water is Life. In 1872 a survey crew of six men left Yankton to survey section lines from approximately Swan Lake to the what is now the North Dakota border. They took little food, as they planned to live off the land. They found Walleyes, Northern and Bass, as well as other fish not only in the lakes along their way but in nearly every creek of any size. There was “live water” and pot holes full of water everywhere. In three months, they met 2 white people, an old trapper and a surveyor for the railroad entering the territory near Gary. The Indians had been “removed through treaty” mostly to beyond the Missouri, though they did see hunting parties probably from the Sisseton Wahpaton Reservation. They were able to feed themselves with fish, duck, geese, and sandhill cranes though they encountered no buffalo and the antelope were too wary to hunt. South Dakota was full of water and full of aquatic life. The prairie grass grew to six feet, and there were groves of trees along the creeks. After 150 years, we’ve managed to screw up that ecology and eastern South Dakota has become a sump.
Donald Pay is right on. Duhamel just wants a supply of water to fuel irresponsible development once the water resources in the Black Hills are fouled by mining and poor stewardship.
Donald is spot on. There is no ‘new water’. All water is recycled dinosaur piss. Heard of the hydrologic cycle?
The Black Hills only has an imaginary water shortage. The Black Hills needs to 1) conserve what is has (stop watering golf courses, parks, lawns – instead plant buffalo grass and practice xeriscaping. 2) develop a comprehensive use.
Duhamel is another in a long line of cthose hasing big engineering for water projects – just follow the money.
Some of us out here in red neck country have been brooding for years and years about water conservation, sustainability and protection of water resources from abuse, degradation and pollution simply because doing so would more cost effectively sustain all this “essential” growth being promoted by area developers and the Governors Office. Growth is, in these cases, the mentality of a cancer cell. How many thousands of gallons of water is the State paying to pump out of the DUSEL to be sent down Whitewood Creek and on to the Missouri River? How expensive is it to the public and water resources to add more gold and lithium mines? What are the real costs of abusive, unsustainable logging and rapacious grazing practices or ORV trail development that encourage run off into the Missouri River system rather than recharging ground water and the Madison aquifer that many of those landowners depend upon for livestock water to say nothing of the Cities of Hill City, Deadwood Lead, and others. State law places water for domestic purposes as the top priority yet we can find more ways to abuse, contaminate, divert, rearrange and redistribute the very thing that sustains us and at absurd levels of expense. Duhamel and her ilk aren’t stewards of the public trust. They’re just kingdom builders without conscience. Rome built aqueducts. We aspire to build monuments to shallow imperatives!