Spearfish Creek Imperiled by Flashy Runoff

“Flashy Runoff“—isn’t that Kristi Noem‘s Secret Service codename? 

KBHB Radio reports that the Spearfish City Council voted Monday to continue working with Game Fish and Parks on a Preservation Plan for Spearfish Creek. According to the preliminary plan, which you can read in pages 101–160 of Monday’s council agenda packet, Spearfish Creek needs preserving because economic development makes runoff too darn flashy:

The threats that pose the greatest risk to the Creek within the City include degraded and eroding access points to the Creek, loss of natural riparian buffers, and conversion of green space to impervious surfaces as development expands across the City. Despite the amount of green space in the riparian areas, much of the streambank is now dominated by mowed edges rather than natural, native vegetation. This lack of a native vegetative buffer leaves the Creek vulnerable to increased erosion, sedimentation, pollutant runoff, and debris accumulation as native plants and their root systems provide critical functions to counteract these processes.

Extended beyond the riparian corridor, changes to the landscape are a result of population growth. Impervious surfaces such as roads, sidewalks, and roofs create flashier runoff, water that flows more quickly and in greater volumes into streams after precipitation, compared to vegetated land cover. This stormwater runoff carries pollutants into the Creek, increases stream temperatures, and creates flashier flows that negatively influences [sic] Creek water quality and ecological function. These flashier runoff events means [sic] more water reaches the Creek faster, resulting in more erosion and affecting the stability of the streambanks. This is exacerbated in areas where the public has created access points to the Creek that kill off vegetation along the banks and create gullies or scour holes [Paul Marston and Brett Harris, ISG Inc consultants, Spearfish Creek Preliminary Preservation Plan, in Spearfish City Council agenda packet, 2025.08.04, p. 107].

Amidst the consultant-speak and bad grammar, the preliminary plan suggests planting more lush native vegetation and embedding flagstone and boulders along Spearfish Creek to slow runoff and allow Kevin Woster to pursue the wily trout without wearing out the bank:

Spearfish isn’t digging or planting yet: the council has imply approved moving from Phase 1 to Phase 2, which means turning this preliminary plan and more public input into specific projects along the city’s stretch of Spearfish Creek.

p.s.: Spearfish probably can’t access cash from the state’s Riparian Buffer Initiative to preserve Spearfish Creek, since that program only covers grass on agricultural land, not the much broader range of native flora (showy milkweed! Rocky Mountain beeplant! Saskatoon serviceberry! water birch! peachleaf willow!) that ISG Inc says would do well and do good along Spearfish Creek.