Last summer, right-wing Representative Scott Odenbach (R-31/Spearfish) proposed amending a South Dakota law that limits how much water we pull from aquifers. Surprisingly, Rep. Odenbach wanted to make this environmental regulation stricter:
While the law bans removal of water from aquifers above the Greenhorn Formation, which includes those east of the Missouri River, it allows an exception for deeper bedrock aquifers like those beneath the Black Hills.
Odenbach told News Watch he might seek to “tweak” that law in order to remove the Black Hills exception, thereby preventing removal of water from any state aquifer that is not recharging as fast or as much as needed.
“That (statute) essentially says you can’t sink new wells into an aquifer, unless you can show that you’re not taking out more than is naturally recharged,” he said. “In light of that report by the U.S. Geological Survey, I think we need to ask the question of whether we need to make sure that the statute also applies to our aquifers West River” [Bart Pfankuch, “Lawmaker Considers Limiting New Black Hills Water Usage,” South Dakota News Watch, 2025.08.25].
Not surprisingly, Rep. Odenbach was willing to stake out this green position because it fits his mugwump caucus’s tilt against economic development:
Odenbach added that he is concerned that some individuals and entities in the Black Hills, such as the development agency Elevate Rapid City, are promoting “growth for the sake of growth” that could negatively affect the existing high quality of life in the Black Hills.
“Groups like Elevate Rapid City, they just want to have untrammeled development as fast as they possibly can. And then when we wake up and it’s like Denver and we’re out of water, they can move on to somewhere else,” Odenbach said. “The people that live here and care about the Black Hills want us to be more careful” [Pfankuch, 2025.08.25].
Elevate Rapid City CEO Tom Johnson isn’t worried about aquifer replacement rates, but he does think District 31 should replace Odenbach:
Johnson said Odenbach is taking an “anti-growth” stance that will prevent the Black Hills and its current and future residents from reaching their highest potential.
“The problem with folks like Odenbach is they’ve got their piece of the pie, right? They’ve got the Black Hills that they want and they don’t want your kids or your kids’ kids to have a piece of that,” Johnson said.
“I think the real thing that the voters in Spearfish should do is try to find someone who wants to have a nuanced discussion and vote candidates out that are anti-growth and who want to hand our prosperity over to East River” [Pfankuch, 2025.08.25].
Hand our prosperity to East River… which has prospered quite nicely under SDCL 46-6-3.1‘s aquifer protection for 48 years.
Rep. Odenbach did indeed try to remove the Black Hills exception from the aquifer-protection statute. His House Bill 1103 passed House Agriculture and Natural Resources, where it received support from the East Dakota Water Development District and the Nature Conservancy but drew fire from Elevate Rapid City, the Municipal League, the Sioux Falls Chamber, the conservation districts, rural water, and the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Opponents prevailed in the House, where HB 1103 failed on February 2 on a 16–49 vote. Odenbach got more proportional support from House Democrats (80% voted yea) than from his own party (80% of Republicans voted nay).
Odenbach and his seat-mate Rep. Mary Fitzgerald (R-31/St. Onge) have both filed their petitions to run for reëlection. Elevate Rapid City and the mainstream-Mickelson Republicans have not yet fielded a challenger to carry the growth-über-alles flag in the Republican primary. They have one Democratic challenger so far. Morgan Plucker of Spearfish, who doesn’t mention water among her top issues but who does say she wants to tax the rich and restrict data centers, suggesting she won’t get an endorsement from Elevate Rapid City and the rest of the economic-development crowd.
There aren’t any litigators to sue the Forest Service allowing Republicans to infiltrate management of the Black Hills National Forest and there is no evidence to support the claim that logging is effective insect control. So, some imaginary war with the bark beetle on the BHNF is really more a fight for clean water because dead trees don’t suck aquifers dry. Until forest managers and South Dakota’s Republican congressional delegation get that they are preyed upon by the Neimans who take legacy trees and leave the doghair pine for someone else to deal with instead of focusing on hardwood release, prescribed fire and restoring the Hills bioregion to what it was 150 years ago.
South Dakota’s House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach (R-Spearditch) has been alerting voters to impaired waterways and failed forest management since at least March.
But, fat slug Pat Powers is so angry at the civil war being waged in his own political party that he denies the fact that the Black Hills watershed is being depleted faster than it recharges.
Everyone knows what the problem is. If you withdraw more water than you recharge, you are going to destroy the water source at some point, and that some point appears to be now. Why there was even this exception is totally baffling. I would guess it was a legislative compromise to assure some legislative votes from West River.
Water has long been something in West River that can unite people of different political ideologies and races The right and the left, whites and Indians have often joined together on water quantity and water qualify issues. Opposition to the Oahe Irrigation Project, the ETSI coal slurry pipeline project and Janklow’s legal attacks on water rights of ranchers and Indian water rights are the clearest examples of this.
I think Odenbach is right on this, even though I often disagree with him on other issues. I hope he continues pushing this, but maybe it’s time also to think about an initiative that would accomplish this.
You know my rich Pepsi fund neighbors have drilled five wells. Ours is still functioning, so far, we had it drilled deeper a couple of decades ago. Fingers crossed is about all we can do.
I hope the water wars West River become resolved before someone suggests sucking it out of Lake Oahe Reservoir. The Corp of Engineers has a hard enough time stabilizing the water level without more interruption.
In a geography class I attended at SDSU, we discussed East River water being drained from rivers lakes and reservoirs instead of aquifers. And that it’s better to save the water underground for the future when faced with shortages mainly due to drought. East River counties should have an agreement to protect its aquifers from outside interests. West River is the great plains region and more arid than the prairie plains and glacial lakes region. They should tap aquifers if they are naturally replenished. Let’s remember the water cycle and how much ends up underground compared to how much is evaporated.
The states in the Great Lakes Region have agreements from many years ago to protect their fresh water. At the time I took the class on water wars, the S.E. part of the country was in an intense drought. Close states to the Great Lakes talked of sucking water through underground pipes for ag purposes. Didn’t happen.
Only 3% of the earth is freshwater. And only 1/4 of it is taken from aquifers while 3/4 is from rivers, lakes, and reservoirs.
How will the Lewis and Clark water system boondoggle embolden the proponents of a pipeline to Rapid City? Will the military push Republicans to get on the socialist bandwagon? Every watershed on the BHNF is at grave risk.
Republican Earth haters are begging for federal money for a Missouri River pipeline that would lift water nearly two thousand feet in elevation then pump it a hundred and fifty miles for lawns, Rally campgrounds, a data center and worse with tax dollars spent on carving through Native America for white privilege instead of empowering communities to harvest snowmelt and rainwater while residents are still dependent on politicians who exploit need.
Parasitic capitalism and endless greed are hallmarks of the GOPedophiles, regardless of the temporary slipping of Odenbach’s mask. His progressing to the “get off my lawn” old man earlier than usual is an ironic benefit in this case–insert *worst person you know makes a great point* meme.