KSFY lets SDSU Extension tells us that the toxic algae alert on Wall Lake and the stinky green blooms elsewhere on South Dakota’s prairie potholes are “beyond our control”:
Sushant Mehan, an SDSU Extension water resource engineer specialist, said people are concerned about the lakes.
…Mehan said the recurring blooms are driven by rising water temperatures, nitrogen and phosphorus.
“The biggest challenge that I’m seeing is the night temperatures are increasing at faster rate than the day temperatures,” said Mehan. “So within a single day, you can see a bump of within 20, 25 degree Fahrenheit’s differences in the summer. That really plays a big role in the biochemistry of the lake, how the nutrients are cycling within the lake. So temperature is very critical here, and it’s beyond our control” [Fiona Sullivan, “Why South Dakota Lakes Often Face Recurring Summer Algae,” KSFY, 2026.08.21].
If my dog got sick, I’d ask the vet, “Why’s Ezra sick?” If the vet said, heat, nitrogen, and phosphorus, I’d promise to keep my parched pooch out of the heat but follow up right away by asking where that nitrogen and phosphorus are coming from so I could keep those toxin-triggers out of his sensitive tummy.
KSFY doesn’t ask that question, and SDSU Extension evidently prefers not to volunteer an answer.
We can’t control the temperature (or can we?), but the nitrogen and phosphorus that the expert from South Dakota’s ag-industrial research institute mentions with such casual causelessness don’t just fall from the sky. We put those algae-nourishing pollutants in the water, via industrial agriculture:
A new report from Food and Water Watch showed 85 percent of Iowa beach pollution advisories have been issued in counties near factory farms.
…Amanda Starbuck, research director for the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said factory farm pollution is having a dramatic effect on rural residents who rely on private groundwater wells for drinking water.
…Starbuck acknowledged fecal contamination from industrial farms is only one of the factors affecting Iowa waterways, pointing to pesticides as another problem, as overspray and runoff get into lakes, rivers and streams.
“This is really two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, you have the factory farms and that’s really what we’re kind of talking about with this analysis,” Starbuck stressed. “Algal blooms and nitrates also come from crop systems and the crop systems in Iowa largely do feed this factory farm industry” [Mark Moran, “Report Links Iowa Factory Farms to 85 Percent of Beach Pollution Advisories,” Northern Plains News, 2026.08.12].
The nitrogen and phosphorus content of our lakes and streams is totally within our control. We can reduce nutrient runoff and toxic algae blooms by farming smarter: spread less fertilizer, avoid applying fertilizer before heavy rain, keep livestock and livestock poop away from the water, and plant grassy buffers to control runoff and erosion.
Or we can just shrug off factory farms’ conversion of our lakes into odiferous and toxic waste receptacles with the all-too-familiar and surrenderful “Ah, the smell of money.” But even in such surrender, we (including our Extension experts and KSFY journalists) should still acknowledge the sources of the pollution that we’ve chosen to emit and tolerate.
Related Reading: Industrial agriculture also raises temperatures:
According to the IPCC’s 2019 Special Report on Climate Change and Land (updated January 2020):
Agriculture, forestry, and other land use activities associated with food production account for 23% of total net emissions of greenhouse gasses.
Agriculture accounted for around 13% of carbon dioxide, 44% of methane, and 81% of nitrous oxide emissions from human activities globally during 2007-2016.
These emissions come from intensive use of synthetic fertilizers, machinery, livestock, and transportation.
Healthy soil acts as another carbon sink. It takes carbon from the atmosphere and stores it. This naturally helps mitigate the effects of climate change. However, soil degradation has the opposite effect. Soil degradation is caused by excessive tilling and chemical use in industrial agriculture. It reduces soil’s ability to sequester carbon, therefore adding to climate change [City of Boston, “Industrial Agriculture and Climate Change,” retrieved 2026.08.23].
In red states like South Dakota freedom equals the right to pollute and agriculture is the leading source of pollution in the waters of the United States. Most East River lakes are already eutrophic shit holes filled with toxic algae and unable to even support fish populations so the Prairie Pothole Region is becoming increasingly threatened by the encroachment of industrial agriculture but more irrigation means pumping from depleted aquifers mainly recharged by the Prairie Pothole Region.
South Dakota’s socialized dairies are wreaking habitat havoc all along the state’s border with Minnesota and like most of East River, southwestern Minnesota and northwestern Iowa are Republican strongholds where dairies, swine units and other concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) have devastated water supplies by contaminating wells with nitrates.
Towns in Nebraska are stepping up sampling municipal supplies where nitrate levels are still rising but the owners of private wells are not. Jim Pillen, the state’s Republican governor is a major contributor to nitrate impairment but he wants a study that will pin the blame on farmers. Suggesting that irony is not completely dead, wells in the Republican River basin are the most severely threatened by nitrate poisoning.