New Breed in South Dakota--Water Hogs
Updated from June 11 submission to Argus Leader
By Mary Jo Stueve
Clean Water Action South Dakota

When will we develop the clean energy resources we have at hand and start to grow the South Dakotan economy for and with South Dakotans, using South Dakota resources responsibly?

Elk Point’s recently revealed Gorilla project (oil refinery) and Otter Tail’s Big Stone II (630 MW coal plant) have a lot in common. Both need massive amounts of water to operate. In the case of BSII double for back up just in case of a sustained drought, imagine that.

Never mind the predictions related to global warming, of temperature rise, flood and drought extremes and vanishing wetlands via which South Dakota aquifers and rivers and lakes recharge. Never mind those experts who say that South Dakota, indeed the whole West, cannot expect to regain levels and flows once viewed as standard and fluctuating within an expected range. Never mind that we need water to live or that the Missouri River drips along at times, its waters mismanaged, drained and diverted in ways unwise.

After all, both these projects provide economic gain, right?

But who will pay when South Dakota farmers, and irrigators, and cities and townspeople need to find new water and dig new wells because the new breed of water hogs, the Gorilla and BSII, received state sanction to come in and drain our resources dry?

The South Dakota Supreme Court, in ORDEAN PARKS, et. al. v. JOHN COOPER et. al. 2004 recognized that “…the public trust doctrine imposes an obligation on the State to preserve water for public use. It provides that the people of the State own the waters themselves, and that the State, not as a proprietor, but as a trustee, controls the water for the benefit of the public”…“Decisions on beneficial use belong ultimately to the Legislature. SDCL 46-2-11. ”…the waste or unreasonable method of use of water [is to] be prevented, and that the conservation of such water is to be exercised…beneficial use...does not and shall not extend to the waste or unreasonable use or unreasonable method of diversion.”

The Gorilla oil refinery will need 12 million gallons per day. Otter Tail received a South Dakota permit last summer for 8.7 million gallons per day from Big Stone Lake and has pending, another request for 8.7 million gallons per day of groundwater from the Veblen Aquifer.

Back door politics, slick negotiations and polished corporate public relations moved BSII through the regulatory and permitting process quite speedily–to the point it’s almost a done deal. At least co-owners believe so, and if so, it will be the locals who will have to deal with the likely ‘toxic hot spot’, or dried-up Big Stone Lake–or move.

The Gorilla project, at the rate of 12 million gallons per day, clearly would waste, unreasonably divert and otherwise use a precious, limited resource belonging to South Dakotans. Is this why we need the Lewis and Clark? Not for people and cities, but for the Gorilla?

Who gets access to massive amounts of water and why? Who profits, who pays?

With the past seven years of drought and an increase in development and agriculture expansions across South Dakota, water withdrawal such as that required for Big Stone II and the Gorilla oil refinery will only add more strain to a limited South Dakota resource, already strained.

And the wind keeps blowing, across, away, out of the state, un-harnessed, un-tapped, unable to garner capitol attention or incentive legislation. Wind power requires no water and provides economic gain along with environmental and public health protection.

Who needs the Gorilla or BSII—perhaps the investors at our expense?!

Where is South Dakota leadership when we need it most?