This interview originally aired on In the Moment on SDPB Radio.
In a recent column, Jon Hunter waded into the politics of water infrastructure. He brings that analysis to In the Moment, as well as a look at water rights, long-term water projects and how to plan for our future water use.
Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader and a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame.
Read his full editorial.
_____________________________________________________
Lori Walsh:
For today's Dakota Political Junkies conversation, we'll dive into the politics of water in South Dakota. We'll talk about water rights, the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System expansion, and what happens when other states seek water from the Missouri River.
Jon Hunter is publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader. He's a member of the South Dakota Newspaper Hall of Fame. And he wrote about water infrastructure in a recent opinion column in the Madison Daily Leader.
He's with me on the phone. Hey Jon, how are you?
Jon Hunter:
Hi, Lori. I'm fine, thanks.
Lori Walsh:
Up in Madison where the Lewis & Clark Regional Water System has been patiently waited for, help people who don't understand what this process and journey has been like. How do you explain it to people?
Jon Hunter:
Well, it's extraordinary, Lori. First of all, to have all the politics and all the things that need to go right in order for a system like this to be constructed is extraordinary. And then you add to that unbelievable patience.
In Madison, and we're the last city in South Dakota to be connected to Lewis & Clark, we've waited over 30 years. And that's when we started putting in money into the system. So we fully paid our share within just a few years, raised our local water rates to pay for it, and then just sat and patiently waited. It's been a long journey, but clearly, these are really important infrastructure things, and we're glad we did it.
Lori Walsh:
So it took a long time because of why? Why did it take 30 years?
Jon Hunter:
Unbelievable. Well, first of all, it's a shared project. And I need to emphasize these water systems are political animals. There's no private, really, Fred Johnson's water system. They're all kinds of government agencies or part of that.
And so, this one in particular required three different states. That means three governors, three legislatures, six senators, 20 plus municipal and rural water systems to get done. So it was actually about 10 years before the project was even authorized, and that's a very important term in the federal government because that means they're going to eventually live up to their obligation.
So after that 10 years, we're ready to go. And all the municipalities, rural water systems, states put all their money in and then the federal government says, "Well, maybe not all of it right now." And that money dribbled in over the next 20 years until this latest surge of federal government spending is able to finish that off.
Lori Walsh:
All right, so it's the Biden administration that gives post-pandemic money to kind of get the next section of infrastructure built, but they can't really take credit for it. And I'm saying this in the sense that it's political, but it's not necessarily going to be on somebody's political sign. You're not going to hear it brought up at the debate because it is such a complicated thing.
You don't turn on your tap and say, "Thank you, Biden." Right?
Jon Hunter:
Right. Right.
Lori Walsh:
So, therefore, it can be hard to campaign on or prioritize it because it is complicated.
Jon Hunter:
Right. And think of all those years, all those different administrations, all those different legislatures. But here's a trivia question, Lori, that not everyone knows.
Lewis & Clark started out as the Southeast South Dakota Rural Water System. So when the original organizers went to Senator Daschle, he said, "I can't carry this thing by myself or even with Senator Pressler. So let's get other states involved."
So you send out tentacles into Iowa and Minnesota, and so then you can get those senators and those legislatures and those governors involved. And that's what helped get this thing because it was a regional system and not just a benefit to South Dakota.
Lori Walsh:
Sure. Okay. So let's talk about the Missouri River now, because water rights are still political there, and some of those western states might have their eye on the Missouri.
It doesn't really belong to South Dakota. Even though we think of it as our river, our state that divides us into east and west, it's not our water. Help people understand how that works.
Jon Hunter:
Well, yeah, your question is apt. Who does own those water rights? And in a quick summary, it's mostly the states. Although the federal government has a significant role in that because there are lots of uses of the Missouri besides fresh drinking water. It's also used for transportation. Southern, mostly. It's used for hydropower, which is a huge thing for us. It's used for recreation. And the federal government has responsibility for flood control. So it's not just fresh drinking water.
But by and large, Lori, those water rights are granted by states to individual users, whether it's agricultural uses for irrigation or rural water systems. And the news with that is kind of interesting. Once that's granted, it pretty well stays in place forever. And that if there gets to be problems in the future where you've got a shrinking supply, the earlier ones who got in get the priority.
So that's particularly important right now. If California and Arizona and New Mexico are starting to look at South Dakota's Missouri River as a source for their dwindling supply of the Colorado, we want to make sure we get our rights established first.
There are several different water systems, three in particular that are kind of in the formation stage to try to apply for rights, in addition to Lewis and Clark. That would kind of stamp those rights ahead of those who may come 10 years from now.
Lori Walsh:
What needs to happen next then? And who needs to be making those decisions? Because what I hear you saying is somebody needs to be on top of it now or 10 years ago.
Jon Hunter:
Right. The rights are applied with the state, and that's where you have to go. And really, only for large-scale projects. You can put a hose in the Missouri River and pull out without any problems. But if it's over 10,000 acre-feet, then it has to go through the state legislature.
Now, Lewis & Clark was the last water system that did that 30 years ago and got that application. And they're going to now apply again to expand their system from 43 and a fraction million gallons a day to 60 million gallons a day. So those 19 million gallons need to be applied for, and they will do that.
Now, the other ones, there's one called the Dakota Mainstem Regional Water System. That would kind of be like a Lewis & Clark clone in central and southern parts of the state. And there are lots of cities and rural water systems signed up from that, including five members who are also members of Lewis & Clark. City of Sioux Falls, Lincoln County Rural Water, and so forth, even Madison. There's one called Western Dakota Regional Water System, which would serve the western part of the state. And there's one up in the northeast called WIN, Water Investment in Northern South Dakota. Aberdeen and those.
So all those are kind of in formation stages, but you have to have a reasonable plan and some expectation of financing before you can apply for the rights. You can't just say, "Hey, I want the rights now, and then I'll just hold them forever." So they're all kind of scrambling. The Mainstem thing, just on Aug. 1, approved their bylaws, so they are probably ahead of the others. But they're all going to be coming, I think, to the legislature at some point to ask for rights.
Lori Walsh:
So let's talk about this a little bit, because economic growth, population growth, you have to have enough water to bring, we talk a lot about workforce. If you're going to recruit somebody to come to South Dakota, you're going to say, "Oh, the taxes are low," or you're going to say, "Freedom Works Here," or whatever your efforts are to get people to come, when they do come, that is an increase in population and you need to have an infrastructure to support any kind of growth, whether it be in business or residential or even recreational, that might be seasonal. How are those decisions made? At some point, are we just capped because we don't have enough water to grow anymore?
Jon Hunter:
The Missouri is fortunately a plentiful river, and the upper three states have fewer than 3 million populations, so it's not a problem.
Lori Walsh:
We're not overpopulated yet. Is that what you're telling me, Jon?
Jon Hunter:
Not quite Tucson or Phoenix, is it?
Lori Walsh:
But we need the infrastructure though.
Jon Hunter:
Right.
Lori Walsh:
You might have the space and you might have the water, but you don't have the pipeline to get it where it needs to go, right?
Jon Hunter:
Right. Well, think of this. Sioux Falls, remember, used to be served entirely by the Big Sioux River. And certainly, with the growth that Sioux Falls has seen, there's not a chance that the Big Sioux could provide enough water for the city of Sioux Falls today. But someone had to think of that 30 years ago, when they said, "Let's do something else."
So I think a lot of people are trying to think 30 years from now, what kinds of things are you going to need? And the good thing about the Missouri is it's really clean water. You don't see a lot of 3Ms or General Electrics up the stream that are putting in chemicals. It's really good water. It doesn't have any of these forever chemicals that plague much of the nation.
So it's good water, it's plentiful, at least at the moment. And so, I think it's a really visionary thing that these companies or these organizations are thinking out a ways. I think there are a lot of people who regretted not joining Lewis & Clark. And I don't know the specific rural water systems or municipalities, but I think they said, "Rats, we should have gotten in on that."
Lori Walsh:
Well, maybe not when you were in year 12 of waiting. They probably said, "It's a good thing." But now that you're on year 30 and the volume increases.
Jon Hunter:
Here's another thing, Lori, if I may. Population, I think, is probably the biggest driver of water usage. I've thought about this, I've talked to water people about this. There are some big value-added agricultural operations that also use a lot of water. There was a plan, for a time, to put a shrimp-growing plant in Madison that was going to use millions of gallons a day. And that never came to fruition.
But certainly city of Sioux Falls, Lincoln County, is experiencing all this population growth, and that's a real demand. I'm not sure that individual residential water usage per person is growing. I think it's fairly flat. If people are, I think, conscious of the environmental importance of water and don't waste a lot, certainly in a hot summer, and I know you've got a guest on later talking about how much we should irrigate.
Lori Walsh:
That's what I was going to say. So we'll ask the lawn and landscaping guy how much of that water he wants us to be using to keep those things green.
Jon Hunter:
Exactly. Exactly.
Lori Walsh:
But okay, so go back for a second, Jon, because this all intersects. You said, "Well, 30 years from now." 30 years from now, unless we make some pretty significant changes, our climate's going to be very different. More extreme. We are already seeing, of course, the impacts of human-caused climate change. We're all sitting in a heat wave right now. Some places in the state have extreme heat warnings right now. We'll see more of this. The drought that we have seen in the past, there's a lot that intersects with water in the political realm.
Jon Hunter:
Very much. Very much. And I think if you look out that far and think of the possibilities or the range of possibilities, could be the same, could be different. But you think we got to get the fundamentals right. Clean air, clean water. Whatever the very basic fundamentals of living, you have to think of those.
And here's the irony. I remember reading the other day, there's not a single person involved with Lewis & Clark at its very beginning who is still involved with it today. So talk about visionary, that they would think of things past their lifetime. They may still be alive, but they're not involved with Lewis & Clark.
But you'd have to think one more generation. We're so thankful to them for thinking ahead. Maybe we need to do some thinking. But if you think of, again, back to these water rights, I think you want to put your stake in the ground for whatever happens. We can't even predict that far, but let's get started.
Lori Walsh:
I just came back from the Black Hills where there are a lot of stakes in the ground. Stay tuned. And some of those stakes are from mining companies that want to use a whole lot of municipal water. So again, if you think water's not politics, then you're not paying deep attention to some of those stories.
Jon Hunter:
Well, think of all the politics. You've got states, you've got the federal government, you've got municipalities, you've got counties, PUC, there's everybody.
Lori Walsh:
All right. Well, good foundational conversation for deeper thoughts and more details and stories later. Who knew we could go an entire segment talking about the politics of water? We did.
Jon Hunter:
There are plenty more segments.
Lori Walsh:
There are plenty more.
All right, Jon Hunter, we're going to talk about your lawns and gardens up next. But for our Dakota Political Junkies conversation, Jon Hunter, publisher emeritus of the Madison Daily Leader. You can go online and see his column, I think right now, because I just did it this morning.
Jon, thanks so much. We'll see you next time.
Jon Hunter:
Thanks, Lori. Take care.
