SOUTH DAKOTA STRAIGHT TALK

Cities are located primarily because of their closeness to a water supply. Water is a primary reason for a city to exist. Other reasons include commerce and public safety. Cultural amenities are great but water sustains life itself.

If Sioux Falls is to grow it must have a dependable supply of water for domestic, commercial and recreational use.

A Little History – Since the mid 1970s when the Sioux Falls’ population was in the 70,000s, city leaders have been struggling to find additional water supplies. During the decade of the 1970s several solutions were explored but without any significant results. Without an imminent crisis and solutions that required large expenditure to be financed primarily by city government, the old City Commission took no action.

As Sioux Falls population growth exploded after the arrival of Citibank in the early 1980s, the need for availability of an adequate water supply increased. While officials wringed their hands with concern nothing much happened.

In about 1989 former State Senator Gary Hanson arrived at City Hall as the newly elected Utilities Commissioner. Subsequent to taking office he determined that Sioux Falls’ best option for an additional water supply was a Missouri River pipeline. From this conclusion developed the Lewis & Clark Rural Water System that the city of Sioux Falls is betting on so heavily today to be their water source solution.

I don’t know how Hanson came to the conclusion whether it was original on his part, a staff proposal or a third party idea but getting water from the Missouri would provide what seemed to be an inexhaustible supply at a relatively affordable cost. Transmission cost would be another matter. An interesting thing about Water Rights is that it is a use it or lose it kind of deal. You can talk about it forever but the guy who puts his bucket in the creek first gets the water.

The Lewis & Clark Water project thus was the vehicle that City government determined was going to be the answer to the city’s water needs for the future. A non-profit corporation was formed to construct a distribution pipeline from the Missouri River near Vermillion to Sioux Falls. In order to pay for this project (initially about $87 million dollars**) in concert with our Congressional delegation federal funding was sought.

In order to build political support in Congress for this project and perhaps offset some of the cost, other cities, towns, and rural water systems were enlisted to join the Lewis & Clark Water System. Over time the project has taken on several lives, with different communities getting in and out of the project. Just a note – Troy Larson, a former Pressler and Thune staffer, is the Exec of Lewis & Clark System, is a capable manager.

The federal government doesn’t usually become involved in funding projects for municipalities like Sioux Falls, but a case was made about the rural nature of the project and Congressional authorization was obtained.

While this was the plan, nothing happened for many years because Hanson, who had become Mayor, was determined that the city of Sioux Falls could get the federal government to pay the larger share of the cost. The project cost went from something like $87 million when first conceived to now $278 million (in 1993 dollars) or as reported in March now at a cost approaching $432 million.

For the past seven or eight years federal appropriations have been obtained in small but growing amounts, but not as fast as the needs of the project. Early money was used for planning and engineering. Construction began 2003.

In late 2004 or early 2005 a new study was done for the City that showed that Lewis & Clark as then configured and what was being counted on to solve the cities water needs would outpace its share of the design capacity around 2017. This would be about 5 years after the project is completed assuming that Lewis & Clark stays on track with projected adequate funding. If Sioux Falls is able to negotiate the purchase (taking) of the available excess capacity of Lewis & Clark as currently configured and based on the study this will still meet expected City needs for another 10 years resulting in another needed water solution in 2025 to 2030.

The buzz in Sioux Falls is that the Mayor Dave Munson has been working diligently on the water problem and negotiating with the Lewis & Clark board for more water. According to news reports today the Mayor will address the water problem next Monday.

Why has Sioux Falls waited? - Observations – Sioux Falls has so many great things going for it and without water development stops.

Fundamentally, I question why someone else should pay for our water? Water is an issue as about local as there is. Certainly state and national government has done rural and regional water projects. For these projects government acted primarily as an enabler so that low population rural areas had the government and financial mechanism to have available supplies of clean water for domestic, agricultural, and in some cases industrial use.

Waiting on the Feds to pay for our water had several effects. First as noted the project became increasingly expensive due to delay and inflation. Had the project just been built at the cost of almost 20 years ago it would have cost less than the local share will be today, if and when the project is finally completed. During the interim the City would have had adequate water and perhaps even more growth. Federal money for local projects is like crack cocaine, addictive and a miserable substitute for personal responsibility. Federal dollars always make projects cost more!

Waiting benefits our federal elected officials. Daschle (especially Daschle who made a career out of L & C funding), Johnson, Pressler, Thune and Herseth benefit from making federal appropriations a saga. If the entire project were funded in one year then there wouldn’t be the annual wringing of hands and all the news stories about bad prospects and how hard it is to deal with this administration or that agency, and then of course the riding in on the white horse to save the day with the inadequate delivery of our own money less of course the bureaucratic handling fee. The only time these officials lose in the saga scenario is if the project actually dies.

Vision is one thing, leadership another. Gary Hanson went on to serve as the Mayor of Sioux Falls for eight years and currently is a South Dakota Public Utilities Commissioner. His legacy may well be that he was good at visualizing solutions but weak at implementation and administration. He could visualize and start projects but was poor at administration, leaving projects in disarray for his successors to correct.

** The numbers I use are based from memory and I think they are relatively correct. These numbers should be used as reference in context to the larger point that waiting is always more expensive and almost never shows leadership.