A Question of Quality - Jay Gilbertson Part 4

Hosts: Travis Entenman & Lori Walsh
Guest: Jay Gilbertson, Manager of East Dakota Water Development District

Episode Summary

This episode of Rivers and Rangelands focuses on the pressing water quality and quantity issues facing South Dakota. The hosts welcome Jay Gilbertson from the East Dakota Water Development District to discuss ongoing testing for PFAs ("forever chemicals") in the Big Sioux River, which has revealed detectable levels of PFAs at every monitored site. The team explores the broader impacts of local water resource depletion, emphasizing the urgent need to tap into new sources like the Missouri River to support growth and safeguard communities.

Key Discussion Points:

• The presence and implications of PFAs in South Dakota’s water, including the health and ecological risks tied to their detection at all sampled river locations.
• Ongoing research led by East Dakota Water Development District to better understand contaminant origins and inform public utilities.
• The depletion of local aquifers and surface water, with economic development and steady population growth straining supplies beyond their current capacity.
• The Missouri River’s role as a future water source, and the complex legal, regulatory, and financial hurdles involved in regional water projects.
• Challenges of balancing water use for business expansion with the need for conservation and efficient management practices.

Public Engagement and Policy:

• The conversation emphasizes the importance of public awareness and involvement in water management decisions, urging listeners to reduce personal water waste and advocate for sustainable policies.
• Discussion of legal and regulatory actions as essential tools for addressing both water quality and quantity concerns in South Dakota, particularly the need for clearer pollution reduction targets and strengthened enforcement.
• The impact of state and federal decisions, such as water rights held by tribal communities, and efforts to coordinate fair and equitable allocations for future needs.

Calls to Action:

• Stay informed and engaged: Regular citizens are encouraged to learn about their water sources, support community efforts, and participate in local discussions about conservation.
• Advocate for clear water pollution reduction goals and improved public reporting by government agencies.

About the Show

Rivers & Rangelands explores conservation, water, and community in the Northern Great Plains. Hosted by Travis Entenman and Lori Walsh, the podcast asks big questions about how we care for our land and water — today and for generations to come.

🎶 Special thanks to Jami Lynn for providing the music for this episode. You can explore more of her music here: jamilynnsd.com

👉 Follow Friends of the Big Sioux River for more episodes, updates, and ways to get involved.

👉👉  And to hear more from Lori, follow So Much Sunlight, a newsletter of essays, poetry, and audio ephemera on Substack!

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Awful lot of people assume that if there was something wrong with the water, they would tell me they would shut it down. They would shut it down and air quotes in. They for the listening audience. There is no they out there, the they, they think is there are folks who are working under the we don't like regulations. They represent you, and so far, what the public has told them is that we don't want, we really don't want them telling us what to do you. Welcome to rivers and range lands podcast. I am Travis Entenman joined with I'm Lori Walsh. Nice to see you. Good to see you again. It's like we just saw each other not too long ago. And we're here with part four of our water quality water quantity series, with Jay Gilbertson of East Dakota Water Development District. If you've been following along thus far, we kind of had an overview of water quality, the legal the legislation around why we're here, how you can find a good shark tooth in South Dakota, where you can find a shark tooth, you know? How do we know how much water is in the aquifer? Water quality issues, and then today, we're going to learn a little bit about PFAs and forever chemicals and what we're seeing there, but also really getting in the weeds around water quantity and how that is impacting growth in South Dakota. What can we expect, or what we need to do if we want to continue to grow, yeah, we have pretty much identified all of the available water resources and are using them. What comes next? What comes next? And you might be surprised, or maybe not surprised, but our last hope here, not last hope, but our next hope, is the Missouri River. And how can we utilize without having a negative impact on the river, and it's a recharge. But how can we use that water in the state? Before you know, neighboring states want our water, or the Southwest wants our water. So we really kind of talk about that and start again having that conversation. There's no hard answers, but stuff that we need to start paying attention to Jay Gilbertson, manager of East Dakota Water Development District out of Brookings. We met him in Eagan through the forest, making me cry. It. So what about these things that we're learning about and seeing headlines all the time about microplastics and PFAs, and how does that play into what we're measuring, what we're monitoring and what we're seeing in our watershed? Okay, the I'm not sure about microplastic. I'm not aware of anybody doing that, but I'll be honest, I haven't looked into it very hard in South Dakota. In South Dakota, on the PFAs side of things, the perfluorinated substances activity, we actually started testing that at the district level. The board supported a project to do that just about a year ago, last summer, started the conversation public water supplies, actually, some of the rural water systems, the big soup being one of them, we were doing some work with the interaction between the river and the groundwater, depending on how hard you pump, you can pull water out, if the aquifer and the river sit side by side, if you pump hard enough, you can get water to come out of the river into your wells. And that has implications about water quality that you know, got everybody thinking. And one of the questions was, the public water supplies are are starting to test for PFAs compounds. And the question then would be, well, if we find them, where did they come from? None of the federally required testing right now answers that question at all. The drinking water requirements are, we have to test for PFAs in the pipe that's leaving the building going to Laurie's house, called a point of entry, entry into the public system. It doesn't address where the PFAs might be coming from. And my system managers were asking me, Well, is there any PFAs in the river? We don't know. And so we went to the board. The board goes, Hey, great question. Let's find out. And so we've, we're working with Dr Lisa kunza and one of her graduate students out of the School of Mines, and they are doing just. A baseline survey of PFAs in the Big Sioux River. We're starting up at the northern end of the basin, just outside of Summit. Our last monitoring site is just below Sioux Falls at trying to think the road to the casino. Oh, higher highway 11. What's that? Yeah. But anyway, on the bridge over the Big Sioux River just south of Brandon, and we're testing to Larchwood, yeah, to large wood. Yeah, it's at 42 there's more than one casino. Oh, I'm sorry, yes, the big, I'm sorry, the roads, is a big Iowa Casino. It's very close to Sioux Falls. There's a casino just up the road from here, if you're listening to you're listening to this right now, you're probably yelling the highway name. Yeah, people yelling the highway. But anyway, and so we just took one of the regular tests. It's 1633, it checks for 40 different compounds that fall under the PFAs umbrella. And we are just checking now 13 locations just to see what's there and what's there. What's there is we are finding stuff in pretty much every sample that we take a lot of stuff, little bit of stuff. Well, the PFAs is the current regs and the detection ranges are in the parts per trillion, which is really tiny. Nitrates, for example, is parts per million, right? Yeah. Most things that we get reported, it's in parts per million. A few of the pesticides and other organic chemicals are looked for in parts per billion. PFAs is parts per trillion, and it amazes me that you can even detect things at that level. But you can and basically, we have found evidence of PFAs compounds at all of our sites, a few of the sites in the Sioux Falls area had relatively high concentrations in them. We currently there are no standards for PFAs compounds in surface waters, there are limits, or their recommended limits, or developing limits for drinking water, the water coming out of the plant. But there's not a number that's been people would say, Well, if there's more than 200 parts per trillion PFAs in the big zoo, we need to start doing something, yeah, yeah, and, and, so we're hoping to at least add to some of that. D ANR, the state has started their own program of doing some baseline sampling at about 30 of their regular water quality monitoring stations, again, with the idea of just seeing what's out there. Because again, if you know Jody here at the Big Sioux Community, water suddenly has PFAs. There's a PFAs detection leaving her plant. It's either coming from something that happens inside the plant, or it's coming from her source water, which here could be the ground, groundwater, the big suaqui for or under the right circumstances, though, that can be influenced by the river chemistry. And so it's anything north of Egan could be a potential source. If you have to stop it from leaving, stopping it from coming in is the ideal part. Comes back to the groundwater, the source water protection efforts. If you can stop it before it starts, that's way easier, yeah, ounce of prevention, pound of cure. And you've only been doing this for a year, the testing, what, and I was going to make a point for the current regulations of the guidelines for drinking water standards we're looking at, is it four parts per trillion? A couple of the compounds, P, F O, A, P, F O, S, I think are four parts per trillion. There are a couple of more that are 10 parts per trillion. I think there are three of those. And then there's a sixth compound that is sort of a combination of a sixth measure, that is a combination of several compounds that collectively, if you get more than a certain number or something, then that's considered bad. And I think that I my understand is some of the 10 PPT compounds might they're going to pause that again at the federal level, right? We're even less excited about regulation than we have been in the past. But the for the PF. F O, A and P, F O, S, I think are still going to be those numbers are still staying there. And if you ask your standard run of the mill scientist, he'll tell you that zero is the is the real number. I want to give folks some context to I had my blood tested for PFOs about a year ago now, and found about on average, eight parts per trillion just in my blood. What did you say the limit was for water when you're testing Well, it depends if individual compounds PF PFOs and PFOs were both at roughly eight parts per trillion in my blood. Yeah, this, this doesn't work well in a strictly auditory No, no, no, we talk about PFAs. It's P, F, A, S. That is a whole umbrella of compounds, okay, okay, okay. And then there are individual compounds under that umbrella, each one, some of which, for you know, some of which have standards, specific standards, P, F O, A as a standard, P, F O, S, and whatever, collectively, my guess is that your Number was probably a pf the P Foss, the umbrella deal, eight part, eight parts. Yeah, that wouldn't surprise me. Yeah, I think, yeah. I don't know what it's from well, but to Jay's point, you know, we're finding it everywhere, you know. And you know, PFAs this, these forever chemicals are coming from our household goods and stuff. But the point being is, you know, the that four parts per trillion limit, or the drinking water standards I have been proposed are take into account that this stuff, bio accumulates as well, because so they understand that this isn't the only source that you're probably getting these right chemicals from so obviously, my I have eight, but that's not all from water, you know, right more well, yeah, and that's the problem with these compounds, which, again, informally called Forever compounds, is they don't go away. You have night, you have a spill of nitrate. Help spill a gasoline in the river, it will eventually break down and go away, or will degrade Naturally with These PFAs compounds, one of the I mean, what makes, what makes them very good at what they do, right, is that they don't break down, right? They like Teflon is really good at non stick stuff or Gore Tex is going to repel in water? Yeah, repelling water. And so when we and that's one of the things that we've learned in our one of the initial takeaways from our, our the work with the School of Mines, is that we can't just look at the concentration in the water. You look at it and say, well, we only had eight parts per million at this location, and we went to the next one, it had 10 parts per million. And we had a really high number down at Falls Park. And then we went below Falls Park, and it was a lower number. Oh, cool, great. Well, not necessarily, because, you know, if you have a small amount of water and a high concentration the amount of stuff you have there could be relatively small, whereas a small, low concentration in a huge volume, the stuff is actually quite a bit more. And so you look at a top to bottom chart, it looks like it's, it's, it's climbing and then starts to degrade. If you work in a loading equation, take the concentration times the amount of water that's there, it just continues to get bigger as you go downstream, right? You know dilution will knock the concentration down. It doesn't get rid of the material that you are trying to look for. So it's not the solution. It is not the solution. In the case of PFAs compounds, sure what's troubling you right now? What keeps you up at night? Water related what we're getting ready to Jack our house up and build a basement underneath. So that's troubling me. I think the the demand on water, it's not so much a troubling thing, but we're, we're transitioning the water quality for the most part. I mean, PFAs and some of those things are going to present some new challenges, but we've got a lot of really smart engineers out there who can figure out ways to take stuff out of the water, do better testing and all the rest of it. Looking ahead to me, the bigger picture is the water availability. Yeah. Hmm, the city of Sioux Falls in general right now, or in the greater Sioux Falls area, we've identified pretty much all of the available water resources, whether it's the river or, you know, a half a dozen different aquifers that are buried in and around the area, the Big Sioux and and so forth. And the amount of water that's available in those sources is not enough to maintain the city as we have it now. And the city enough to maintain, not enough, to me, well, or growth, maintain growth, maintain any kind of a growth, I mean, the actually, you go back a dozen years, you know the projection was by about 2012 all of the available local resources would be well, what will have been put into play would be tapped out. And so we're not, we're not running out of water, but there's only the water that's available would only support so many people. So the next guy who wants to move in, first guy who wants to come to town in 2013 needs to bring his own water, because we've only got enough to sustain what we have, which is one of the driving forces, very big driving force, for the Lewis and Clark regional water system, importing water from vermillion area, bringing it to Sioux Falls and all of the other communities. And those conditions, as Sioux Falls grows, that demand for water is still there. Now they're, they're managing their resource, and they're looking, continue to look at Lewis and Clark and other possibilities. But you know, even areas here we're, you know, 30 miles north of Sioux Falls, all of the water is spoken for. And so in the current economic climate, in this, you know, rural South or rural America, you know, a lot of the development tends to be high water consumption. You know, 4050, years ago, some new business came to town. They needed, you know, few 10s of 1000s of gallons of water a day. Oh, yeah, we can do that. That's easy to do now. You know, the businesses that come in are looking for a million gallons of water a day, and if you got a million and a half, we'll take it. And if you had two, that would be really cool. Well, a lot of these regional water systems, again, developed back in the 70s and 80s, you know, two or 3 million gallons a day is their complete system capacity, yeah, yeah. And so where's that water going to come from? And it's going to be Lewis and Clark kind of ventures where, you know, if we can't, we can't get people to go to where the water is, we're going to have to bring the water to people and using coming back to Lewis and Clark but when I came to the state 41 years ago, what was then called the southeast South Dakota pipeline was being discussed, which was a big pipe from Lake Yankton, Lewis and Clark Lake, up to Sioux Falls that became the Lewis And Clark pipeline. Well, that's 40 years, and it just got finished, and it's it's still not done. Oh, technically, it's not done. Oh, yeah, the base system is getting very close, but the base system is not done. And so for Sioux Falls to continue to grow, for Brookings to grow, for any places to grow Madison, we're going to need to find more water. That water is available in some places, particularly the Missouri, and we need to get it here. And that is not going to be an inexpensive proposition, and we need to not waste it when we're using it. So the systems that need to be built, that are systems that are, I was at a hotel in the desert, and they were like, everything has been built here, to not waste any of this water, to use gray water from the hotel to do now, I don't know if any of it was true, but that was their marketing it was their marketing materials. Was, this is how we did this in the desert, we invested a ton of money to being able to reuse every drop that we have, that we have, yeah, no, looking, looking at how the water is used, yeah, certainly is one of those. I mean, you know, if we need more water, well, you know, we've looked for all the places. And as Lou. Clark was being developed, or that concept, you know, the idea of, well, we could run a pipe from the river to wherever we need the water to go. Yeah, we can do that. That's always an option, but it's not an inexpensive option, right? And so in, in, in concert with that effort of starting to have that conversation the city and the state, in the case of the Geological Survey and water rights started, you know, sort of companion studies of saying, Okay, let's make sure there's not some mystery aquifer in the area that we haven't identified, because that could provide the watch. You missed something on the map. Did we miss something on the map? Well, it's the buried stuff, the surface stuff. We got that figured out. But the buried stuff is, who knows, you know, and and so thing. Well, there was the Wall Lake aquifer and the split right? I mean, you know, we had these hints that there were things out there they were. They were explored further, and ultimately found debt to be wanting for one reason or another. Okay, and so, yeah, there is no here, you know, heretofore unidentified, unlimited resource of quality water. You know that a well drilled two, you know, two blocks north of City Hall would tap into, okay, sure, it's not there, which makes it easy, a lot easier than to make the pitch to the state and federal folks as to why we need a bunch of money, you know, oh yeah, there's water under the ground here, but a pipe would be really cool. Could we have a billion dollars, please? That's not going to work. And new efforts, like the Western Dakota regional water system and what's called the Dakota main stem efforts are, we'll be doing similar things, you know, identifying certain areas. But we are, we are approaching a time when, yeah, the development where people want to do the development is going to require infrastructure, particularly water supply, that does not exist, and it takes time to develop. The folks here, I think I'd mentioned this to Travis once before, Big Sioux community water, which is the moody County, Eastern Lake County, and Minnehaha Community Water Corporation, which similar service in rural Minnehaha County, have gone together in a joint venture called shared resources. There's a well field and a water treatment plant down about two miles west of Trent, just to the south of us here, when completed, they're projecting about eight to maybe 9 million gallon a day capacity from that plant to address needs for both systems. You know, one spot, they'll share the water that came out once they announced the effort, but before they had turned a shovel of dirt, the two systems had been approached for all of that capacity. And that's not coming from, you know, individual homeowners. You know, I Hey, I'm thinking of putting up a, you know, a house down by the river. Can you guys give me water? These are people coming in, like I said before, looking for millions of gallons. Yeah. And again, the system hadn't even started. And so that. And again, eight, 9 million gallons a day. That's pretty big system. So to find that water, and then to get the water to where it's being needed, that is going to be the big question. Looking forward, we can treat. We shouldn't have to, and I not, you know, we're going to work, you know, make every effort to protect what we've got, but just the sheer quantity of water that's going to be needed to support the type of development that that people seem to want to have here in eastern South Dakota is going to be an issue down the line. Yeah. It's going to take some heavy thinking. That'll be the new marketing plan for Chamberlain is we have water. We have water. Come and get it. Well, the data centers things these little high, yeah, I had a chance to tour one up in Ellendale. They're proposing to do a similar one up by Toronto, northeast of Brookings. And, you know, went up there and did the tour. And it was great. And the guys basically said, Yeah, look, you know, we'd ideally like to have this in Phoenix or Minneapolis, but this is where the resources, what we need, is power. This is where the power is. So we're going to build our plant where the critical resource is that we need, and we'll ship the data somewhere. Else, or, you know, where the where the power, and if it's water or fiber optic lines, all come together, if that happens to criss cross out in the middle of rural South Dakota, then that's the best place to build it, rather than downtown Sioux Falls, where we have to bring cable and water and power and roads and everything else, yeah, and the water. So the water is the same way, yeah, we need 5 million gallons a day. Great. Here's the number for the chamberlain, Chamber of Commerce, or mo bridge you want to Sioux Falls. Good luck. Yep, cuz let's go to Chamberlain. Going to Chamberlain's a lovely town, yeah, Mobridge is I like Mobridge. You know, there's a lot of good towns. Let's take the podcast to Chamberlain. We're going to chamber and ask them some questions about what they what they want. But one note to that too is, you know, you have these large scale businesses that are using a lot of water, but they're also bringing more employment. And if they are taking all the water, there's not enough water left, in theory, to provide to the homes for these new employees to live. So you kind of have this balance right? Yeah, if you are the local Yeah, well, no. And in practice, if you are, you know, the city fathers for a local community, and you have an arrangement with Big Sioux community water, you know, we'll provide you with up to a million gallons a day to take care of. There 500,000 gallons a day. A business comes to town and says, Well, we need 250,000 gallons a day, half of your allocation. You could look at it and say, Well, we're currently only using we're not using all of it. We've got enough to give to you. Okay, great, we could do that except, and it's your point, Travis, is that what that might mean is now all those people who are going to work in this new business in Ellendale. Have to live in Aberdeen because there's no water left in Ellendale. We gave all the water to this water to the one business, and now we don't have water to build more houses for the workers to stay in. Kind of thing, you know, you've got to do the balance 1 million gallon it. Oh, was it 4300 a million gallons a day, I think is enough water for about 4300 homes. Oh, wow. It's a good picture, you know? And so this is coming in for one to 2 million. Yeah, yeah, that's a lot of people. So you've got a million gallon a day capacity on reserve, or that's what you've got left. You could give it all to a business, but the economic development that you really wanted is now going to go to your neighbor because they have the water to build the houses. Oh, wow. So, yeah, until you start telling people they can't use water restrictions, right? And that's what restrictions on it, too. And that will be but yeah, some of that will come through conservation and restrictions at some point, which we don't like restrictions, we don't like, restrictions, restrictions, looking at it and saying, Yeah, is it? Is it really the best use of a limited resource of water, like water out of the Colorado River, to be growing alfalfa in the desert? Right? Right, right? You know, we, we don't want to be in that situation. So it would be great if we could start thinking ahead. Come back to the Missouri River, where there is currently plenty of water to meet all of our needs, and even if you went crazy, there's still probably enough water there, but it's not an unlimited supply, and somebody else could look at that, right? We're not the only state wanting that. Yeah, right, yes, yeah. Denver, we think, you know, Sioux Falls is the big, you know, the gorilla in the room here in South Dakota? Well, yeah, I'm sorry, you know the front line, Front Range development, if they decided, you know, if it's going to cost$3 billion to run a pipe from the Missouri River to Denver for water, okay, right? You know that that's not a trivial number, but it's not. It's easy for them to it would be far easier for them to do something like that, to think about. And so we need to who's in line matters well. And it comes back to the water rights issue, and the first in time, first and right, if we got our kind of get our ducks in a row now and say, lock up a bunch of the water, you know, get the use permits and stuff in place while there's still plenty at some point down the line. If some suitor comes calling, we'll know whether or not we can talk to them, right? And the last thing Travis the attorney here, but the tribes on the Missouri have what are called winter's rights. They have water rights that were implicit in the treaties that set up the reservations, and although they are not articulated anywhere in the treaties, the Supreme Court, dating back to 1908 has said, Well, clearly, water had to be part. Water was part of the deal. If you're going to take these nomadic people off of the whole of eastern Montana and make them all live in what is a postage stamp, there had to be water involved. And because that treaty was signed in 19 or 1869, it's older than anybody else's water, right? First in time, first in time. And so, you know, the problem is these, the quantities haven't, have never been articulated quantified. Once they are they immediately, they immediately move to the front of the line, right? So if we divvy up a pie without knowing how big that winter's right slice is, you run the risk of eating into it, and then having to tell the last guy or group that came in, oh yeah, you have to stop using your water, because the tribes have, the tribes asserted their Yeah. Have asserted their winters rights to the water, yeah. And so again, it good to me. It's a reason to for everybody to work together in South Dakota, figure out how we're going to allocate the river who gets how much, and it's appropriate, and understanding that we are going to be behind the tribes hotel I was staying at. I asked where the water came from. Because it was all new development, the tribes, Travis, that was the answer. They made a deal with the tribes. Yeah, I don't know what the deal was. Yeah. What desert was this? Utah? I was in Utah. I do remember where it's very cure. I had a lot of questions. So that Colorado River, yeah, law, which is incredibly complicated, and understand a fraction of it. But when I was asking Uber drivers, and I wasn't doing real research, I was asking community members, and they said, I'm pretty sure it came from the Travis. So that was part of the story, right? Yeah, there's some question as to whether or not the you know, the language, the language in the winner's decisions is, there hasn't been a lot of it. It's been consistent in that they are first in time, first and right. There's debate over, you know, how much, right? You ask some people that, well, all of it, it's the rivers ours. Well, no, that's not what they have said, but not what the Supreme Court has said, not what the Supreme Court has said, not what the courts have said. But and then you get back to this whole concept of public good, yeah, yeah, but yeah, how the government sees public good versus how a tribal government might say public good, yeah, might, might view it as public good. Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna take our allocation, we're gonna sell it to somebody and use the funds that that water generates to support the tribe, right for us, that's a public good, okay? That would count as that might count, yeah. Is that gonna come please definition, yeah, okay, but there's nuances to that that will unpack. Oh, yeah, no, that's a whole tribe. Might make us different. Yeah, they would have, they would have a different definition of public good than that. Well and and during the last two legislative sessions, when those the two, the Lewis and Clark bill in the western Dakota Regional Water System bills came up, the tribal representatives and champions in the legislature raised objections to those future use permits, in part predicated on concerns over the winter's rights and allocations have all gone on to Great things and in good health family pictures and things. Fog, which I inflict upon myself. I am captive, each reliance, all my spoken Love is love now, every pedestal relinquished, I never. Dream, it pushed me. I've learned so much today. Have you learned? Have you learned anything? Yeah, I realized a few things I was completely wrong about. So that's good. It's an ongoing process. Is ongoing process? Well, it's like a large ongoing education. It's not just simply, just water quality issues, and how is the E coli levels on the Big Sioux River? I mean, it's a large scale multi it's a whole community question of like, who has rights to who facilitates us? How are we going to get that water? How clean is that water? What's all in the water? Like it's impacts everyone, every you know, you just don't turn on the tap and you have clean drinking water. There's a whole system our, yeah, and it's our belongs to all of us. But we have to decide. We have made decisions over time, and we are continually be asked to make decisions about what we think is the right thing to do. Yeah, involvement. I mean, involvement, you know, they're concerned. You know, we are almost every effort that's being done right now to fix things. They're purely voluntary, and that's okay, as long as you've got unlimited resources. Yeah. Voluntary is not free, yeah, yeah. Voluntary is is usually involves passing, you know, trading funds to a landowner in order for them to make a change, even if that change is actually a way better deal for the landowner 100% you know, we're going to get you to change from what you're currently doing to this new practice. Because there are tremendous there are real environmental benefits. Turns out, there are also some great economic benefits for the landowner. Yeah, that. But if, if I can't make you change, then I have to pay you. And nobody wants to do perpetual and so, you know, you mentioned earlier, you know, DNRs, buffer initiative, 10 year contract. Okay, 10 years from now, you're gonna, they're gonna turn around and go, Okay, great. Where's my new contract last time I got X number per acre, you know, there's inflation, so now I need up and yeah, and it's like, or, you know what happens is, you know, maybe the population of greater Sioux Falls gets tired of paying to clean the water, and says, Yeah, we're gonna, let's try something new. This happened over in Des Moines, Iowa, 10 years ago, where the regional public water supply Des Moines Water Works finally said deck with this, and they brought suit against two counties, and I think 10 different drainage districts in the upper basin, or one of the upper end of one of the basins that fed their system. And, yeah, so clean it up. Clean it up, or we're gonna why are we paying to clean up? Right? We are, yeah, we are having to clean we having to take out of the river water, stuff that you're clearly putting in, and ultimately that were they successful? Depends on how you want to look at, okay, yeah, under, as I recall, under Iowa law, the parties that would have been identified or would have been culpable in the damages, could not be held liable for that damage, so there was like no standing for the suit when it came to okay, I believe when push came to shove, the that that the pollutants were coming from The places that the utility identified and attributed to, you know, fill in the blank drainage district. Clearly they had established that situation. But under Iowa law, there was no mechanism under which that group could be held accountable for the things that they were doing. They had kind of a Get Out of Jail Free card, as I understand it, and I'm not a lawyer, but so it was, yeah, it was kind of a mixed deal. If you were a pro, you know, tiling and drainage guy, you could say, hey, we won, or they didn't win. If you were looking at it a little more circumspect, I think you'd like, okay, yeah, but they laid out the groundwork, you know, they were able to prove what they said was happening was happening. They just had take path a, let's find path B and use the same data and see what happens. Oh, fascinating stuff. Faster. The gray wolf comes to play. Involvement, let's just end with what people need to do, because, you know, my brain's hurting all the things that I'm thinking about now. And you know, someone might come to the end of this and say, well, invent so what I'm feel hopeless now, or I feel like this is somebody else's really complicated job. What kind of involvement can a regular citizen be engaged in when it comes to water use, water rights, water quality, okay, I think on the water use it would probably be, think about how you use the water, that you have understand that it is not an unlimited resource, and that if you need more water, you can't simply open the tap wider. There is no 11 on the on the dial, that's going to work. And so if you know, you think about it, yeah, turn the tap down. Back the pressure up. You know, don't irrigate the driveway. All those kinds of things. You know, from a water rights standpoint, that's kind of out of the realm of most people be aware, or, again, understand that, you know, kind of like the quantity thing, or whatever, that there are limits, right? That, just because, you know, again, for the Big Sioux community water system, here, they have access to water, but they only have access to as much water as is available and for which they have permits. And so those are limits the public good or reasonable use. Types of things come up occasionally, and when people don't like something, I don't think big feed lots are, well, we shouldn't be giving them water because they're evil. Why they're big? Okay? Yeah, that doesn't work. Think about it. You know, we could apply that same standard to probably something that those people are doing, and so just be aware and be cognizant of what's going on on the quantity side or quality side. Again, think about the impacts of what you're doing if you're out using a resource impression I've gotten over the years, an awful lot of people assume that, if I'm out at the lake, and if the lake were not perfectly crystal clear and good, or if, if there was something wrong with the water, they would tell me, yeah, they would shut it down. They would shut it down. And, you know, air quotes in they for the listening audience. There is no they out there. They, they are the, you know, or the they, they think is, there are folks who are working under the we don't like regulations. They there. There is no they. So think about that. If you don't like it. I mean, they represent you. And so far, what the public has told them is that we don't want, we really don't want them telling us what to do. And okay, fine, but then don't assume that they are going to be doing the things that you want done, you know. And I think about the false Park, and, you know, it's a point of access. Single most visited has to be the single most visited spot of the Big Sioux River. Anywhere, you know, anywhere along the river, there are people down there interacting with the water all the time. And I've had innumerable people over the years tell me, Well, if there was something wrong, there'd be signs up, right? No, no, no. There's no rule that requires signs to be put up. Would it be a good idea? I happen to think so. Does the sign have to have the skull and cross bones? No. But it could say, hey, not for nothing, but this water is not great. When you go home, wash off. Wash your hands. Wash your hands. Or installing a wash off, hello, wash off. Station, a wash off station, with a note that says, if you've interacted with the water, wash your hands, that wouldn't be a bad idea. But in anybody's plan, that's not anybody's plans. I think about the the well, the integrated report, and the water quality, the Big Sioux River. Well, from basically where we are now down all the way to North Sioux City has failed to meet its recreational purposes. Both limited, you know, immersion and limited contact. Limited contact, again, is things like canoeing. South Dakota Game Fish and Parks has established, and they promote a canoeing trail from about Falls Park all the way down to North Sioux City. So here is the third floor of the FOSS building in Pierre encouraging people to interact with the river, while the guys on the first and second floor are putting out a report every two years saying, that's a really bad idea. Get the message. I mean, yeah, then they are going to tell you what they have to tell you, and if they don't, you aren't going to tell you anymore. I mean, honestly, because it's a public resource, it's for the public good, it's in the public trust. We have the resources that we have allowed to exist, yeah. Meanwhile, I was at falls park the other day, sitting in the picnic shelter and a family from Tennessee who was passing through, I believe it was Tennessee, like 12 people in one big van. The patriarch of the family came and sat down while everybody else was he thought it was fake. He didn't think that Falls Park was real. You didn't think the rocks were real. That was like a theme park. Oh, really. And so I had to kind of explain to him, like, where he was at and what the natural, you know, formation was. And he was like, Really, that's not why I thought at all. I thought it was all manufactured because of the way things were built up around it. And then his son came back, and the first thing I said, Yeah, it's a real River, and it's real dirty. It's like, now you're getting closer, you're getting closer to the reality. There you go. And I love Falls Park. There you go. It's great. But we take groups. I mean, I lead field trips down there three or four times a year, yeah, to look at the stuff, and it's a neat place to go to and there's a lot of stuff going on, but it is, it is the water that we have allowed to exist, and it is controlled by people, or the ultimate authority falls with folks who are taking their direction from us. And to date, most of us have said we don't want you telling us what to do. And when that changes, then we'll see some real changes. Each got corners like a little grown some old shell. I got all right. That wraps up our conversation with Jay Gilbertson in four parts. Go back and listen to all of those parts as you have the time. Give us the ranking, the stars, the comments on rivers and rangeland podcast that help us know how we're doing and let us know if there's other topics you want us to cover. Thank you for following along with us on these four parts with Jay. We hope that you learn something. Hopefully there's some actionable items out of there, at least, hopefully planting that seed of why water related issues are important, in my perspective, paramount to a lot of other decisions we make every day in terms of city growth, community health and what we want our community to be like. We will be bringing you more information around these type of topics in the future, but please follow along and keep up to date. Thanks, as always, to Jamie Lynn, South Dakota musician, for providing music for season one of rivers and range lands. Up next, we are going to pack all our podcasting gear. Get out of the city. You can hear the city noises behind us. We're going to head to a quiet location with Professor David O'Hara of Augustana university. When I say we're going to carry I mean, Travis is gonna carry all the equipment, two backpacks, just, just a mountain mule. Over here, we do not travel light. All right, good. Yeah.