We Are Only As Strong As Our Smallest Community...

Recent actions by the national government are increasingly endangering the viability of the smaller communities around the state. Possible policies, as outlined by Senator Thune, include cap-and-trade, bovine greenhouse gas emissions fines, and unfriendly attitudes toward our 2nd Amendment rights. Revitalizing our smaller communities is essential to the overall health of our state, and such policies will really hamper smaller communities’ ability to survive. Imagine how hard it would be for a small town, with already limited financial resources, to be expected to pay roughly 50% higher utility costs as a result of cap-and-trade policies (according to the PUC). Place on top of that the changes that are being enacted in the agricultural sector, as many small towns benefit economically from the surrounding farming community. Farmers who do not fully comply with cap-and-trade policies will have penalties levied upon them, and cattle ranchers will have to pay penalties for greenhouse gases produced naturally by their livestock. Adding in all these factors, communities will have a tough time making financial and budgetary ends meet with the decreased tax base, which severely hurts their solvency.

It will take strong leadership in the next few years to assert our state’s rights, particularly under the 10th Amendment, to fight back these taxing policies and ensure that our smaller communities are able to survive, flourish, and grow into strong and vibrant places once again.

Conservation vs. Environmentalism

Tony Dean was recently awarded the Conservation Achievement Award by the National Wildlife Federation, according to the Argus Leader. Tony devoted much of his life to addressing issues of preservation, erosion, and conservation issues.

Tony makes a great point in an article on his website in reference to grazing land, but it really applies everywhere. He said that “Used properly, this is good land. Abused, it becomes poor land.”

Moderation is key in anything we do. Pursuing purely economic goals must be weighed against its impacts, lest we risk losing valuable natural resources and beauty that we may never be able to get back. Conservation is important, but should not be confused with environmentalism, which is extreme, such as when it goes so far as to keep us from eating beef, and meat in general.

But we do need to be conscious of how we go about our economic development in a sustainable way. For example: how we develop wind energy. We need to do so in a way that we preserve our natural assets (such as wetland habitats valuable for hunting and waterfowl populations), as well as maximizing our economic potential for this resource.

To quote Teddy Roosevelt: "We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...So any nation which in its youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes without husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal whose labor could with difficulty find him the bare means of life."

Cooperation for Sustainable Energy…

The Big Stone II power plant project has been in talks with the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission, as roughly half of the energy produced from the coal plant will be sold to Minnesota and new transmission lines will need to be built. Details here…

The PUC placed some stipulations on approval of the project, citing caps on greenhouse gas emissions and constructions costs, specifically.

Moving away from fossil fuels is a piecemeal process that will not happen in an affordable fashion overnight. A promising and untapped source of energy here in South Dakota is of course wind energy, and one of the biggest costs and roadblocks to wind energy is the cost of transmission lines. Big Stone II provides another vein in our regional network of transmission lines, and for wind energy to take off projects like Big Stone II may prove invaluable to future green energy projects.

Creating regional agreements between the windy states in our area and the states who require our excess supply of energy, we can utilize the resources we have now, both natural and monetary, to provide a necessary framework for green energy in the near future.

Wasted Material...

An article by the Rapid City Journal states that last-minute changes to a federal energy bill would disqualify cellulosic ethanol created using waste plant matter collected from national forests toward filling ethanol mandates. Read more here…

In a time of volatile fuel prices and dependency on foreign fuels, it seems crazy to not utilize and encourage use of the resources we have, particularly in the promising area of cellulosic ethanol, which is packed with much more energy than corn-based ethanol. If we can turn waste material into fuel to power our state, we should not be throwing up senseless roadblocks in the way of that goal.

We need to incentivize new and better ways of producing energy, not generate loopholes that create barriers to progress in nonsensical ways. Black Hills National Forest and other national parks have the opportunity to contribute toward weaning the country off of fossil fuels, but not if we do not maintain an environment that encourages alternative fuel production.

Ranching And Climate Change…

Rumors have been flying about recently over proposed taxes on emissions by cattle and pig farms. In July of this year, the Supreme Court ruled that methane is a greenhouse gas and falls under regulation by the Clean Air Act. In response, the President recently signed a regulation exempting farmers and ranchers from reporting their methane output, although with the new administration this is subject to change.

Although the EPA says that this is not a tax, per se, farmers and ranchers who find themselves out of compliance with Clean Air Act regulation are subject to fines and penalties, up to $175 per head of cattle, according to the American Farm Bureau Federation. Read more here…

It’s easy to see how regulations like these can have drastic implications for South Dakota’s Farmers and Ranchers, whose very livelihoods depend on raising these animals and using methane-producing machines for harvest. Coupled with high and unpredictable feed prices, ranchers especially may have difficulty breaking even with additional environmental regulations on their livestock. Hopefully the new administration’s pick for Agriculture Secretary, Tom Vilsack, will be able to stress these concerns to the new president.

We Will Find the Balance Through Partnerships…

Issues surrounding land usage in South Dakota and its vital impact on virtually everything within the state from education to hunting to citizens’ rights are a pretty complicated thing unless entities are willing to compromise. But where will the compromise come from?

- The landowners in South Dakota want private property rights restored by abolishing the Open Fields Doctrine
- The South Dakota Game Fish and Parks wants to protect wildlife populations from illegal poaching
- Rural communities and residents want more land available for private use and for people to live on
- The state education system wants more land available to generate revenue for schools
- The state wants to protect hunting rights for the hunters because of the millions dollars sportspeople bring to the state every year

I believe the answers will come from partnerships… not increased competition for finite resources. Competition for resources never ends well for at least one competitor. In many cases something must cease to exist so another can flourish. I do not see anything on the above list that we can afford to lose. In South Dakota we are very fortunate for what we have, but we must remain constantly vigilant about our current circumstances so we can make the right choices for the future.

Important…

The SAFE program through the South Dakota GFP, USDA, and Pheasants Forever is a great example of collaboration for a common purpose. Right now CRP land and native grasslands are being lost at alarming rates. New methods need to be implemented that are a little more flexible and convenient for the landowner. The SAFE program looks like it covers just that.

The natural environment in which we live is probably the single most important element in our lives, whether we realize it or not. Without the land, we essentially have nothing. No crops for food, no livestock, not resources, etc. The issue lies with how we treat our environments and the wastefulness of our habits.

We can slow it down and potentially reverse this process. We have to if we wish to survive long-term…

Ethanol…Is It Worth It?

In the news recently, the hot topic of energy, more precisely, energy from oil and ethanol has been filling up the headlines. Paralleling the energy debates, the world also finds itself in a food crisis, and the United States is neck-deep in an environmental debate over the use of renewable fuels.

Some believe the ethanol industry is ruining the environment, and is the main cause of the increasing food prices around the world. Others, like Senator John Thune, and Congresswoman Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin, believe the food shortage has more to do with increased fuel prices across the board, and growing food and fuel demands in China and India.

The environmental impacts of ethanol are very complex…with no simple solution. Ethanol production uses vast amounts of water, and also requires large input costs such as pesticides/herbicides to grow the corn crop, fuel to harvest, and transport the corn, etc. The increase in the price of corn has caused many landowners and farmers to take land out of the Federal Conservation Reserve Program and use the land to plant and harvest corn for food and fuel consumption. In some instances, small forests and vegetation stands are plowed under in the name of ethanol production. Natural resource and environmental agencies fear this “boom” may unravel years or work.

So is there one grand solution to these issues? Does one person or agency hold all the power to make these challenges go away? The answer is most certainly no. However, I do believe many smaller solutions, collaborated on and implemented by a variety of organizations, can ultimately bring us to a better place.

South Dakota and the United States should continue its investments in alternative (renewable) fuels in order to keep progressing to a better place. Congressman John Shimkus, from Illinois, thinks we would be making a mistake by being short-sighted and walking away from ethanol. The new Farm Bill, currently working its way through Congress, may cut back on tax breaks for ethanol, with millions of dollars also earmarked for cellulosic ethanol production.

A study done by the USDA and the University of Nebraska Lincoln revealed some promising facts about cellulosic ethanol produced from perennial grasses (switchgrass, etc.). According to the data, input and production costs for switchgrass ethanol production are greatly reduced because perennial grasses do not need to be planted annually and managed in the same manner as corn. Production costs are reduced because the residue biomass leftover from production can be used as burn-fuel instead of natural gas, coal, etc.

Perennial grass-based ethanol production also looks viable because the authors of the USDA and UNL study reveal the grasses needed for ethanol production can be grown in an way very similar to CRP. So we get another source for ethanol production, lowered input and production costs, and we also get to keep CRP land and grassland habitats for wildlife.

The environment in which we live is very important…yet economic stability is also very important. We cannot stand by and neglect all options because they are not absolutely perfect right now. We must continue developing and re-developing the way we do things in order to survive in a globalized world. The answers will come in time. I stated before, the system is complex, and the only way we can arrive at the solutions is if we work together, continue investments to find the better solutions, and get a little creative in the process…

Environment = Potential

We have a duty as citizens of the State of South Dakota and the United States of America, to protect our future through proactive approaches in natural resource conservation and clean energy initiatives. We cannot accept imbalances in development any longer. Our natural environment provides us with the appropriate resources to continue our way of life…let us look to the future, what will we have created for our children and grandchildren? Clean/renewable energy is vital to long-term sustainability, yet we must remain vigilant about overdevelopment to the detriment of our natural habitats in South Dakota…

Sustainable development is critical – our economy should not put our environment at an undue risk. We have a resource in our environment other states do not and we must continually view it as an asset on our balance sheet.

Extra Care for South Dakota’s Environment

In South Dakota we are very fortunate to have many diligent and able natural resource workers in every agency, from the Game Fish and Parks, to the County Conservation Associations. Their work has helped preserve the natural beauty of our state, from the majestic rolling prairies to the beautiful Black Hills, we are truly blessed. We owe a debt of gratitude to them and the farmers and ranchers who carefully work the land to ensure survival of South Dakota’s native ecosystems.

I saw an article by in the DeSmet News, about methods of caring for our environment. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasize the importance of natural habitat to South Dakota flora and fauna. In contrast to popular opinion, native prairies are the most endangered ecosystems in the world, not the rain forests of South America (they remain endangered however). Here in South Dakota we enjoy much of what the prairies have to offer regarding the hunting of upland game birds, recreational opportunities like hiking and bird watching, or their simple aesthetic beauty.
Presently, wind energy developments and high grain prices are making preservation efforts less economical to farmers, ranchers, and other landowners. Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) land is in danger of being lost…once we lose native habitat, we can never get it back. The habitats of eastern South Dakota consist largely of wetlands and prairies that must not be altered, fragmented, or overdeveloped. This will endanger the flora and fauna species who call such places home. While development is important economically, we must also take care of the natural environment.
As South Dakotans, we have derived our heritage from the land; together we can make bold efforts in preservation and conservation of the natural beauty and resources of this great state.