South Dakota
Are South Dakota wetlands disappearing? Hunters, conservationists share concerns
EUREKA — John Cooper, 80 years old and with a new set of knees, still rises before the sun, dons waders, sets up decoys and tries to call in ducks.
“I love waterfowl hunting,” he whispered, nestled into the cattails along the edge of a pond this fall. “The immersive experience of the hunt, learning about these ecosystems, being involved in waterfowl conservation — I love everything about it.”
“And it’s good eating if you cook it right,” he added.
For Cooper, a former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service law enforcement officer and former head of the South Dakota Department of Game, Fish and Parks, duck hunting is more than a pastime. It’s a passion tied to the wildlife and land he’s spent over 50 years trying to conserve.
These days, he worries about disappearing wetlands and hopes the next generation will stop the losses.
Activists across the nation share his concern. The Union of Concerned Scientists, based in Massachusetts, released a report Wednesday saying that a U.S. Supreme Court decision, Sackett v. EPA, has stripped federal protections from 30 million acres of wetlands in the Upper Midwest.
The ruling redefined federal wetlands protections, leaving those without direct surface connections to larger water bodies unregulated. The researchers said the decision will accelerate wetland losses. According to estimates by the U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the more than 300,000 square miles of wetlands that existed on the U.S. mainland several hundred years ago had already been reduced to almost half that amount by 2019.
The report says the next federal farm bill, likely to be considered by the new Congress next year, presents an opportunity to strengthen wetland protections by increasing funding for conservation programs that pay farmers to conserve and restore wetlands on their land.
Stacy Woods, a research director with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the threat to wetlands is particularly severe in South Dakota, where agriculture occupies more than 85% of the land and the state has no wetlands protections beyond enforcing federal laws.
The report says South Dakota is home to about 1.9 million acres of wetlands, which is about a 30% decline from the 2.7 million acres estimated to have existed two centuries ago.
Cooper said he sees evidence of those losses every time he goes hunting.
Conservationist to the core
Born and raised on an orange and avocado farm in rural California, Cooper earned a criminology degree from the University of California, joined the Navy and served two tours in the Vietnam War.
He joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Law Enforcement Division, where he oversaw habitat and wildlife protection across the Dakotas and Nebraska for 22 years.
“There was just an unbelievable amount of habitat when I first moved here,” he said.
In 1995, then-Gov. Bill Janklow appointed Cooper as secretary of South Dakota’s Department of Game, Fish and Parks, a role Cooper held until 2007. Cooper also served as Gov. Mike Rounds’ senior policy adviser on Missouri River issues and as a senior policy adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center on climate change and wildlife management. From 2013 to 2016, he chaired the South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks Commission.
All the while, Cooper said, wetlands were vanishing.
“The days of when I first moved here are gone,” he said. “Those live in the heads of old guys like me now.”
The influence of farm policy
The 1980s farm crisis was a key turning point for wetlands and wildlife habitat, Cooper said. Federal policies in the 1970s had encouraged farmers to plant more crops, especially corn, to meet booming global demand. Many farmers borrowed heavily to buy land, equipment and supplies to expand production.
The surge in planting caused overproduction, driving crop prices down. When interest rates on loans soared in the 1980s, many farmers were deep in debt, unable to repay their loans. Bankruptcies spread across rural America, forcing many farm families off the land.
In response, the federal government introduced policies to help struggling farmers. They included subsidies, programs to buy surplus crops, 10-year contracts paying landowners to leave marginal land as grass, and requirements for ethanol to be mixed into gasoline. The goal was to stabilize farm incomes and protect family farms, Cooper said.
“But did it stop the corporate consolidation trend?” Cooper asked.
The evidence says no. Subsidies based on production rewarded larger farms, encouraging growth and out-competing smaller operations. Increasingly expensive farm equipment, seeds and technology favored big operations with better access to credit. And rising land values made expansion easier for large farms while pricing out smaller ones.
Large-scale farms operating on 2,000 acres or more now control over two-thirds of the cropland in South Dakota, according to the 2022 U.S. Census of Agriculture. Thirty years ago, large farms controlled less than half of the state’s cropland, according to a report from South Dakota State University Extension.
The report says the number of farming operations in the state dropped nearly 30% from 26,808 in 1997 to 19,302 in 2022. The sharpest declines have occurred among medium-sized farms.
“You used to only have these small, diversified family farms – a couple of families to a section – where having good habitat was just part of it,” Cooper recalls. “Now, what you see is an industrialized ocean of corn and soybeans.”
Cooper said federally subsidized crop programs have encouraged the draining of wetlands and the tilling of grasslands, incentivizing producers to cultivate more acres.
“To be clear, I have nothing against the actual farmers,” Cooper said. “They’re responding to a system the international seed and chemical companies, biofuels, tractor companies, and other fat cats have cooked up, where production is king, and conservation doesn’t put food on a farmer’s table.”
Impacts from drain tile
Some farmers drain wetlands using underground perforated pipes, called drain tile, which lower the water table and make land suitable for farming.
“And that water goes somewhere,” Cooper said.
Instead of being retained in a wetland, excess water from drain-tiled fields flows into ditches, creeks and rivers. The amount of water flowing down the James River in eastern South Dakota has risen 300% since the late 1990s, according to a report by the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources. The report primarily blames increased precipitation.
But the report also says that “only a handful of counties in eastern South Dakota have a drain tile permit program, meaning there is not a temporal or spatial record of tile drainage in the state and thus difficult to determine the extent to which tiling may have increased flow.”
Cooper is skeptical that increased rainfall is the lone culprit.
“Nothing on the land occurs in isolation,” Cooper said. “And things start to accumulate.”
Farm Bureau perspective
Other researchers have attributed widespread higher streamflows not only to higher precipitation, but also urban development that sends rainfall running across concrete and asphalt into streams, expanded tile drainage systems under farmland, and the conversion of grassland to cropland, which causes higher runoff.
“Taxpayers are subsidizing rich operations to drain wetlands and plant another acre of corn,” Cooper said. “There has got to be a better way to pay these landowners for the ecological benefits their land provides.”
The Union of Concerned Scientists not only supports increased funding for conservation programs to protect wetlands, but also tying crop insurance subsidies to environmentally friendly farming practices. By adopting methods such as cover cropping and reduced tillage, farmers can minimize harmful runoff while maintaining productive operations, the union’s report says.
South Dakota Farm Bureau President Scott VanderWal is a contrary voice, arguing that subsidies aren’t driving increased corn production. He supported the Sackett v. EPA decision.
He attributes increased production to advances in genetics, equipment and the changing climate, all of which have allowed farmers to grow corn and other crops in places that previously weren’t considered good areas for those crops. He also said that farmers don’t drain “true wetlands” as defined by federal regulations, since doing so would forfeit federal subsidies.
Cooper uses the broader scientific definition of wetlands, which includes ecosystems where water saturates the soil seasonally, supporting aquatic plants and wildlife.
“We’ve never agreed with John on that,” VanderWal said.
VanderWal is also skeptical that draining wetlands worsens flooding, suggesting drained land can absorb water and saying there are ways to control the outflow.
Cooper counters that downstream flooding impacts communities more than farmland — which is insured by federally subsidized programs. There have been signs of worsening floods in South Dakota, including in June when a record crest on the Big Sioux River overwhelmed flood-control measures and devastated the community of McCook Lake.
“We need to let these watersheds serve their purpose, as they have for thousands of years,” Cooper said. “When someone thinks their ‘private property rights’ trump Mother Nature, it sets us all up for trouble. Mother Nature always bats last.”
VanderWal said modern agriculture prioritizes conservation more than ever, with farmers adopting practices like reduced tillage or no-till and leaving crop residues on the land to protect the soil.
“This is becoming more important all the time,” VanderWal said. “People are learning.”
Why wetlands matter
Wetlands absorb and store excess water during heavy rains and snowmelt. That slows water flow into rivers, reducing the risk of downstream flooding, explained Stacy Woods, of the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Another way wetlands help mitigate flooding is by slowing climate change, which has already brought more extreme weather to South Dakota.
South Dakota has seen two billion-dollar floods in the last two decades. Just this year, the June storms that brought flooding to McCook Lake dumped 10 to 20 inches of rain on some southeast South Dakota communities. During those storms, Mitchell and Sioux Falls recorded their wettest two-day periods since the National Weather Service began record-keeping.
“Healthy wetlands can capture and store carbon, keeping it out of the atmosphere where it would otherwise trap heat and contribute to a warming planet,” Woods said. “But when wetlands are damaged or destroyed, they can release this stored carbon as methane, carbon dioxide, or other heat-trapping gasses that accelerate climate change.”
Saturated wetland soils slow plant decomposition, and the dense plant material becomes carbon-rich peat. Wetlands cover about 3% of the planet’s land yet store approximately 30% of all land-based carbon. That’s according to documentation from the 50th anniversary of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty the U.S. joined is 1986 focused on the conservation of wetlands worldwide.
The loss of wetlands is particularly concerning for waterfowl populations, especially in the Prairie Pothole Region, often referred to as North America’s “duck factory.” This region, which spans much of northeastern South Dakota, is one of the most important breeding grounds for ducks. The small, shallow, seasonal wetlands are critical nesting habitats teaming with the bugs ducklings consume. Yet, these same wetlands are among the most vulnerable to drainage for agricultural purposes. And pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers can kill wetland bugs.
That’s why hunters including Cooper are concerned about wetlands, but he wants to spread the concern wider.
“You don’t have to be a duck hunter to care about this,” Cooper said. “When we lose these places, we lose a lot more than hunting opportunities, no doubt about it.”
Cooper’s message
Cooper is not optimistic about wetland conservation, citing the dominance of production agriculture and the imbalance between federal programs incentivizing production over conservation.
“Until the feds make conservation as competitive as production, I don’t see it changing,” Cooper said. “We need incentives that reward preserving wetlands and grasslands or enforce their protection.”
He urges policymakers to recognize wetlands and grasslands as vital climate solutions. He advocates more federal support to encourage less tilling of the soil, more cover crops left on farmland year-round, and incentivizing wetland preservation over the conversion of wet areas to cropland.
Cooper and his wife, Vera, are committed conservationists, supporting groups including Ducks Unlimited and Pheasants Forever, which work to conserve wildlife habitats. For him, hunting ties directly to conservation, providing state funding for habitat conservation and improvement through license fees and taxes.
“Hunting isn’t just about pursuing wild game. It’s about protecting the ecosystems that sustain them,” Cooper said.
At 80, Cooper acknowledges the toll of his efforts but remains steadfast.
“Vera says it’s time to kick my feet up, but she knows I can’t,” he said. “Because the wild places are worth fighting for.”
South Dakota Searchlight is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
While the race to secure the nomination for governor has dominated the headlines ahead of the June 2 primary, Republican voters will also choose a candidate for one of South Dakota’s two U.S. Senate seats.
Incumbent U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, who is seeking a third, six-year term, holds a comfortable lead over his GOP primary challenger, Justin McNeal, a Navy veteran and business owner from Rapid City, according to the latest poll from News Watch and the Chiesman Center for Democracy.
Here is a recap of the two candidates along with their thoughts heading into the June 2 election. The winner of the Republican primary will meet Democrat Julian Beaudion and Independent Brian Bengs in the Nov. 3 general election.
Hometown: Fort PierreAge: 71Occupation: Insurance broker; businessman; former governor (2003-2011); U.S. senator since 2015In their own words:
Rounds provided the following statement to News Watch:
“Working in the U.S. Senate, I’ve stayed focused on results that matter for our kids and grandkids. That means keeping the government off your back and out of your business and wallet. That means keeping our communities safe and creating a business climate that encourages job growth to keep our kids in South Dakota. And that means safety through a commitment to our men and women in uniform.
This past summer, we worked with President Trump to pass the Republicans’ Working Families Tax Cuts legislation. Without Congressional action, the average South Dakota family would have seen a $2,500 tax hike this year. Our legislation not only prevented the largest tax increase in American history, but it also provided additional tax relief for hard-working South Dakota families. That includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime and no tax on Social Security for nearly 9 out of 10 seniors.
We’ve accomplished some great things, but our work is not done. I am running for reelection to continue bringing results back home to South Dakota.”
Hometown: Rapid City (born in Illinois and raised in Texas)Age: 42Occupation: Business owner (Dakota BioChar); Navy veteran (2001-2007)In their own words:
“I’m feeling the people in South Dakota are ready for a change. The challenge we are running into is that not enough people know who we are, but as soon as they know who we are, it’s an easy decision for them,” McNeal told News Watch in a phone interview. “I don’t have millions and millions of dollars. I’ve been largely self-funding this race up to this point.”
McNeal, who is a licensed pilot, said he has flown his small plane to events throughout the state in an attempt to get his name out.
“I talk to people about the issues that matter and I tell them the biggest thing you can do to help me is tell 10 people about me and to go vote June 2. We need about 50,000 votes to win the primary,” he said.
McNeal is not critical of Rounds and conceded “he is very popular” but said Rounds has not done enough to tackle the country’s growing fiscal deficit.
“I don’t think Mike is doing a bad job. I’m just concerned with the federal debt and the people that got us into that mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it,” McNeal said.
“This is going to cripple the country. It just seems like politicians are focused on what they can bring to their home district or home state. And the problem with that is every member of Congress is doing the same thing, so everyone is taking and taking without making sure we can pay for it.”
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.
South Dakota
Supreme Court ruling robs Native Americans of ‘silent partner’ in legislative redistricting – ICT
This is the second installment in a four-part series profiling the four candidates seeking the GOP nomination for governor of South Dakota.
DELL RAPIDS, S.D. – The city of Dell Rapids, roughly 20 miles north of Sioux Falls, labels itself “The Little City with the Big Attractions.” And it’s here, in a relatively humble law office off the main road leading into town, News Watch met with one of its biggest current draws.
Over the past few weeks, state House Speaker Jon Hansen has enjoyed a growing prominence in the race to be the Republican nominee for governor.
After polling at just 2% when he initially announced his candidacy in April of last year, Hansen, who at 40 is the youngest in the race, now finds himself within striking distance of being one of the two candidates that could make a potential runoff.
In a poll commissioned by News Watch and the Chiesmen Center for Democracy last month, Hansen, a lawyer by training, drew 18% of support from potential GOP primary voters.
If no candidate receives at least 35% of the vote on June 2, the runoff will be held eight weeks later, on July 28. The winner of that contest will meet Democrat Dan Ahlers, also of Dell Rapids, in the Nov. 3 general election.
So what does Hansen put his steady rise in the race down to after spending the previous few months being viewed as the long shot candidate?
“The debates were a huge factor because people across South Dakota were able to line up those four candidates on the stage and take a measure and get a sense of who is honest and who is genuine,” Hansen told News Watch.
In a poll of viewers after the first GOP gubernatorial debate on KELO-TV in March, Hansen was seen as the winner, while observers were also left impressed by his performance in the second debate co-moderated by News Watch and SDPB.
“The more people have been able to line up the four candidates, the more they have been coming our direction,” Hansen said.
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In the same News Watch/Chiesman poll from last month, 27% of respondents did not know Hansen, which, some observers believe, could indicate he has the most potential of the four candidates to grow his support.
“A lot of people hadn’t heard of us and in large part, it’s never been about us. Karla and I have been fighting for the issues. We’re not big self-promoters,” Hansen said, referring to his running mate for lieutenant governor, Karla Lems.
From tragedy to political awakening
Hansen’s early childhood was marked by the death of his father, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Hansen describes the experience as “awful” but that it allowed him, his mother and his sister to grow closer.
“For awhile it was just my mom, my sister and I, and what really pulled us through that was the unconditional love we had for each other,” Hansen said.
His mother eventually remarried and they moved from Yankton, where he was born, to Dell Rapids, where he has lived for most of his adult life.
He said he had fond memories growing up in Dell Rapids, but he wasn’t the best of students. He also wasn’t interested in politics.
Hansen said that all changed when he got a job working at the local movie theater, where he befriended a female coworker involved in the pro-life movement.
“One day she brought up the issue of abortion and, after we had a bit of a back and forth, I told her. ‘I don’t get it. The baby doesn’t even know the baby exists. I don’t see what the big deal is?’ Then it got real quiet and I noticed that she started to cry. In that moment, I realized there was something I was missing,” Hansen said.
“I think a lot of people have those moments that get them engaged in the political process,” he said.
Hansen said the conversation not only awakened his desire to enter the political arena but that it also reconnected him to his Catholic faith.
He is married to his high school sweetheart, Sheila, and they have six children.
Hansen subsequently got involved in anti-abortion campaigns in 2006 and 2008, which didn’t turn out the way he wanted. In both years, South Dakota voters rejected initiatives that would have instituted a near-total ban on abortions.
“The pro-life side lost those fights, but it started the journey I’m on now.”
After completing an internship at the South Dakota Legislature during college, in 2010 Hansen successfully won an open seat in the state House against a Democratic opponent who, it turned out, was his high school government teacher.
“Believe me, he never saw it coming because I was not a good high school student,” Hansen joked.
Hansen served one term and, after his return to the Legislature in 2019, played a role in South Dakota eventually enacting an abortion ban in 2022. On the campaign trail, he has also touted his involvement in defeating Amendment G in 2024, which would have enshrined the right to an abortion in the state’s Constitution.
‘In the arena’
Hansen said his work on abortion underscores his ability to deliver for the conservative Republican agenda.
“I’ve not just talked. I’ve been in the arena fighting the fight on the issues,” Hansen said.
Besides abortion, Hansen also highlighted his work to lower property taxes, which has come under heavy scrutiny from one of his primary challengers, U.S. Rep. Dusty Johnson.
In recent weeks, Johnson has utilized his significant campaign war chest to attack Hansen’s role in the passage of a series of bills during this year’s legislative session that, in some fashion, lower property taxes in exchange for raising sales taxes.
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In particular, there is Senate Bill 245, which will create a property tax relief fund using money generated from the planned 0.3% sales tax increase set to take effect next year.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem enacted a law in 2023 that lowered the sales tax from 4.5% to 4.2% until 2027. Efforts to make the measure permanent were rejected in the state Senate.
Hansen said Johnson’s claims that Hansen has raised sales taxes are “disingenuous” and pointed out that, at least when it comes to the scheduled sales tax increase, it was a case of trying to make lemonade out of lemons.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies. They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”
– Republican gubernatorial candidate Jon Hansen
“We (the state House) wanted to make the cut permanent, but we didn’t have the votes in the Senate. Every year after, we tried to make that sales tax cut permanent and every year the Senate didn’t have the votes,” Hansen said. “So the reality is it was going up anyway.”
“The next best thing we could build a consensus around was take all that money, dollar for dollar, and put that towards property tax relief,” Hansen said, arguing that the break in property taxes will outweigh any rise in sales taxes.
Hansen said if he were to ascend to the top job in Pierre, he would focus on examining state finances to see where he could potentially cut more taxes.
“We’re going to look at our state budget and cut government spending and use that savings to provide more tax relief,” he said.
Hansen said he also wants to clean up what he sees as a culture of grift in Pierre that favors larger corporations over small businesses.
“It’s a breeding ground for corruption. You see it when people who sit on the Governor’s Office of Economic Development (GOED) board dole out money to certain companies then get executive jobs with those companies,” Hansen said, citing the recent example of CJ Schwan’s, a food manufacturer that hired a former GOED commissioner and received $69 million in state grants and loans.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate. It seems very Washington, D.C.-esque to me,” Hansen said.
Hansen’s hostility toward larger corporations is further illustrated by another piece of key legislation he passed in this past session.
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Along with Senate President Pro Tempore Chris Karr, Hansen passed Senate Bill 135, dubbed the Data Center Bill of Rights for Citizens, which puts certain restrictions in place for any future data center project.
He ruled out being open to providing data center companies any special tax privileges to operate in the state.
“I just don’t think it’s appropriate for South Dakotans to give out tax breaks to some of the world’s richest tech companies,” Hansen said. “They want to come to South Dakota, they can pay taxes just like everyone else.”
With the campaign entering the final stretch, what’s his strategy to win over voters before they vote?
“We’re going to continue being positive, share our vision of the state and show our track record of results,” Hansen said.
South Dakota News Watch is an independent nonprofit. Read, donate and subscribe for free at sdnewswatch.org. Contact politics and statehouse reporter Alexander Rifaat: 605-736-4396/alexander.rifaat@sdnewswatch.org.
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