South Dakota
Landowners prepared for more pipeline struggles, hope for new ordinances
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – On Friday, the North Dakota Public Service Commission unanimously approved a route permit for Summit Carbon Solutions and its CO2 pipeline project.
The pipeline would run through five states, including 18 counties in South Dakota, to transport sequestered carbon dioxide from ethanol plants to an underground storage location west of Bismark, North Dakota.
South Dakota is now one of the last things standing in the way of the project.
Landowners opposing the project like Ed Fischbach are still optimistic that they can prevent the pipeline, but they believe more action is needed to protect South Dakotans.
Fischbach said it wasn’t a surprise that North Dakota approved the permit.
“North Dakota’s laws are unfortunately not as good as ours are,” Fischbach explained. “Their law basically is what we just defeated in the referral. They have that in place up there similar to what RL 21 was.”
Opponents said that Referred Law 21, which South Dakota voters shot down, would have allowed Summit Carbon Solutions to supersede local and county laws and ordinances.
Some landowners pointed out that some counties have been slow to incorporate their own regulatory ordinances, like Turner or McCook Counties.
“I just can’t understand why they wouldn’t want to do that. They have the authority. They have the power,” Fischbach said.
Northern South Dakota Counties like Brown, McPherson and Spink counties have all set a standard for what these ordinances might look like.
Fischbach is proud of the work that was done to provide setbacks to route any potential pipeline project further away from homes schools, hospitals, feedlots and more.
The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission deemed these ordinances fair and reasonable. Although this reasoning was used by the PUC as part of the reason for denying Summit Carbon Solutions’ permit application, landowners believe more counties need to create these ordinances to better protect residents and their property rights.
“Any county that’s not doing that, I think they’re just not representing their people like they should be,” said Fischbach. “For the citizens of those counties, they just need to go to their county commission meeting and keep speaking out and asking them to step up and do it.”
As for Summit Carbon Solutions, they celebrated their win in North Dakota and now look forward to reapplying for a permit in South Dakota.
They stated that their application would be submitted on November 19, which is now just a few days away.
They remain hopeful that they can get the project to the finish line and provide economic benefits to the region.
In a press release, they said, “Summit Carbon Solutions remains committed to working collaboratively with affected landowners and communities as the project progresses toward construction and operations.”
The landowners opposing the pipeline have said that they have had a total of six big victories over Summit Carbon Solutions thus far, including the previous rejections from the South Dakota PUC and the South Dakota Supreme Court.
They believe that the South Dakota PUC will rule in their favor again.
“This has been a three-and-a-half-year struggle from the very beginning,” Fischbach said. “No one ever gave us a chance up against this giant of a company with millions of dollars and we’ve still defeated them just by doing things on the ground and going out directly to people. The frustrating part of this whole fight is that this company doesn’t seem to get the message. I mean, how many times does it take for them to understand that the people of South Dakota are saying no? Our grassroots coalition is energized, we’re not going anywhere and we’re going to stay in the fight until they are gone once and for all.”
Outside of county ordinances and showing up in opposition of Summit Carbon Solutions’ permit application, South Dakotans who oppose the pipeline project are hoping that legislation to change eminent domain laws in South Dakota will be passed in the upcoming session.
Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
South Dakota
SD Lottery Powerball, Lotto America winning numbers for June 27, 2026
The South Dakota Lottery offers multiple draw games for those aiming to win big.
Here’s a look at June 27, 2026, results for each game:
Winning Powerball numbers from June 27 drawing
03-16-28-30-59, Powerball: 11, Power Play: 2
Check Powerball payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Lotto America numbers from June 27 drawing
03-08-18-22-39, Star Ball: 06, ASB: 02
Check Lotto America payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Dakota Cash numbers from June 27 drawing
02-21-25-30-32
Check Dakota Cash payouts and previous drawings here.
Winning Millionaire for Life numbers from June 27 drawing
26-32-38-51-52, Bonus: 05
Check Millionaire for Life payouts and previous drawings here.
Feeling lucky? Explore the latest lottery news & results
Are you a winner? Here’s how to claim your prize
- Prizes of $100 or less: Can be claimed at any South Dakota Lottery retailer.
- Prizes of $101 or more: Must be claimed from the Lottery. By mail, send a claim form and a signed winning ticket to the Lottery at 711 E. Wells Avenue, Pierre, SD 57501.
- Any jackpot-winning ticket for Dakota Cash or Lotto America, top prize-winning ticket for Lucky for Life, or for the second prizes for Powerball and Mega Millions must be presented in person at a Lottery office. A jackpot-winning Powerball or Mega Millions ticket must be presented in person at the Lottery office in Pierre.
When are the South Dakota Lottery drawings held?
- Powerball: 9:59 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.
- Mega Millions: 10 p.m. CT on Tuesday and Friday.
- Lucky for Life: 9:38 p.m. CT daily.
- Lotto America: 9:15 p.m. CT on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday.
- Dakota Cash: 9 p.m. CT on Wednesday and Saturday.
- Millionaire for Life: 10:15 p.m. CT daily.
This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by a South Dakota editor. You can send feedback using this form.
South Dakota
Another South Dakota secretary of state bounced after four years by GOP delegates
South Dakota is getting another chief elections officer.
Secretary of State Monae Johnson failed to win the Republican nomination for a second term during the South Dakota Republican Party Convention Saturday in Rapid City, where GOP delegates instead favored another Pierre outsider to oversee the state’s elections for the next four years.
“When this office runs well, you don’t notice it. When it doesn’t, you feel it everywhere,” Rep. Heather Baxter told a capacity crowd of delegates and attendees at The Monument events center, where she received nearly 60 percent of votes cast by more than 700 party delegates.
Populist push falls short in South Dakota GOP contest for Public Utilities nod
South Dakota
Work, housing and staffing: How South Dakota’s corrections chief aims to keep inmates from returning
SIOUX FALLS – South Dakota’s repeat offense rate for people who leave prison can return to the low point it saw a a dozen years ago, the state’s corrections secretary said Tuesday.
Nick Lamb, now six months into his role atop the Department of Corrections, laid out the agency’s plan Tuesday at the Correctional Rehabilitation Task Force at its meeting in Sioux Falls. The plan includes work release programs, residential housing for inmates and a top-to-bottom restructuring of how the department operates.
Recidivism measures how many inmates return to prison within three years of their release. The figure for South Dakota stood at
50%
in the most recent data, which was based on the performance of inmates released in 2021.
South Dakota’s lowest recidivism rate in the last two decades was 39% in 2014.
“We’ll get back there,” Lamb said Tuesday.
Lamb told reporters after the meeting he wants “to start getting in the business of closing prisons” during his tenure.
“Our population is too high for our state,” Lamb said. “We need to get our population down, but we’ve got to give the offenders the tools they need that they haven’t always had.”
Several recommendations presented on Tuesday, by Lamb and other criminal justice experts, will require more staff and funding.
State Rep. John Hughes, R-Sioux Falls, worries that the Legislature’s budget-setting committee will balk at new spending.
“My concern is that we put all these elaborate proposals together, then when we get to appropriations we’re going to hit the wall,” Hughes said.
Inmates return to work release
Under Lamb’s predecessor, Kellie Wasko, pay for inmate work performed outside the prison walls
was increased to minimum wage
. After that policy change, fewer communities and organizations contracted inmate workers for community service jobs.
Rep. Tim Reisch, R-Howard, said most of the roughly 250 minimum-security prisoners he oversaw during his tenure as corrections secretary participated in work release.
“They got up and they all had jobs. They were used to getting out of bed, going to work, getting in a habit of that,” Reisch said.
When he toured the prison last year, fewer than 20 were working, he said.
Lamb has cut inmate wages below minimum wage since he started.
“We reached out to a lot of these communities, basically asking if they need help,” Lamb said. “We lowered the wage, which upset some people, but we need them out working.”
This summer, inmates will work at Sioux Falls parks and at its regional landfill, and they’ll prepare the fairgrounds in Huron for the State Fairgrounds in August. They’ll also help out during Riverboat Days in Yankton, and pitch in on tournament preparation for the National Field Archery Association.
Statewide residential facilities planned
Lamb also wants to establish a residential corrections program. He shared a presentation showing how such a program
operated in Iowa
, where he served as deputy director of institutional operations for the Iowa Department of Corrections before his move to South Dakota.
In Iowa, most residential facilities were filled with people on probation, parole or work release. He envisions a similar program in South Dakota, with housing outside of traditional prison settings designed to help transition back into the community, but he hasn’t finalized details or a timeline.
“We’re going to try it,” Lamb said. “I’ll be honest, I haven’t talked to the lieutenant governor or anybody else about it, but we need to try it. It works.”
The program has been in Iowa for decades. Iowa’s three-year recidivism rate peaked at 38.9% in 2019 and has since fallen to 32.8%, based on the
latest data available
.
“I’m not trying to throw you a sales pitch,” Lamb said, but residential programming is “a good idea.”
Lamb said he doesn’t want to replace programs like the one run by the Sioux Falls-based nonprofit St. Francis House, but to add to it.
St. Francis House doesn’t cap how long residents can stay and limits rent to $250 a month. Lamb said a state-run program would include a time limit and higher rent.
A lack of “felon-friendly housing” is a major driver of recidivism, said Sioux Falls Mayor Paul TenHaken, who’s leaving his position soon after two terms in office. The problem won’t improve without government involvement, he added.
“If the state ever chooses to invest in St. Francis House programming, it’s money well spent,” TenHaken said.
Justice Center recommendations
The percentage of inmates who got rehabilitative programming increased from 27%to 44% between 2023 and 2025, according to a report presented Tuesday by the Council for State Governments Justice Center.
The national nonprofit was contracted to analyze the state’s prison system and help guide the task force’s work.
Despite the gains in programming, the group reported, 46% of inmates released in 2025 received none. Access was also limited by where inmates were held, due to space and staffing restrictions.
The justice center recommended several changes, including:
- Creating a rehabilitation and reentry division and hiring several new positions.
- Creating a centralized waitlist for programs.
- Streamlining the program catalog to reduce overlap and fill gaps.
- Sequencing programming to cover an inmate’s entire stay, rather than stacking programs in the last few months of their sentence.
- Creating a dedicated parole violation program track.
Many of those recommendations hinge on hiring and retaining adequate staff — one of the department’s most significant challenges, according to the group.
Sara Friedman, program director with the Justice Center, said her team consistently heard in interviews that the department tends to shift employees around when attempting new initiatives, rather than hiring. That creates gaps for inmates seeking programming.
Sometimes, for example, shifting staffing patterns will leave facilities without enough security staff to transport inmates to classrooms.
“Technically, you’re fully staffed, but you’re fully staffed so thinly that the moment one thing goes wrong, the waterfall effect is people are not getting their rehabilitative services,” Friedman said.
Lamb told South Dakota Searchlight after the presentation that he wasn’t surprised by the staffing recommendations. The department lacks adequate staff to backfill for sick or vacationing employees, he said, though he didn’t say how many more employees would need to be hired to address the issue.
The department is already working to create the new rehabilitation and reentry division and centralize its scheduling.
The task force plans to meet two more times before it’ll finalize its recommendations for the Legislature ahead of the next session, which starts in January.
— This story was originally published on southdakotasearchlight.com.
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