Bluestem Prairie

USDA launches national testing of milk from dairy farms to track bird flu outbreak

An update on the bird flu in dairy cattle narrative, published at the Minnesota Reformer, from the States Newsroom.

USDA launches national testing of milk from dairy farms to track bird flu outbreak
by Jennifer Shutt

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced Friday it will require dairy farms to share samples of unpasteurized milk when requested, in an effort to gather more information about the spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Public health officials have tracked the spread of bird flu or H5N1 in domestic poultry flocks for years before the virus began showing up in the country’s dairy herds this March, raising concerns.

While the risk to the general public remains low and there is no evidence to suggest bird flu can spread from person to person, nearly 60 people, mostly farmworkers, have contracted the virus this year.

The new milk testing requirements from USDA will apply nationally but will begin first in California, Colorado, Michigan, Mississippi, Oregon and Pennsylvania, the week of Dec. 16. 

“Among many outcomes, this will give farmers and farmworkers better confidence in the safety of their animals and ability to protect themselves, and it will put us on a path to quickly controlling and stopping the virus’ spread nationwide,” Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a written statement.

Unpasteurized milk

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has repeatedly tested pasteurized milk on store shelves throughout the country to reaffirm it’s safe to drink. Other dairy products, like cheese and ice cream, have also been found safe.

But the FDA continues to urge people against consuming unpasteurized milk, since it doesn’t go through the heating process that kills off viruses and bacteria.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a written statement the new milk “testing strategy is a critical part of our ongoing efforts to protect the health and safety of individuals and communities nationwide.”

“Our primary responsibility at HHS is to protect public health and the safety of the food supply, and we continue to work closely with USDA and all stakeholders on continued testing for H5N1 in retail milk and dairy samples from across the country to ensure the safety of the commercial pasteurized milk supply,” Becerra said. “We will continue this work with USDA for as long and as far as necessary.”

The USDA began a voluntary bulk tank testing program for milk this summer in an attempt to make it easier for farmers to move their cattle across state lines without having to test each cow. The department also began a year-long study in August to test for bird flu in dairy cattle moved into meat production, seeking to confirm prior studies that found it safe to eat.

The bird flu outbreak has affected 720 dairy herds throughout 15 states so far this year, though California became the epicenter during the last month, according to data from the USDA.

The Golden State holds nearly all of the 273 herds diagnosed, with just four found in Utah during the last 30 days.

California also holds the bulk of bird flu infections in people, with 32 of the 58 diagnosed cases this year, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Colorado accounts for another 10 human cases and Washington state confirmed 11 people infected with H5N1. Michigan has had two cases this year, while Missouri, Oregon and Texas have each had one positive human case.

USDA order

The USDA federal order announced Friday will require anyone responsible for a dairy farm — such as a bulk milk transporter, bulk milk transfer station, or dairy processing facility — to share unpasteurized or raw milk samples when requested.

Any farm owners whose dairy herds test positive for H5N1 will be required to share epidemiological information that would allow public health officials to perform contact tracing and other types of disease surveillance. 

Additionally, private laboratories and state veterinarians must alert USDA to positive samples that were collected as part of this National Milk Testing Strategy.

Photo: The disease also fatally affects barn cats who live in close proximity of dairy cows.  A barn cat photo from CIDRAP's Tests confirm avian flu on New Mexico dairy farm; probe finds cats positive,

This States Newsroom article is republished under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

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• Minnesota Board of Animal Health: Stevens County goat tests positive for avian influenza
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Proposed funding cut could sink network in as little as two years, SDPB director says

On Tuesday, Bluestem posted Noem budget includes cuts; also new school-choice program & more prison money.

In the article republished below, South Dakota Searchlight's John Hult takes a look at one of those cuts: public broadcasting.

This doesn't look good. I hope the South Dakota Legislature turns back Governor Noem's plan. Little would be left other than:

... It would likely be possible for SDPB to continue recording and streaming legislative committee hearings, floor debates and meetings of the state’s various oversight boards and commissions, but there would be no news coverage. 

The money could also maintain the infrastructure needed for Amber Alert and emergency alert messages, which originate with law enforcement and are distributed by SDPB’s network to the state’s commercial broadcast systems....

From South Dakota Searchlight.

Proposed funding cut could sink network in as little as two years, SDPB director says
by John Hult

South Dakota Public Broadcasting could cease to exist in as little as two years if lawmakers adopt Gov. Kristi Noem’s $3.6 million budget cut, the network’s executive director said Friday.

Julie Overgaard sounded that alarm during a meeting of the Educational Telecommunications Board, which acts as an advisory council for SDPB.

Noem proposed the funding cut, which amounts to about 65% of SDPB’s state funding, during her annual budget address on Tuesday. The governor has proposed $82.7 million in cuts across state government in response to lower state revenue compared to the past few years.

Noem also proposed $10.7 million in new spending, $4 million of which would go toward $3,000 education savings accounts that lower-income families could use to pay for private school tuition, homeschooling and other forms of nontraditional schooling.

SDPB and its associated nonprofit fundraising organization, Friends of SDPB, have sent emails to supporters and offered statements to the media outlining the immediate impact of a 65% budget cut. In the near-term, it could mean a loss of all original state and local programming, including high school activities broadcasts, the radio show “In the Moment” and television programs like “Dakota Life” and “South Dakota Focus.”

Overgaard’s message to the telecommunications board on Friday was more stark. She called Noem’s budget “devastating news.” 

Donors send their money to Friends of SDPB in large part to support local programming. Without local programming, Overgaard said, that support would dry up.

“At best, we have about a 24 to 36 month lifeline,” Overgaard said. “I don’t think there is much point in pretending this is not as serious as it is.”

Kay Jorgensen, who chairs the telecom board, said the budget proposal is worthy of a more serious look than the group had time for on Friday. The board had a full agenda, one set up before Noem’s budget speech. 

Members heard about SDPB’s financial health from its accountant, about the popularity of its high school football coverage this fall from its content director, and about an audit performed by Eide Bailly.

The audit found no financial disparities, ethical concerns or areas where SDPB strayed from best practices, one of its authors told the board. The draft audit document notes that SDPB serves 90% of the state’s geography and around 382,000 households.

“I don’t think there’s an organization in the country that can defend and be proud of its broadcast work more than the team at South Dakota Public Broadcasting,” Jorgensen said after hearing from Overgaard.

Layoffs, lost programming, potential insolvency

In a follow-up interview with South Dakota Searchlight, Overgaard said the $3.6 million cut would trigger a 50% reduction in support from the federal Corporation for Public Broadcasting, from $2 million annually to $1 million. The formula for grants from the corporation factors in state or local matching dollars. 

SDPB currently has 64 full-time employees, not counting employees of Friends of SDPB. Most of the SDPB employees would lose their jobs if the cut goes through, Overgaard told Searchlight. 

The shallow funding pool left after the cut wouldn’t be enough to pay for much more than engineering and network maintenance, she said. 

It would likely be possible for SDPB to continue recording and streaming legislative committee hearings, floor debates and meetings of the state’s various oversight boards and commissions, but there would be no news coverage. 

The money could also maintain the infrastructure needed for Amber Alert and emergency alert messages, which originate with law enforcement and are distributed by SDPB’s network to the state’s commercial broadcast systems.

Beyond that and national programming – all of which is funded through donations from listeners and viewers, Overgaard said, not through tax dollars – there would be little left of the SDPB that exists today.

If SDPB cannot remain financially solvent, she said, the state would need to find another way to get emergency alerts to its citizens. 

Per capita spending comparison inaccurate, broadcaster says

In 2006, lawmakers passed a $500,000 cut to SDPB in the waning days of the legislative session. Lawmakers found themselves inundated with comments from constituents and restored the funding.

Ryan Howlett, CEO of Friends of SDPB, told the board Friday that the group saw a major fundraising spike immediately following Noem’s budget address.

“We’ve been really buoyed by people, by their support with not only their dollars, but their willingness to contact their legislators in their district and the administration of the state of South Dakota on our behalf,” Howlett said. 

Howlett told Searchlight, however, that a short-term fundraising bump does nothing to solve the larger problems that would follow a state funding cut.

Larry Rohrer, a South Dakota Hall of Fame member known as the voice of SDPB, hopes listeners and viewers continue to rally behind the network. 

Rohrer, who’s now retired, helped lead the network into the internet age, setting up the communications network that has streamed legislative debates since 2000. A little more than a decade later, Rohrer helped shepherd through the operational framework for SD.net, which streams and archives not only legislative coverage, but meetings from boards and commissions or agencies like the Public Utilities Commission.

Some lawmakers were skeptical of streaming legislative debates, Rohrer said, but the skepticism dissipated quickly.

“What eventually happened was that the legislators heard from their constituents that they liked this,” Rohrer said.

Broadcasting high school activities has also buoyed SDPB’s reputation, he said. That’s at least in part because the network broadcasts not just popular sports like football, but a wide range of sports and arts activities that might have a smaller but dedicated following. 

“This is the question that we asked internally: I want you to tell me which of those 35 high school championships don’t deserve to be on TV,” Rohrer said. “I dare you to answer that question, because the truth is they all do.”

In her budget speech, Noem told lawmakers that SDPB’s state funding is among the highest in the nation per capita. 

Noem’s office did not offer a response to Overgaard’s comments on SDPB’s solvency, nor did the Bureau of Finance and Management.

Rohrer said he doesn’t know where that per capita figure came from, but said it’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Few states have radio and television under one roof through a state-held broadcast license as SDPB does, as opposed to separate radio and television networks, one or more of them licensed through a university or independent nonprofit. Even fewer offer services that range from emergency alerts and year-round government meeting livestreams to live coverage of events like the annual Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup.

The trouble with using a per capita figure, Rohrer said, is that it leaves out the nuance.

“You can say that in 10 seconds,” Roher said. “For me to explain the different flavors of public stations and the variety of services takes five minutes. Some people don’t have time for that. My hope is that people would take the time to look deeper and understand that this is not a 10-second narrative.”

State funding for SDPB

• Fiscal year 2025: $5.6 million
• FY 2024: $5.4 million
• FY 2023: $4.8 million
• FY 2022: $4.5 million
• FY 2021: $4.4 million

Photo: A sign in the window identifies South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Rapid City studio on Dec. 6, 2024. (Seth Tupper/South Dakota Searchlight).

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Related post

• [VIDEO] Noem budget includes cuts; also new school-choice program & more prison money

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

‘Wild places are worth fighting for’: Concern grows for receding South Dakota wetlands

A terrific look at endangered wetlands in South Dakota, from South Dakota Searchlight's Joshua Haiar.

‘Wild places are worth fighting for’: Concern grows for receding South Dakota wetlands
by Joshua Haiar

US Supreme Court decision adds urgency to already worsening situation, advocates say

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.”

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.

Farm Bureau perspective

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.”

Photo: John Cooper’s dog retrieves a duck on a northern South Dakota wetland on Sept. 27, 2024. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight).

This South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Related posts

•  Good news for prairie potholes: Feds propose drainage rules to protect SD & nearby wetlands 
• Line 3: Fourth aquifer rupture confirmed by Enbridge & DNR; 45 other suspicious spots
•  Republican guy who voted for Minnesota's buffer bill continues to grandstand against it 

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post.

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

Judge OKs North Dakota request to intervene in Standing Rock's Dakota Access pipeline lawsuit

 

More pipeline politics. Like the Lake Traverse Reservation, home of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate, the Standing Rock Reservation straddles the border between North and South Dakota. It's home to the Hunkpapa and Sihasapa bands of Lakota Oyate and the Ihunktuwona and Pabaksa bands of the Dakota Oyate, as well as the Hunkpatina Dakota (Lower Yanktonai), straddles the border between North and South Dakota.

From the North Dakota Monitor.

Judge OKs North Dakota request to intervene in Dakota Access pipeline lawsuit
by Mary Steurer

A federal judge this week approved the state of North Dakota’s request to intervene as a co-defendant in the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The lawsuit, filed in October, accuses the Army Corps of unlawfully allowing the Dakota Access Pipeline to operate without an easement, sufficient environmental study or robust emergency spill response plans, among other alleged violations. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe ultimately wants a federal judge to order that the pipeline be shut down.

North Dakota argued in court filings last month that closing the pipeline, also known as DAPL, would cause the state government to lose out on hundreds of millions of dollars of revenue, jeopardize thousands of jobs and hamper regional supply chains. North Dakota also claimed that a federal court order draining DAPL would violate the state’s right to regulate its own land and resources.

The Army Corps of Engineers has regulatory jurisdiction over a part of the pipeline that passes below the Missouri River directly upstream from the Standing Rock Reservation. 

Standing Rock opposes the pipeline over concerns that it infringes upon the tribe’s sovereignty, has disrupted sacred cultural sites and threatens to pollute the tribe’s water supply.

Energy Transfer, the developer of the Dakota Access Pipeline, has not requested to intervene in the suit.

The case is before U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg, who oversaw the tribe’s 2016 lawsuit against the Army Corps of Engineers against the pipeline.

North Dakota in 2021 filed a motion to join that lawsuit as well, but Boasberg denied the request as the case was in the process of wrapping up.

In a separate lawsuit filed in federal court in 2019, North Dakota seeks $38 million from the United States government for costs the state says it incurred policing the Dakota Access Pipeline protests due to the alleged negligence of the Army Corps of Engineers. The suit went to trial in February.

The Dakota Access Pipeline, in operation since 2017, carries crude oil from northwest North Dakota to Illinois. Its pathway includes unceded land recognized as belonging to the Sioux Nation under an 1851 treaty with the U.S. government.

Photo: Opponents of the Dakota Access Pipeline gather Nov. 1, 2023, in Bismarck ahead of a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers public meeting on an environmental impact statement. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe opposes the pipeline, citing concerns for its water supply. (Kyle Martin/For the North Dakota Monitor)

This North Dakota Monitor article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

NRDC report: ‘neonics,’ pesticides with harmful environmental effects, common in MN waterways

On Tuesday, I posted MN Environmental Quality Board releases 2024 Minnesota State Agency Pollinator Report. One of the factors mentioned in the report is the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, which kill insects, including pollinators.

One indication of the presence of neonics in Minnesota? Neonic Pesticides in Minnesota Water: Their Contamination of and Threats
to the State’s Aquatic Ecosystems, a report from the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council. The report focuses on the effect of neonics on aquatic life.

With the changes in the Minnesota House Agriculture committee chairs in the coming session, I'm curious whether this report might have any consequences for law making that governs the use of pesticides in farming,

At the Minnesota Reformer, Madison McVan takes a look at the report in the article republished below.

‘Neonics,’ pesticides with harmful environmental effects, are common in Minnesota waterways
by Madison McVan

A common pesticide coating on corn and soybean seeds has leached into Minnesota waterways, threatening pollinators and aquatic ecosystems, according to a report released this week by the environmental group Natural Resources Defense Council.

Neonicotinoid pesticides, or “neonics,” are a group of insecticides that kill pests like aphids — but can also devastate bee colonies and aquatic insects, leading to a chain of negative effects in the polluted ecosystem. 

The NRDC report, written by Pierre Mineau, a research scientist who worked for the Canadian government and teaches at Canada’s Carleton University, found that most Minnesota waterways have some amount of neonic pollution. 

Using sampling data from the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, Mineau found that over a 12-year period, 95% of flowing-water sites had at least one neonic chemical, and 87% of the sites showed a mixture of two or more neonic chemicals. 

“Where neonics were found, they appeared in most cases at concentrations expected to do biological harm,” Mineau wrote. 

Ninety percent of neonic pollution in Minnesota comes from agricultural uses.

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture considers two common neonicotinoids — clothianidin and imidacloprid — “surface water pesticides of concern.” The department encourages the adoption of “best management practices” for those two neonicotinoids, including rotating neonics with other types of insecticides and using the lowest effective amount of the pesticide.

Some U.S. states, and the European Union, have banned or severely limited some of the most common neonics. 

Farm groups have opposed attempts to rein in the use of neonics. When the New York state legislature passed a bill banning neonicotinoid-coated seeds last year, the state Farm Bureau called on New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to veto the bill. (She did not.)

“Seeds treated with neonicotinoids were designed to be safer and reduce pesticide use…we believe the end result of this ban will force farms to revert back to spraying greater amounts of older pesticides as well as increasing tillage to combat harmful pests, releasing more carbon in the soil and increasing the likelihood of soil erosion,” New York Farm Bureau President David Fisher said.

I mbed a copy of the report itself below.

Neonic Pesticides in Minnesota Water: Their Contamination of and Threats to the State’s Aquatic Ecosystems  uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd

The Minnesota Reformer article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

Screenshot: The cover of the NRDC report

Related posts

• Commentary: Seeds treated with neonics are bad for bees, the environment and human health
• In ag omnibus bill, Minnesota is not quite so poised to lead an environmental breakthrough 
• House enviro omnibus bill centers "the people, & the land, & the water & the wildlife of MN"
• Pollinator protection bills heard today in the Minnesota House Agriculture Committee at 1PM 
• MN House Republicans abjectly fail to protect pesticides from radical pollinator-hugging leftists
• Update: MNHouse GOP fails to replace pesticide industry interests over local control
• MN Pollution Control Agency makes 2nd request for comments on waste treated seed rules
• Omnibus environment bill aims to ‘correct past wrongs, prepare for future,’ committee chair says 
• MNHouse Ag Committee approves proposed rules for disposal of pesticide-treated crop seeds
• Though court strikes down EPA chlorpyrifos ban for farmers, product still illegal on MN state lands 
• See it in the Strib: the silence of Corn Growers about deer exposure to neonicotinoids
• Preliminary results from pesticide study show widespread neonic exposure in wild MN deer.
• Study shows endocrine-disrupting imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid, messes up does and fawns.
• South Dakota News Watch: study shows neonics a danger to deer, pheasant study results soon 
• South Dakota study on neonicotinoids' effects on whitetails prompts MNDNR deer spleen request.
• LCCMR funded scholars studied the impact of neonicotinoids on surface and groundwater
• Large study finds neonicotinoids push honeybee hives over the edge; pesticide makers polish turd  
• EPA cancels registration of 12 neonicotinoid products from Bayer, Syngenta & Valent 

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

[VIDEO] Noem budget includes cuts; also new school-choice program & more prison money

This afternoon, I watched Governor Noem's budget address. No outrageous flamethrowing, though I was surprised by the proposed cuts to SDPB, which provides coverage of the state legislature.

UPDATE: At the South Dakota Searchlight, Makenzie Huber takes more nuancedlook in Noem proposes school choice program to ‘prioritize education.’ Critics say it’ll undermine it. [end uptake]

The Sioux Falls Argus Leader has published the transcript of the speech here: Read Gov. Kristi Noem's full 2024 budget address here.

And the South Dakota Searchlight covered it in the article below. 

Noem budget includes cuts, but also new school-choice program and more prison money
by Joshua Haiar

PIERRE — South Dakota Republican Gov. Kristi Noem proposed a leaner state budget Tuesday with a small increase for schools and cuts to some departments and programs, yet with new money to create a school-choice program and continued contributions to a prison construction fund.

In her fiscal year 2026 budget address, Noem outlined a $7.29 billion spending plan, which would be a reduction of about $20 million, or 0.27%, compared to the current fiscal year budget of $7.31 billion. The reduction is driven primarily by lower-than-expected sales tax collections.

“We’re going to have to make some tough decisions to deliver the 136th consecutive balanced budget for South Dakota,” Noem said.

Noem delivered her speech to lawmakers in the state House of Representatives chamber at the Capitol. Legislators will take her proposals into consideration next month when they gather for their annual lawmaking session. 

Noem is expected to resign as soon as late January to accept an appointment as secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, if she’s confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Lt. Gov. Larry Rhoden would then take over as governor and appoint a new lieutenant governor.

School choice and public education funding

The governor proposed the creation of a $4 million education savings account program, which she said would offer $3,000 per student toward private school tuition or alternative education curricula. 

She said the money would not cut into public school funding.

“Public schools are very important to our state’s educational future,” Noem said.

Yet she proposed only a 1.25% increase in funding for public education, health care providers and state employees. 

Noem said she and legislators have provided 27.9% worth of inflationary increases for those “big three” parts of the state budget since she took office, while inflation during that time has been 24.9%

But this year’s proposed increase would fall short of the current 3.25% inflation rate reported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

Incoming House Majority Leader Scott Odenbach, R-Spearfish, praised the governor’s support for education savings accounts.

“This could be a game-changer for education in South Dakota,” he said.

Speaking after the speech to South Dakota Public Broadcasting, which carried the speech live, incoming Senate Minority Leader Liz Larson, D-Sioux Falls, expressed skepticism.

“One of our core beliefs as Democrats is that we protect public education,” Larson said. “So we would need to make sure those types of programs are not a slippery slope leading to less investment in our public schools.

Cuts

Noem proposed nearly $72 million in “reductions and discretionary changes,” many of which are cuts to state departments and programs. 

Those include $38 million in combined reductions for the Department of Social Services and the Department of Human Services. 

“They have been reverting money for years at the end of the fiscal year, and it’s time we right-size these budgets,” Noem said.

Other proposed cuts include a $17 million reduction in maintenance and repairs of state property, and a $5.3 million reduction for the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, which is designed to provide assistance and build economic self-sufficiency for children and families. 

Noem also wants to cut $3.6 million from South Dakota Public Broadcasting and $2 million from the Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s public universities.

“We must consult our means rather than our wishes,” Noem said, quoting President George Washington.

Incoming House Assistant Minority Leader Jamie Smith, D-Sioux Falls, expressed concerns about cuts to social programs. 

“We need to understand how these cuts will impact the most vulnerable people in our state,” he said. 

While he applauded Noem’s proposal of $10 million to help schools make safety upgrades and improvements, he questioned the necessity of her proposed 12% budget reserve. 

“Today is a starting point,” Smith said. “And there are things we can work together on, but we need to closely examine areas where the most vulnerable might be affected.”

South Dakota Public Broadcasting, which relies on the state for part of its funding and the nonprofit Friends of SDPB for additional funding, issued a statement Tuesday saying Noem’s proposal would be a 65% decrease to the organization’s state budget allocation.

The organization highlighted the importance of its online, radio and television coverage of topics including high school sports, fine arts, education, public policy and the Legislature.

“A cut of this size and scale will force significant reductions to all these important services,” SDPB said in a statement. “This cut is likely to disproportionately affect rural service, where SDPB’s programming is most valued.”

Prison money

Noem proposed putting $182 million in a fund to build a new state prison south of Sioux Falls, which would largely replace the antiquated Sioux Falls penitentiary, parts of which date to 1881.

The state has already set aside $567 million for the project, which is expected to cost $825 million. Noem said the state expects $76 million in interest earnings from the prison fund. The interest and the proposed $182 million would fully fund the project, she said.

The prison location and price have been controversial, and Odenbach said he expects significant lawmaker attention to the project.

“We’re going to have a lot of discussions about this,” he said. 

Unclaimed property record

The budget will receive a boost from a record-setting $229 million in unclaimed property revenue, exceeding last year’s historic haul. 

That money comes from an array of abandoned or forgotten private assets, including bank accounts, stocks, life insurance payouts, uncashed checks and the contents of safe deposit boxes. The holders of the money or items — such as banks, including some large ones chartered in South Dakota due to the state’s favorable finance laws — try to find the owners. But after three years of dormancy, the property reverts to the state.

Noem proposed reserving $43 million of unclaimed property revenue for potential claims from people seeking to recover their money. The state Treasurer’s Office maintains a list and makes efforts to help people reclaim the money. 

“This money belongs to the people, and we must be ready to pay it back when those claims come in,” Noem said.

Sunsetting sales tax reduction

During the 2023 legislative session, when the state was flush with federal pandemic relief and stimulus funding, lawmakers temporarily reduced the state sales tax rate from 4.5% to 4.2%, with a sunset in 2027.

Noem appeared to call for that reduction to be made permanent.

“Our people deserve better than a temporary sales tax holiday,” she said.

Other spending

Among other highlights, the governor noted that the state faces $86 million in mandatory ongoing spending increases, mostly due to the joint federal-state Medicaid program that provides health care for people with low incomes.

She also proposed $1.2 million in additional ongoing funding for regional mental health facilities, and a $1.5 million investment in Agency with Choice, a Department of Human Services program that families use to choose companion care, respite care, personal care or supported employment services for people with developmental disabilities.

To continue work on replacing the Richmond Dam at the state Richmond Lake Recreation Area near Aberdeen, the governor proposed $13 million.

Here's SDPB's livestream of the speech, along with some after-speech analysis:

Photo: Gov. Kristi Noem delivers the fiscal year 2026 budget address at the Capitol in Pierre on Dec. 3, 2024. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight).

The South Dakota Searchlight article is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

MN Environmental Quality Board releases 2024 Minnesota State Agency Pollinator Report

Bluestem Prairie has long been concerned about native pollinator populations in Minnesota and Northeast South Dakota.

In Tuesday's email, I received notice of the MN Environment Quality Board's latest publication:

We are happy to announce that the 2024 Minnesota State Agency Pollinator Report is now available! The interagency pollinator protection team updated the scorecards to communicate the progress we are making toward our pollinator protection goals. Additionally, the report includes pollinator-related action highlights from state agencies, and a section on new findings from pollinator-related research.

Visit our pollinator webpage to learn more and download a copy.

Dasly, not all of the findings are positive for the Minnesota State Bee, the Rusty Patched Bumblebee, Monarch butterflies, and the Dakota skipper butterfly (which still survives here on the Lake Traverse Reservation).

Check out the details and scorecards in the report embedded below:

2024 Minnesota State Agency Pollinator Report uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd

Photo: A Rusty-Patched Bumblebee, Minnesota's endangered state bee.

Related posts

• Pollinator Day at the Minnesota State Fair--and more buzz about Lawns to Legumes pathways
• South Dakota & nation's bee colony loss at ‘unsustainable’ rate hurts ag, consumers
• Rep. Rick Hansen & Mason Sargent: Minnesota making progress in protecting pollinators
• House ag committee approves bill that would let cities regulate use of some pesticides 
• O! my! Minnesota's #Lawns2Legumes makes Live Your Best Life list in Oprah Magazine
• Lawns to Legumes program earned great media for MN; 5 GOP senators want to rob funding
• Pollinator Friendly Alliance: the natural world, enviro policy & bringing back a healthy planet
• Good & bad news for pollinators: a news digest
• Pew Charitable Trusts Stateline looks at Minnesota's bee lawn program national buzz
• VIDEO: Watch Republicans get totally offended by neonic-treated corn & soybean seed tag bill
• VIDEO: MN House Enviro Finance endorses $7 million in funding for Clean Water Fund projects
• Background reading on the buzz: here's the study discussed in MPR's "Bee Proud" story
• Surprise invite to SWO Dakota skipper prairie demonstrates MN Zoo's conservation work
• Heintzeman: Democratic messaging is a plot to secretly fund "Lawns to Legumes" program 
• Press Release: MN BWSR awards over 1000 Lawns to Legumes Individual Support grants
• Lawns to Legumes program earned great media for MN; 5 GOP senators want to rob funding
• Minnesotans, your yard can BEE the change: BWSR taking Lawns to Legumes requests 

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

A different boarding school story: press release from the Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee

Bluestem has posted about the genocidal consequences of forced boarding schools on my Dakota neighbors.

Recently, I learned that another neighbor in nearby Marvin, South Dakota, had lived through another boarding school trauma as the child of missionaries in Africa, though one that didn't have the scale of destruction nor cultural genocidal implications and motives of North American indigenous boarding schools.

He's part of the Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee. On Sunday, the SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) issued the press release republished below: Press Release From the Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee.

There's been some coverage of the Hillcrest history and struggle in the Christian press. In 2023, The Christian Century's Dawn Araujo-Hawkins reported in Surviving Hillcrest:

Letta Cartlidge created a group for missionary kids who’d attended her boarding school in Jos, Nigeria. The stories of abuse poured in.

It was on a Friday in spring 2021 that Letta Cartlidge decided she had seen enough.

In her backyard in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, a stack of bangles on her arm and an oversized cardigan draped around her shoulders, Cartlidge explained to the Century how on April 15, 2021, James McDowell, a former principal at Hillcrest—a boarding school primarily for the children of missionaries in Jos, Nigeria—admitted in a private Facebook group for Hillcrest alumni that he had “molested” two students during his tenure.

In his post, McDowell, who was at Hillcrest from 1974 to 1984, said he’d already apologized to the two students and offered restitution. But he also wanted to apologize to the wider Hillcrest community for “this breach of trust which these days is considered criminal.”

As Cartlidge, a 1992 graduate of Hillcrest, watched reactions to McDowell’s post pour in, she estimated that about 30 percent of the people who commented were either angry or used it as an opportunity to share their own stories of abuse by other Hillcrest staff. The other 70 percent called McDowell brave for coming forward and assured him of God’s grace.

It was when the 70 percent began verbally attacking the 30 percent that Cartlidge knew she had to do something. The next day, she created a new Facebook group—Hillcrest Survivors—where people who’d had a negative experience at the school, herself among them, could speak freely and begin to process what had happened to them.

By fall 2022, Cartlidge’s Facebook group had 236 members. Perhaps more significantly, it had launched a nine-member steering committee that has started lobbying Hillcrest leadership for a professional, independent investigation of several decades worth of sexual, physical, and religious abuse allegations. . ..

Earlier that year, the editors explored The uncomfortable truth about Hillcrest: How missionary work can create the conditions for child abuse to thrive unchecked.

In August 2022, Christianity Today's Rebecca Hopkins reported in Mission Schools Sexual Abuse Suit Dismissed on Technicality:

North Carolina judge has dismissed a lawsuit alleging a missionary agency was responsible for abuse at a boarding school in Nigeria, ruling the statute of limitations in Nigeria prevents him from hearing the case.

“It was a gut punch—building yourself up for things, hoping, hoping, hoping, then having the rug pulled out from under you at the very last moment,” plaintiff Daniel Robinson, the son of Canadian missionaries, told CT.

The suit against SIM—formerly known as Soudan Interior Mission, Sudan Interior Mission, and Society for International Ministries—claims that seven employees at two schools in Jos and Miango, Nigeria, sexually abused children as young as five. The abuse reportedly went on from 1962 to 1981. . . .

[ Daniel Robinson] believed for a long time that he was one of only a couple of people who suffered abuse at Hillcrest School until he found a Facebook group called Hillcrest Survivors. It currently has 227 members.

“I would like to make personally sure that none of the things that ever happened to me and my fellow victims can ever happen to anybody ever again,” Robinson said.

The people accused of abuse include James McDowell, a principal of the Hillcrest school who reportedly confessed last year to “molesting two students.” The official Hillcrest School Facebook group posted a letter from the school quoting the confession in April 2021. McDowell did not return an email from CT seeking comment.

Others named in the lawsuit include a dorm supervisor, dining hall employee, and four more employees. Some of them have passed away. CT was unable to reach the others.

The suit tells stories of abusers sexually assaulting children in the dorms, in cars, and in bathrooms. Survivors say they were given alcohol in some cases, and in others they were told the authorities were just “inspecting” their private parts after showers. . . .

Here's the Press Release From the Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee 2 - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests:

Investigation into boarding school abuse is set

Church agencies reach funding deal with survivors

Both liberal and evangelical Protestant groups are involved

Survivors set precedent, command seat at the table

For almost four years, dozens of adults have lobbied over 15 church agencies to investigate the sexual, physical, racial, psychological and spiritual abuse they say they suffered as kids at a Christian boarding school in Africa.

Now, finally, their efforts seem to be paying off. Eight religious groups that sent missionaries to Hillcrest have agreed to fund and cooperate with an independent probe into the alleged abuse at the school from its founding in 1942 until the present.

"This hard-won commitment means that decades of crimes and cover ups by church staff, volunteers and supervisors will be fully and finally examined and exposed - not by biased church insiders but by credible outside investigators," said Letta Cartlidge of Colorado, who was abused at the facility in the ’80s and early ’90s. "It's been a very long, tough road but now, we have real hope that the horrors so many of us endured will be brought to the surface."

While there are no official estimates of the number of youngsters who were violated over the past eight decades at Hillcrest, the Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee (HSSC) surmises there could be many hundreds of victims. Although the school was founded to teach children of missionaries, over the decades more than 6,000 children have attended Hillcrest from over 40 different countries around the world. The HSSC has taken dozens of reports from people who say they were hurt at the school, some of whom are as old as 80. And the committee has identified about 50 credibly accused perpetrators of abuse there.

"Those of us who were victimized and are still suffering should never have had to fight so long and hard for this simple, long-overdue step forward," said Nathan Mueller of South Dakota, who attended the facility in the late ’70s. "But I'm confident that this investigation will shed sorely-needed light on long-buried abuse and deter other church officials from ignoring or concealing crimes against kids in the future."

"Survivors of Hillcrest need and deserve comfort, closure, healing and validation," said Dale Gilliland of California, who was abused at the boarding school in the ’60s. "Nothing these mission bodies can do now can give us back our innocence and our childhoods. But they can - and should - investigate, publicize this widespread wrongdoing and compensate those of us who have been so egregiously hurt."

HSSC members have been at the center of writing the proposal for the investigation, selecting the independent investigator and negotiating the final contracts between the missions and the school with Victor Vieth of the Minnesota-based non-profit Zero Abuse Project.

The HSSC has also chosen as their advocate Grace Stewart with Accord, LLC, a firm based in West Virginia. Stewart will be available throughout the investigation to help victim-survivors navigate their pain, supplying resources and support.The missions will pay for her services.

"We're very disappointed these groups refused to join in supporting the investigation. At Hillcrest we were told we were a family. In fact, off campus, we called our teachers and administrators 'Uncle' and 'Auntie.' Today we hear a different story from the missions, 'None of OUR kids were hurt so no need for us to be involved.' To that I say, we are ALL your children," says Cartlidge. "We hope that good Christians across the US, Canada, and Europe, especially those who donate to these organizations, speak to their leaders and press them to embrace the survivors of Hillcrest who were violated at the hands of their very own missionaries. We say to you, do as the Good Samaritan, be compelled by compassion and bind up our trauma so that through truth and justice we may find healing."

The HSCC expects the actual investigation to begin December 2, 2024.

Hillcrest Survivors Steering Committee

*Letta Cartlidge, President
[email protected]
303.505.9141
Denver, CO

Nathan Mueller, Vice
605.237.2108
Marvin, SD

Hillcrest School
Dele Alabi, Superintendent
[email protected]
WhatsApp number: +234 803 472 0174
Jos, Nigeria

John Brown, Chairman of the Hillcrest Board of Governors
Jos, Nigeria
[email protected]

MISSIONS WHO SIGNED

North American Baptists Conference NAB
Harry Kelm, Executive Director
Roseville, CA
[email protected]
916.783.1524

Pioneers UK
Stephen Carling, Director
+44 (0) 1302 710 750 Mobile, +44 (0) 7533 062 584
[email protected]

Graeme Simpson, Deputy Director
[email protected]
Doncaster, UK
01302 710 750

Global Resonate Mission (Christian Reform Church CRC)
Kevin deRaaf, Director
[email protected]
(905) 336-2920
Burlington, ON. Canada

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America ELCA
Khader El-Yateem, Executive Director of ELCA Service & Justice
Chicago, IL

Church of the Brethren Mission
David Steele, General Secretary
[email protected]
Elgin, IL

Evangelical Missionary Church of Canada EMCC
John Cressman, President
Kitchener, ON Canada

SIM Nigeria
Tom Jessurun, Director
[email protected]

General Board of Global Ministries of the United Methodist Church UMC
Roland Fernandes, General Secretary
Atlanta, GA

MISSIONS WHO DID NOT SIGN

*Southern Baptist Convention SBC
Paul Chitwood, President of the International Mission Board IMB
804.353.0151
Richmond, VA

Somer Novak
Director of Abuse Prevention and Response Administration of the IMB,
[email protected]
m.804.219.1261 | c.804.814.0790

*Lutheran Church of the Missouri Synod LCMS
Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, President
[email protected]
Staff switchboard: 800-248-1930
St. Louis, MO

*SIM USA
Randy Fairman, Director
[email protected]
704.588.4300
Charlotte, NC

*SIM International
Phil Bauman, Director
803.802.7300
Fort Mill, SC

*SIM Australia
Malcolm Watts, National Director
Tel: +61 2 9580 1422
1300 746 580 / 02 9580 1422
Penhurst NSW 2222, Australia

Wycliffe Bible Translators
John Chiu, Executive Advisor
407.852.3600 : main office
Orlando, Florida

Summer Institute of Linguistics SIL
John Chiu, Director of Human Resources Responses
[email protected]
972.708.7400 : main office Dallas, TX

Mission Afrika (Danish Lutheran)
Daniel Toft Jakobsen, Secretary General
[email protected]
+45 8672 5050
Viaduktvej 5a, 8260 Viby J, Denmark

Assemblies of God AG World Missions
Kevin Donaldson, COO of AG World Missions
[email protected]
417-862-2781
417-862-3420
Springfield, MO

Investigative agency: https://ZeroAbuseProject.org/

Advocacy agency: https://www.accord.llc/

Bluestem hopes all religious groups agree to fund a probe into the allegations.

Photo: The grounds at Hillcrest, a boarding school in Jos, Nigeria (Photo courtesy of the Hillcrest Survivors steering committee/ Via Christianity Century).

If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6

 

Processing wild game still a challenge for South Dakota hunters

In the past, I've posted about the need to develop local meat processing capacity for Minnesota farmers. 

Another dimension of the shortage of this skilled labor and facilities is game processing.

In the article republished below, South Dakota News Watch's Bart Pfankuch take a look at this issue.

Processing wild game still a challenge for South Dakota hunters
by Bart Pfankuch, South Dakota Newswatch

PIEDMONT, S.D. – Earlier this year, well before big-game hunting season began in South Dakota, Josh Clark invested time and money into expanding his wild-game processing capabilities to take advantage of high demand for the service.

As the number of commercial and self-employed meat cutters willing to process wild game in South Dakota has dwindled, Clark saw an opportunity in 2024 to profit off the trend at Cutting Edge Meat Market in Piedmont, where he is the manager.

Prior to hunting season, he added another skinning station, expanded capacity to hang and move animals and created more refrigeration space. He also did some summer advertising to let hunters know he is still taking in deer, elk and other large animal carcasses for full-service processing into steak, burgers and sausages.

“I don’t know if it’s just the lack of processors still out there, but we're up 30% to 40% over last year in terms of animal drop-offs,” Clark told News Watch last week. “We’re slammed right now.”

Clark said he recently contacted several other West River meat shops and found that no one he spoke to is taking in whole deer or other game for processing.

Butchers who still take full deer carcasses said other processors who no longer take wild game or require it to be deboned first may be facing worker shortages, have higher expenses that cut into profitability or simply do not want the hassle of dealing with wild game processing that often occurs one customer with one animal at a time and creates a mad rush of business each fall.

The month of November – the heart of the deer hunting season in South Dakota – is always busy for butchers who process wild game, as hunters bring in tens of thousands of deer and antelope shot with rifles or bow and arrow. In 2023, South Dakota hunters killed about 49,000 deer, roughly 2,800 antelope and 114 elk, according to the state.

Clark said prior News Watch coverage of the processor shortage generated even more business for him, including from Custer State Park, where officials shipped him some buffaloes for processing after culling park animals after the annual Buffalo Roundup.

South Dakota butchers exiting wild game market

Some butcher shops have closed or shifted focus away from wild game, while others no longer take any game animals, and a few will only process wild meat that is already skinned and deboned by the customer.

Whereas commercial livestock producers schedule delivery of animals to be slaughtered and butchered during normal work hours and with several animals at once, big game hunters usually arrive at butcher shops with one or two animals at whatever time of day they happen to make a kill.

Paul Sorum, co-owner of Renner Corner Meats, about 10 miles north of Sioux Falls, said his shop usually processes about 1,000 deer and other big-game carcasses a year. Sorum said he feels a strong commitment to helping hunters have a place to take full carcasses. But he also wants to continue taking whole animals as a way to maintain the South Dakota hunting economy and to uphold conservation goals.

“If it weren’t for the hunters, we’d have an overabundance of deer that are not easy on crops, not to mention the damage they do to vehicles (when struck),” he said.

The shortage of wild-game processors has been a boon to Sorum’s bottom line in the fall. He’s now taking in a lot of deer from western Minnesota and has had elk, moose, caribou, bear and antelope shipped in from other states for processing in Renner.

One concern is that if hunters who lack the skills or equipment to skin, quarter and debone carcasses on their own can't find a processor willing to take a whole carcass, the animals could be dumped in the garbage or left to rot in the field. Some hunters may choose to give up hunting if they know in advance they won't be able to get a full animal carcass processed.

“The deer hunters, they need a place to take their animals to be processed correctly and to know they’re going to get a great product, so we still provide that service because there’s not that many of us out there,” Sorum said. “It’s a busy time, and it’s difficult work, but I have a great staff and we get through it.”

Hunters can donate animals to charity

Hunters who want to donate the meat from a deer or antelope to charitable food pantries across the state can work with South Dakota Sportsmen Against Hunger.  Under the program, hunters with animals can contact one of roughly two dozen butchers in South Dakota and drop off an animal carcass or deboned meat for full processing. In most cases, the participating butcher shops assume the cost of processing female animals, while donating a buck typically results in the hunter paying the processing fee.

Some of the butchers enrolled in the program require that the animal be skinned and deboned before being dropped off for processing, and the program does nothing to help hunters who want to eat the wild game meat from animals they have killed.

The wild game processing industry is not overseen or regulated by the state Game, Fish & Parks Department, which manages state hunting seasons, though butcher shops are subject to regular inspection by state and federal regulators. GFP spokesman Nick Harrington sent an email to News Watch in 2023 saying the department "is currently not seeing a lack of game processors acting as a barrier to hunters participating in the sport."

"Conversely, applications for many big game seasons including deer and elk are either holding steady or gradually rising each year," Harrington wrote. "There are some big-game hunters who utilize processors, while others process themselves. This is each individual hunter’s choice and personal preference."

Home-based butchers help fill the need

The commercial butcher shops that handle wild game have long been bolstered by a network of small, home-based meat processors who take animals killed in the fall. However, those processors are also dropping out of the industry or slowing down due to age, increasing volumes or burnout.

But some home-based butchers continue to provide the service of processing wild game from carcass to usable meat portions wrapped in butcher paper, though they often can only be found through word-of-mouth connections.

Rex Roseland and his wife, Cheryl, have processed wild game at their home north of Rapid City for decades, but they've seen demand for processing rise in recent years.

“When you get swamped, it just takes time to get caught up,” Rex Roseland told News Watch in 2023. “We get a lot of people from previous years, and they keep coming back. But every year it seems like we pick up more people.”

Cheryl Roseland said they enjoy the work and want to help hunters out, but it’s getting harder to handle the increasing flow of animals being brought in.

“We’ve heard from people who are saying, ‘Help us because we can’t find anyplace that will take it,’” she said. “But the thing is, while we can do it, do we have room to add another animal? We will take overflow when we can, but we’re overflowing ourselves out here.”

This story was produced by South Dakota News Watch, an independent, nonprofit news organization. Read more in-depth stories at sdnewswatch.org and sign up for an email every few days to get stories as soon as they're published. Contact Bart Pfankuch at [email protected].

Photo:  Skinned deer carcasses hang in a cooler at Cutting Edge Meat Market in Piedmont, S.D., in November 2023, one of the few remaining butcher shops in the Black Hills that still takes whole deer and other big game for processing. (Photo: Bart Pfankuch / South Dakota News Watch).

This article is republished under a Creative Commons license.

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Commentary: SD Governor Kristi Noem rides back to D.C., possibly eyeing a bigger prize

Sharp commentary from veteran South Dakota newsman Kevin Woster.

Via the South Dakota Searchlight.

Noem rides back to D.C., possibly eyeing a bigger prize
by Kevin Woster

ome obvious questions come to mind in considering Gov. Kristi Noem’s selection to lead the Department of Homeland Security in Donald Trump’s next administration.

Will the ghost of Cricket — the 14-month old German wirehaired pointer Noem shot and killed in an apparent fit of anger over the dog’s behavior — haunt her confirmation process? And will the hapless goat she blasted on the same day she executed Cricket bleat its way into the discussion?

Will Noem’s nomination be troubled by her questionable leadership during flooding last spring at McCook Lake in southeast South Dakota? The Federal Emergency Management Agency is part of Homeland Security, after all. And during the emergency at McCook Lake, Noem managed things by hustling back and forth between South Dakota and national political events in other states.

A former two-term state legislator and four-term member of the U.S. House, Noem seemed to be on a reasonably conservative road to some House leadership spot when she decided to run for governor. After making history as South Dakota’s first female governor, she is halfway through her second term and seems to be on her way to a cabinet-level position that she claims was the one she really wanted.

Who knows? Maybe that’s true. In the last couple of years she has seemed obsessed with what she relentlessly called the “war zone” at the southern border, and she expressed it in Trump-like rhetoric that the supreme leader of her party surely loved and encouraged.

She went to the border. She flew above it in a helicopter. She rode on it in an air boat. She sent Army National Guard soldiers multiple times there to assist in security and border-wall work. And wearing jeans, boots, a work shirt with rolled-up sleeves and a hard hat, she helped Guard members erect some barrier sections herself.

Could she have done all of that with the Homeland Security job in mind? Could she have been that crafty and strategic, possibly with guidance from advisers like Corey Lewandowski? Could she have even made her designs on the Homeland Security job clear to Trump months ago, and reached some quiet understanding?

Or was it just a happy coincidence for Noem that all of that posturing and hyperbolic rhetoric about the border put her in the perfect position for what now seems to be her dream job — as opposed, it seems, to the one South Dakota voters gave her.

When it comes to politics, I never sell Noem short. As for running a 260,000-employee, multi-agency department with a mind-numbing assortment of challenges and life-and-death security duties? Well, I’m not sure about that.

But I am pretty sure that if she gets confirmed, we’ll see her in a video clip on horseback along the southern border by summer.

Photo: South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem visits National Guard troops in May 2024 on the Texas border with Mexico. (Courtesy of the Governor’s Office).

This South Dakota Searchlight commentary is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. 

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If you appreciate Bluestem Prairie, you can mail contributions (payable to Sally Jo Sorensen, 600 Maple Street, Summit SD 57266) or use the paypal button in the upper right hand corner of this post. 

Or you can contribute via this link to paypal; use email [email protected] as recipient.

I'm on Venmo for those who prefer to use this service: @Sally-Sorensen-6