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and water districts would have to begin paying for water under the corps' plan. They are the Randall Community Water District, the Aurora Brule Rural Water System, the B-Y Water District, and the cities of Springfield, Chamberlain, Oacoma and Mobridge.
• Attorney General Marty Jackley said the corps plan would violate federal laws that recognize states' rights to control water uses. He has said South Dakota will challenge the proposal in court if the corps goes ahead with the plan.
• "While it is neither just nor legal for the corps to demand that we receive permission to use water that naturally flows through our state, it borders on insult to demand that we pay for it," Jackley said in a letter he read at the hearing.

• However, Larry Janis, the corps official in charge of the project, said two federal laws require the corps to make contracts with those who use water for municipal and industrial and impose a fee for using the water. The corps is looking at a rule that would apply nationally, he said.
• "So we're just doing what the laws and the regulations require us to do," Janis said.
• The corps is taking written public comments on the proposal until Sept. 10. Daugaard asked the agency to extend the comment period another 60 days because South Dakota has to review reports on four reservoirs.
• Daugaard said the corps has no authority to charge fees for existing city and industrial uses of water because they use less than the natural flows through the river.
• In addition, South Dakota was promised extensive irrigation would be developed to offset the more than 500,000 acres of land that was flooded when the dams were built, but only 3 percent of that irrigation has actually been developed, the governor said.
• "To impose all reservoir operation and maintenance costs on upstream states along adds insult to that injury," Daugaard wrote.
• The three members of South Dakota's congressional delegation also urged the corps to drop its plan to charge for water drawn from the reservoirs. Sens. Tim Johnson and John Thune sent letters to the hearing, while Rep. Kristi Noem appeared at the meeting.
• "Our state has the right to that water. The fact that the corps would come in and try to charge us for that water is absurd," Noem said.
• Kevin Keckler, chairman of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, said Sioux tribes hold senior water rights to the Missouri River and oppose the corps plan to charge for water. The corps manages the water in the Missouri river but does not own it, he

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