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Dairy battle in southeastern SD might be over
• ALEXANDRIA, S.D. (AP) -- A drawn-out battle over a proposed large dairy operation in southeastern South Dakota might be over, with developers of the 7,000-head Hanson County Dairy project withdrawing a request for a state water permit.
• The decision comes about a month after a state circuit court judge ordered the county to cancel a zoning permit it had issued five years ago because of a lack of progress on the project.
• "It's been a miserable fight for the last year and a half," Stace Nelson, a state representative from Fulton who has been a leader of an opposition group that has fought the project both at the county and state levels, told the Argus Leader newspaper. "I'm ecstatic that the people of Hanson County have some closure on this."
• Calls to the Brookings home of dairy developer Michael Crinion were not answered Thursday.
• The state Water Management Board last year granted the proposed dairy a water permit, which the opposition group appealed in court. Circuit Judge Sean O'Brien overturned the board's decision last spring, saying the board did not adequately consider whether the underground aquifer in the area could supply the necessary 720,000 gallons of water daily for the dairy.
• The state board scheduled a new hearing on the permit rather than fight the judge's decision. That two-day hearing, which had been scheduled for next week in Pierre, will be canceled, said Eric Gronlund, a natural resources engineer with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
• Gronlund said the dairy project can reapply for a water permit if it chooses but opponents say they doubt that will happen.
• "(The dairy) is standing with no permits in hand," Shawn Tornow, a state representative from Sioux Falls and attorney for the opposition group, told The Daily Republic newspaper. "They would have to start from square one."
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Drought stable in SD, worsening in ND
• SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) -- Drought conditions have changed little in South Dakota over the week but have worsened in North Dakota.
• South Dakota still remains harder-hit, with the U.S. Drought Monitor map showing 68 percent of the state in severe, extreme and exceptional drought. That's down 1 percent from last week. The amount in the exceptional category remains at 5 per (Continued on page 38)
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