South Dakota families have always understood that healthy wetlands and working farms go hand in hand. Our wetland easements protect the prairie potholes that filter water, shelter wildlife, and support the hunting and fishing economy that thousands of families depend on. When those protections are weakened, we all pay the price — in degraded water, lost habitat, and a landscape that looks less and less like the South Dakota we grew up in.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is currently taking public comment on whether to replace its current science-based approach to drain tile setbacks near protected wetland easements with a simpler, uniform standard. Right now, FWS looks at actual soil conditions, slope, tile depth, and groundwater on each piece of land before deciding how close a drain tile can run to a protected wetland. That makes sense — South Dakota soils are not all the same. A blanket rule that ignores local conditions could allow drainage close enough to pull water out of easement wetlands that farmers and taxpayers already paid to protect. It would undermine the value of easements that landowners signed in good faith, and it would hand developers and large drainage operations a shortcut that harms everyone downstream.
I'm asking you to make our state's voice heard on this. Please contact the South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources and encourage them to submit formal comments to FWS supporting the current site-specific, science-based approach before the comment period closes. South Dakota's wetlands are worth defending, and our state agencies should say so loudly.
