This is the first in a series of stories by South Dakota News Watch on the status of South Dakota’s rivers. The effects described in this story are felt in Iowa but also throughout the Missouri-Mississippi River basin. Find additional stories, graphics, photographs and videos, at sdnewswatch.org. From a riverbank or roadside, South Dakota’s waterways appear placid and picturesque. The tree-lined Big Sioux River meanders smoothly and silently along the state’s eastern border. The mighty Missouri rolls below cliffs and ridges on a curvy path through the center of the state. Rapid Creek glistens with crystal clear water as it flows out of the Black Hills through Rapid City and onto the western prairie. But those impressive images don’t tell the unsettling true story of South Dakota’s rivers. A look beneath the surface reveals that from east to west and north to south, almost every waterway in the state serves as a dumping ground for human, agricultural and industrial wastes with dangerous consequences for human health. In a first-of-its-kind analysis, South Dakota News Watch reviewed more than 100 water permits and inspection reports, examined a dozen scientific studies and interviewed nearly three dozen people to investigate the quality of state rivers and identify threats. In a two-week, multi-part series, News Watch will outline the damage being done to state rivers, the sources of pollution and what can be done to turn the tide of contamination. The reporting showed that South Dakota waterways are under siege from the impacts of human activity. From urban runoff and litter, to municipal and industrial wastewater facilities that release millions of gallons of treated sewage and other chemicals into rivers each day, to agricultural operations that send nutrients and dangerous bacteria into waterways in large quantities, most South Dakota rivers are impaired due to pollution. In some cases they are simply unsafe. Examples of polluted waterways where human health may be at risk: • Whitewood Creek and the Belle Fourche River are awash in toxic arsenic. • The Cheyenne River is polluted by both uranium and mercury. • Rapid Creek and the Big Sioux River, according to new research, hold genetic markers for mutated forms of E.coli bacteria, known as shigatoxigenic E.coli, that can lead to bloody diarrhea, kidney failure and death, even from ingestion of a single drop of contaminated water. “The problem with all pollution is that it’s OK the first year, but over time, a few decades later, you say to yourself, ‘Maybe we should never have done this,’” said Dana Loseke, a retired dairy plant manager who is a leader in the Friends of the Big Sioux River advocacy group. “All pollution goes somewhere: it ends up somewhere.” RELATED: THE STORY OF NITROGEN: A TRIP DOWN THE MISSISSIPPI

ALMOST 50 MILLION GALLONS DUMPED DAILY In many cases, the destination for that pollution in South Dakota is the state’s rivers and streams. South Dakota News Watch reviewed permit and inspection data for South Dakota’s 20 most populous cities and found that 49.2 million gallons of treated wastewater are dumped into state rivers by those cities each day. That equals the capacity of 8,200 tanker trucks stretched out on Interstate 90 roughly from Sioux Falls to Kimball. State records indicate that millions of gallons are dumped daily along the full length of the Big Sioux River, into the James River from Huron to Mitchell, into the Missouri River from Mobridge to Yankton, and into Rapid Creek east of Rapid City. During the tourist season, even the mountain-fed stretch of Spring Creek below Hill City is subjected to 250,000 gallons of treated wastewater per day as it flows toward Sheridan Lake. Those discharges are separate from the millions of gallons of treated industrial wastes from industries such as meat processors in the east and a few industries in the west, such as Pete Lien and Sons gravel plant that dumps into the Cheyenne River near Oral. While most of the discharge water meets state pollution limits, it still contains small amounts of fecal coliform, ammonia, nitrates and other pollutants. In addition, wastewater treatment plants do not remove antibiotics in human waste, nor do they filter out household chemicals flushed down toilets or sinks or motor oil and other contaminants that flow into urban storm sewers. During times of heavy rains and high flows, South Dakota rivers can dilute pollutants, but during summer, winter and droughts, “there are times when a significant percentage of the water in the river is discharge water,” said Jay Gilbertson, head of the East Dakota Water Development District. In the east, the main causes of pollution are urban development, nutrient runoff from row crops such as corn and soybeans, and wastewater from industries including pork, turkey and beef processors but also cheese plants and metal fabricators. In the west, the common culprits are rural septic systems, sediment runoff from ranches, and extensive historic, ongoing or proposed future mining for gold and uranium in the Black Hills. The state’s massive agriculture industry is a major economic driver but also a big contributor to river pollution. The number of concentrated animal feeding operations continues to rise in South Dakota, with more than 440 CAFOs now permitted to raise 10 million pigs, hogs and fowl each year. Drainage tiling is expanding farmable acres in the state and often directs rainwater and nutrients toward waterways. Many farmers and ranchers are working to reduce runoff and pollution, but almost all efforts to encourage low-impact agriculture or urban development in South Dakota are not required, relying instead on voluntary or incentivized participation that has shown modest results at best. Bart Pfankuch/South Dakota News Watch

INDUSTRY GROWTH HEIGHTENS POLLUTION CONCERNS Municipal and industrial wastewater treatment plants are regularly inspected, yet the state relies on self-reporting of pollutant levels and wastewater discharge data by permit holders. Failure to record or report data in a complete and timely manner is a frequent violation found during inspections, as are violations of limits on dumping of ammonia, E.coli bacteria, acidity level, nitrates and temperature of discharge water. Meanwhile, industry growth has led to heightened pollution and violations of wastewater quality standards are common. READ MORE: RIVERS AT RISK, BY SOUTH DAKOTA NEWS WATCH The South Dakota News Watch review uncovered numerous examples of industry problems, including: • The Valley Queen cheese plant in Milbank had 1,002 water quality violations from 2005-2008 and 151 more violations from 2008 to 2011. • In 2015, the Bel Brands cheese plant in Brookings drew violations from the city of Brookings after city employees were put at risk from potentially explosive levels of hydrogen sulfide released by the plant, which has had numerous other violations. • The Smithfield Foods pork plant in Sioux Falls was fined in 2011 after repeated discharge violations that included release of three times the allowable limit of ammonia. The plant also was blamed in part for a fish kill on the Big Sioux River in 2012. On Aug. 15 of this year, state regulators said the plant experienced a treatment system failure that discharged ammonia levels high enough to threaten fish in the Big Sioux. Those and other companies tend to improve processes after being flagged for violations by the state. However, the state testing process, which requires most industries to meet discharge limits of eight known pollutants, does not capture data on whether other industrial chemicals are entering the waterways. Major cities and industries typically have pre-treatment systems to remove toxic chemicals, but any that slip through are not be removed by subsequent wastewater treatment processes. Concerns over water quality in the Big Sioux River have escalated of late due to a plan by the Agropur cheese plant in Lake Norden to expand operations and begin dumping 2 million gallons of treated industrial wastewater into the Big Sioux River daily. Catastrophic pollution releases in South Dakota are rare and often heighten public awareness over pollution, such as after the 2010 wastewater treatment system failure in Sioux Falls that dumped 65.3 million gallons of raw and partially treated sewage into the Big Sioux River. Most river pollution in the state, however, comes in small doses from widely varying sources that add up over time.

The number of impaired waterways in South Dakota rose significantly from 2006 to 2016. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers a waterway “impaired” if it does not meet one or more of its “designated uses.” Those uses range from drinking water source to recreational use to wildlife propagation, navigation or irrigation.