State lawmakers douse tribes’ hopes for water safety bill
By Talli Nauman
Native Sun News Today Contributing Editor
nativesunnews.today
PIERRE – Despite tribal officials’ appeals, the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee on February 21 squelched two bills by Lakota lawmakers that would have
increased native and public participation in water-use decisions.
HB 1239 would have required a state hearing on a temporary water permit application when a tribe or local government requested it.
HB 1240 would have assured that a hearing on a permanent water permit application be held in the affected area if a county or municipal authority requested it there.
The prime sponsor was
Rep. Peri Pourier, a Democrat from Pine Ridge Village, who was elected for the first time this year by voters in District 27.
“If we are to have meaningful safeguards, we must let the people have a hearing allowing due process,” Pourier stated in opening comments at the committee meeting. “It makes a mark toward transparency in the most vital resource that we have.”
Co-sponsors of the bill were Shawn Bordeaux, Steven D. McCleerey, Jamie Smith, and Kelly Sullivan.
State Rep. Peri Pourier (D) represents District 27 in the South Dakota Legislature.
Currently, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources has jurisdiction over water permits. The law does not require the DENR to hold a hearing on temporary water-use permit applications. Nor does it require that the agency conduct hearings in an affected area on permanent water-use permits.
Oglala Sioux Tribal President Julian Bear Runner said the bills would guard against abuses “for projects such as drilling or mining.” In a letter read to the committee by OST Water Resource Division veteran Reno Red Cloud, Bear Runner said: “Our environmental and cultural resource preservation concerns often do not match with the capital interests that require water. We as Lakota value and respect our water as one of our most important medicines, but it is also a living being in motion and sacred [possessing] powers to help sustain all life.”
Citing Constitutional treaty law, he added, “For too long, as a sovereign tribal nation far older than the state of South Dakota itself, we have been excluded in these types of processes for water permits.
“As well as too long we have been viewed by the state as the same status as a local government, and we continue to reject this lower status,” he stated.
Red Cloud submitted an Oglala Sioux Tribal Council resolution supporting both bills. Pourier submitted a Pennington County Board of Commissioners resolution supporting them.
Doug Crow Ghost, chairman of the
Great Plains Tribal Water Alliance Board of Directors, informed state lawmakers of “widespread support amongst the tribes in light of large-scale drilling and construction projects that are getting underway in South Dakota.”
The alliance advises and advocates on behalf of the 29 Missouri River watershed tribes. They are faced with foreign companies using temporary water permits for exploration drilling of gold and uranium.
Reminding legislators that South Dakota and the nine overlapping Indian reservations rely on tourism industry more than on mining industry, he said, “Something is wrong if foreign companies [proceed] without the local community that relies on tourism dollars to even be heard,” he said.
“As Native Americans, we want our voices to be heard,” he said. “This is particularly important to tribes, whose concerns have rarely been addressed.”
Contact Talli Nauman at talli.nauman@gmail.com
Copyright permission Native Sun News Today
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