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I just heard on NPR SDPB-Radio that the US Corps of Engineers has stated that the current Dakota Access pipeline route under the Missouri is unsatisfactory and are apparently pushing for a new safer route.
Whatever happens, water drinkers from the ND-SD border to Louisiana owe a debt of gratitude to the Native Americans and others who took a stand in favor of clean water...no matter what their reasons or excuses.
***Stay tuned for more on this as it becomes available--- Doug Wiken
Yesterday, Dakota Today received a comment from Sandra Pyper asking for the name of the big spider in a 2011 Dakota Today post. I contacted SD Extension area office in Winner and they contacted their entomology specialist in Pierre. Today I received e-mail from Amanda Bachman, Phd with the name and info on the big spider. You can view her response and the original post at link below. Thanks to the Extension service for prompt response and information.
Big Spider and SD Garden Line Dakota Today August 2011.
Also, Bachman provided this link to more info on the spider.
*** Stay tuned and note the big bad spider is less dangerous than a tiny mosquito carrying West Nile Disease-- Doug Wiken
The Tuesday, July 7, 2015 Rapid City Journal has an AP story titled "Keystone hearing won't affect ruling" with info from Bob Mercer.
If that is the case, what was the purpose of the meeting? PUC Chairman Chris Nelson says the hearing will help commissioners formulate questions during the pipeline process. Apparently this will be followed with an "evidentiary hearing" and the final decision will only depend on testimony and evidence presented at that hearing.
The SD PUC appears to be complicit in dog and pony shows designed primarily to give the impression if not the reality that they give a rat's ass about the public interest. The commissioners should be held personally responsible if they approve a pipeline with pipe made in India and designs only made to specifications perhaps 90% leak free. That just is not good enough when these pipelines cross rivers and aquifers critical to drinking water resources in South Dakota.
The South Dakota Governor's office and the legislature have resisted taxing these pipelines to build up an environmental protection plan. This strikes me as severe, serious dereliction of duty.
With all the newspaper and TV ads Trans-Canada has been dumping into SD ostensibly to influence the easily influenced, but more likely to buy the silence of SD mass media, I was frankly surprised to see even the rather limp news story on the irrelevance of the SD PUC public input hearing in a SD newspaper.
Canada's Trans-Canada outfit was interviewed by Bloomberg News and stated that the primary purpose of the XL pipeline was to get a "glut of crude" out of the midwest so that fuel prices could be increased 10 to 15 cents per gallon. That does not suggest that the XL pipeline is in the interests of the US or South Dakota residents. The enormous tax benefits claimed in the pre-hearing hype has not turned up with other pipelines in reality. Also, the enormous energy demands of the pipeline are likely to increase electric costs for all homeowners in this region. We have already had electric rate increases in most of South Dakota. We really don't need more rate increases because of a pipeline that is not in the US interest.
County commissioners have been wined and dined and requested to send letters of support to the PUC and elsewhere to indicate their support for the pipeline. I am not at all convinced that is a legitimate function of county commissioners especially when none of them seem to have the faintest idea of the potential economic and environmental disaster possible with these pipelines or any engineering experience or education themselves. Their willingness to ignore actual constituent opinion and pander to a very special non-US special interest is very discouraging.
South Central South Dakota has really good drinking water and perhaps not a whole lot else that is really, really good. This resource should not be ignored or under-estimated.
***Stay tuned but don't wait until "Don't drink the water." becomes the local mantra---Doug Wiken
I heard a meadowlark this morning. I think that is the first for this year. Some years they get here at a good time for weather even if it is a bit chilly this year.
But about 30 years ago, meadowlarks flew in and either that night or the next night we
were blasted with an ice storm that coated everything and every inch of ground with a rockhard inch of ice. When that ice started melting, we saw the bright yellow feathers of meadowlarks sticking out of the snow in dozens of places.
*** Stay tuned...maybe a spring photo will be coming soon here--- Doug Wiken
Some trees in the Winner area have already lost all leaves. Most are hanging on however and the colors may become intense if an early frost doesn't turn the leaves all brown. I took a picture of foliage along the highway on the west edge of Winner.
Click on image for a larger version. I guess I should get a few pictures of the flowers that are still vivid on some home yards. Some people have a lot of patience and they make the place a bit prettier and more liveable.
Sounds like the trial transplanted from Pierre might be winding down. Media cars, vans, and Hughes County vehicles were still sitting around the courthouse around 5:30 PM today, but according to KELO, the jury had been trying to make a decision for about 3 hours by then.
*** Stay tuned and enjoy the fall colors before they disappear on the ground--- Doug Wiken
Bill Moyers finds some interesting people. Below is a brief partial summary of a recent show. The full transcript is available at the site.
As world leaders converge for the UN’s global summit on climate and thousands gather in New York for the People’s Climate March, Bill talks to 18-year-old Oregonian Kelsey Juliana, who is walking across America to draw attention to global warming.
Kelsey Juliana comes by her activism naturally – her parents met in the 1990’s while fighting the logging industry’s destruction of old growth forests and she attended her first protest when she was two months old.
Now just out of high school, she’s co-plaintiff in a major lawsuit being spearheaded by Our Children’s Trust that could force the state of Oregon to take a more aggressive stance against the carbon emissions warming the earth and destroying the environment. She’s walking across America as part of the Great March for Climate Action, due to arrive in Washington, DC, on November 1.
More information and photos at Bill Moyers--Climate Change the Next Generation
I doubt there are many other 18-year-old girls (or boys for that matter) that convey such an articulate, informed stature. She makes a very good presentation and case for "climate justice". If you did not see it, take time to read the transcript or watch it online. I think you will be surprised.
We should all be glad that some parents and some educators can still turnout kids that help renew faith in the current younger generation.
And, sort of related to the urgency of the above related to climate change, this afternoon, SDPB-TV ran a show on the extinction of the passenger pigeon. In less than 28 years, millions (or billions) of passenger pigeons were gone. The movie is titled "From Billions to One." This is a cautionary tale. Bison approached such a near extinction, but were saved. Now, there is an attempt to regenerate passenger pigeons from their DNA.
Our continued use of fossil fuels and failure to develope solar and wind energy resources have the potential to make humans and all other mammal life extinct in the world. Some scientists, both theoretical and boots on the ground, are claiming that we might be in an irreversible decline if governments do not act very soon.
A few links follow: NASA-Funded study--Industrial society headed for irreversible collapse? Another link with comment on same study
The nub of the idea:
The report stressed, however, that the worst-case scenario of collapse is not inevitable, and called on action now from the so-called real world “Elites” to restore economic balance.
“Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion,” the scientists said.
It is time we all realized that it is not a fairy tale that the sky may really be falling. The climate change deniers and the fundamentalist religious assumption that only God influences climate are dangerous to our species very existence. Some of the US established religions are demonstrating concern however. Faith Groups and Climate A Pastoral Message on Climate Change.
***Stay tuned, but beware retrograde partisans ignorant of science and/or pandering to the fossil-fuels industries (Such as Thune, Rounds, & Noem-- Doug Wiken
The Mitchell Daily Republic today had a story on advanced Lyme Disease which was scary. More on that later.
There was also an interesting comment on candidate Rounds in the somewhat silly "Hisses and Cheers" editorial. The "hiss" for Rounds involved Rounds inane silly claim that he would try to eliminate the US Department of Education when SD is third on the list of beneficiaries and eliminating such funding would be a disaster for SD finances and education. At least somebody besides bloggers is finally noticing and noting this problem with Rounds "common sense".
Below is the part of Hisses and Cheers critical of Rounds:
HISSES to former governor and current U.S. Senate candidate Mike Rounds for repeating, during his Friday night visit to Mitchell, his earlier call to abolish the U.S. Department of Education. The same day we printed his comments about that, we also printed a separate story revealing that South Dakota is third-most dependent among all states on federal government aid for K-12 education, receiving 16.4 percent of its K-12 budget from the feds. A man who governed a state so dependent on federal education money lacks the credibility to claim the federal government should have no role in K-12 education. Change and improve the Department of Education? Fine. But calls to abolish it strike us as unrealistic political pandering.
Source of above at MDR. Note MDR links disappear in a few days behind a pay window.
The story on advanced Lyme disease is scary for several reasons. It indicated the serious physical and emotional damage and pain a bite from a deer tick can generate. It also indicated that the arrogance of doctors who just know there can't be deer ticks in eastern South Dakota (even if there are deer all over) and thus an ailment can't be Lyme disease even if tests show it is. If no doctor believes such a test is valid, it is unlikely Lyme disease would ever be a diagnosis. Sort of self-fulfilling proof of absence even when the disease would be the correct diagnosis.
It is hard to read that story and not believe that a number of doctors should be sued for malpractice and dmages, but then I am neither a doctor nor a lawyer and don't even play either on TV. Source at MDR Note, this will turn into a dead link in a few days. Worth reading while it is available.
Right now, the Opinion pages of the MDR are unavailable. I will check tomorrow to see if a link to the comment is available. Here is CDC page on Lyme Disease.
*** Stay tuned and beware the ticks and mosquitoes,,,and political weasels--Doug Wiken
I heard an agronomist talking today on SDPB-Radio and he noted that when Lilacs bloom, soil temperature has reached 55F degrees. The lilacs just bloomed a day or two ago here in Winner, SD and had bloomed a week or two ago in Rapid City, SD.
And a memory from High School (just the title however):
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed (text)
And another bit of spring is the arrival of ticks and mosquitos. I'd guess the cool and somewhat wet weather has been ideal for both those pests. A post last year here (Beware the Ticks) has been getting a few hits. The warnings are appropriate again. Some of the farm cats have had ticks on them and one found my neck for a few minutes yesterday.. they must be able to fly...or climb trees. West Nile, Lyme Disease, and Rocky Mountain Spotted fever can be very serious.
Today was a funeral day in Winner. Clyde Chambers was buried. He got West Nile disease from a mosquito bite a few years ago, and perhaps never completely recovered his energy; but cancer caught him. Regards to his family and may he rest in peace.
Weather was nice today with reasonable temperature and no 30mph winds. That makes is nice for mosquitos however and they are already a pest in the evening.
***Stay tuned and check yourself for ticks and swat the mosquitos--- Doug Wiken
This is coming to you from South Dakota where an unfortunately large percentage of our population think that "Rush Hour" refers to Rush Limbaugh. And where consultants from Denver used to refer to the rush hour in Pierre, SD as the 5-Minute Rush hour.
More seriously, many of you have probably read about kids from other states being graduated from college and then moving back to Mom and Dad's basement to survive on the low wages in relation to the high costs.
South Dakota has a couple of similar problems not exactly like that. Children of South Dakota families borrow a lot of money to get through college or university here and then move away for ever.
A new trend here in Winner, SD is hearing of the parents of the children retiring and then moving out of here to live in the community their children moved to years ago out of South Dakota.
Minimum wages, and farm programs that benefit very large farms, have reduced the population here from around 4,000 people to about 3,200. From 140 kids graduating from high school to something like 24. And with the ages of the rest of us still around here, Winner is disappearing 6 feet into the ground too.
Lots of relatively low-priced houses here not more than a few blocks from the hospital and clinics and no more than a mile to hardware stores and Shopko. Consider selling your expensive house in Sioux Falls and go west old man.
*** Stay tuned, hearing aids not usually needed here--- Doug Wiken
I am putting together a couple CDs worth of Freeware and some shareware software. On the way to finishing that, I got sidetracked into an application called PortableApps. This is a semi-automatic system for downloading portable programs that will run off a flashdrive or portable hard drive. These programs can run without making any changes to the host computer. E-mail and browsers are part of the package. Actually, you can make the package anything you want...with a few programs or dozens of them. I ended up with about 57 programs in a half dozen categories like utilities, office software, graphics, etc. I guess I may be a bit too easy to impress with something like this, but having practically every program you are likely to use on a device smaller than my little finger and having 16gb of storage for about $11 is amazing in relation to my first computer on which a 160mb hardrive cost $1200 and 5 in truly floppy drives were about the only way to move data around.
Also, I hope some of you enjoy the image above. it is the view from our farm looking off to the buttes northwest of here. It is also the first day of spring and appropriately, I heard the first Prairie Meadowlark of the season singing this morning.
** Stay tuned and listen for the waterfowl flying overhead and the happy meadowlarks.--- Doug Wiken
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