PIERRE, S.D. – On Tuesday the South Dakota Law Enforcement Officers Standards and Training Commission unanimously voted to revoke the law enforcement certification of Mellette County Sheriff Mike Blom. The revocation is effective immediately for conduct unbecoming a law enforcement officer.
The Commission heard evidence which indicated that Blom had been in a romantic relationship with a woman who was on supervised probation for possession of methamphetamine. One of the conditions of her probation was that she not consume alcoholic beverages or enter establishments where alcohol was the primary item for sale.
The evidence also showed that Blom and the woman, along with another couple, went out to several bars in different towns on or about Nov. 11, 2023. Blom purchased alcohol for the woman, even though he knew it was a violation of her Court-ordered probation conditions. On the same night, the other couple became involved in an assault while Blom was driving his vehicle. Blom did not take appropriate action or report the assault to law enforcement.
When Blom was questioned about the night’s activities, he was dishonest with a South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation investigator.
The Commission’s action does not remove Blom from office, but does remove his law enforcement powers and authorities. He can appeal the Commission’s decision to a circuit court.
NEVADA, IA – The chair of the Federal Trade Commission will be in rural Iowa this weekend to hear from farmers and other residents about the proposed sale of Iowa Fertilizer to Koch Industries.
The sale is pending FTC approval. Iowa spent $500 million to build an Iowa Fertilizer factory in Weverly to create competition in an already consolidated industry.
Aaron Lehman, president of the Iowa Farmers Union, said he plans to tell FTC Chair Linda Khan a sale to Koch Industries would backtrack on any competitive progress the state has made.
“Our concern is that an industry that already lacks competition and has all sorts of monopoly problems would only get worse if this sale is allowed to go through,” Lehman explained.
Koch and other corporate ag conglomerates have said consolidating allows them to provide better products to farmers more efficiently. The hearing is set for Saturday on Main Street in Nevada.
In addition to reducing competition for fertilizer, Lehman argued the sale would increase prices for farmers, and ultimately mean higher food prices for Iowans. He wants Khan to hear stories firsthand, from the people on the ground in Nevada.
“We know that we might not be able to have a dialogue with the people who are investigating this situation, because they need to be impartial,” Lehman acknowledged. “But our farmers need to tell their story about how the industry is already in a monopoly state.”
Some 18 other ag organizations have joined the Iowa Farmers Union calling on the FTC and the Justice Department to investigate the proposed sale.
RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) – One of three people convicted of carjacking and kidnapping an FBI employee in South Dakota has been sentenced to 37 years in prison.
Juan Alvarez-Sorto, 25, was sentenced Friday in federal court according to the Rapid City Journal. Alvarez-Sorto and Deyvin Morales, 29, were found guilty in January. Alvarez-Sorto also was convicted of unlawfully entering the U.S. after being deported to his home country, El Salvador.
A third suspect, 29-year-old Karla Lopez-Gutierrez, pleaded guilty in August. Morales and Lopez-Gutierrez are both scheduled for sentencing April 26.
Prosecutors said the trio left Greeley, Colorado, on May 5, 2022, and were on a “drug trafficking trip” to South Dakota in a Ford Expedition. Nearly out of gas at the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, Morales told the others they needed to “take over” a new vehicle, Lopez-Gutierrez testified in January.
A short time later, the FBI employee speeding in his Dodge Durango saw the Expedition and pulled over, believing it was a tribal officer. Prosecutors said the suspects took the Durango at gunpoint and forced the victim to go along.
“I’m still haunted by the trauma you inflicted upon me,” the victim told Alvarez-Sorto at the sentencing hearing. He said Alvarez-Sorto threatened his family and held a gun to the back of his head as he was face-down in the Badlands.
When the group stopped to buy gas and zip ties in the town of Hermosa, South Dakota, the victim managed to escape.
Morales and Alvarez-Sorto were arrested in Greeley a week later. Lopez-Gutierrez was arrested in August 2022 in Loveland, Colorado.
Alvarez-Sorto’s attorney, Alecia Fuller, said his client was remorseful and noted that relatives had abused Alvarez-Sorto as a child.
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – The South Dakota State Fair will start a day earlier this year, increasing weeklong admission prices because of the additional day.
The fair, held in Huron at the end of August each year, will start on the Wednesday before Labor Day and end on Labor Day. The “necessary and beneficial” extra day will allow for expanded programming and more flexible scheduling, South Dakota State Fairgrounds Manager Peggy Besch told legislators at Monday’s Rules Review Committee meeting at the Capitol in Pierre.
Scheduling within a five-day week has become a “significant challenge,” Besch added.
“Open Class, 4-H and FFA exhibits, which are the backbone of our agricultural heritage, often find themselves squeezed into tight timeslots stretching from early morning well into evening,” Besch said. “This leaves little room for families to immerse themselves in the diverse array of experiences that the state fair has to offer.”
With the approval of the committee, weeklong admission to the fair for adults increased from $40 to $50, and weeklong admission for children between 6 and 15 years old increased from $20 to $25. Prepaid family value packs, which include four adult passes, increased from $130 to $160. Camper packages also increased by $30 for each package. The daily admission rate will not increase.
Besch said a one-day addition was “strongly endorsed” at a meeting during the 2023 state fair.
“The proposal to shift the official start day of the fair to Wednesday is not merely a logistical adjustment, but a strategic move to enhance the vitality and inclusivity of this cherished tradition,” Besch said.
There were no opponents to the additional day or the increase in admission costs.
A 2023 increase in daily admission costs was meant to support the increasing cost of running the fair, which sits on 190 acres and has more than 100 buildings. The committee rejected a proposed rule in 2022 to increase admission and camping fees, which were meant to offset rising costs.
Attendance at last year’s state fair was 178,246.
PINE RIDGE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – With decades of experience, Reno Red Cloud knows more than anyone about water on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. As climate change makes fire season on the reservation — which covers more than 2 million acres — more dangerous, he sees a growing need for water to fight those fires.
Red Cloud is the director of water resources for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and he recently received nearly $400,000 in federal funding to revive old wells that have been dormant for decades. He thinks the wells can produce over a million gallons of water a day. But there’s one catch: They have elevated levels of arsenic.
“We have to look at using these wells,” he said. “They are just sitting there. Instead of plugging them, like a Band-Aid, let’s utilize them for the future of drought mitigation.”
The Oglala Sioux’s water needs have doubled in recent years, with longer and hotter summers and, of course, drought. With more wildfires on the horizon, the water Red Cloud envisions could not only add to the quality of life for those on the reservation, but he sees this as a climate solution for reservations across the nation.
“We think other reservations could do the same,” he said.
Arsenic can’t be seen, smelled, or tasted. It is a natural element found in the upper parts of the Earth’s crust, and while a big dose of it is fatal, the more common issue is consumption of low levels of arsenic over long periods of time.
Jaymie Meliker, a professor at Stony Brook University in New York and an authority on arsenic in drinking water, said the water Red Cloud wants to use should be safe to use to fight fires.
“Nothing is really toxic,” he said. “One of the first things they teach you in toxicology is [that] it’s the dose that makes the poison.”
He said the concentration of arsenic in the soil is measured in parts per million while in the water it is measured in parts per billion. It’s “still a thousandfold as small as the levels that are already in the soil, back into the soil. I don’t see a big risk from that at all.”
The wells were installed in the 1970;s when the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development funded and developed them for home projects on reservation land. Back then, the acceptable level of arsenic in a water supply was 50 parts per billion, and then in 2001 the Environmental Health Agency changed it to 10 parts per billion. When that happened, the pumps were plugged up and there were no plans to use them.
Understandingly, some in the area are hesitant when they hear about arsenic. The water many drink on Pine Ridge is pumped in from the Missouri River (with it’s own pollution problems) but the reservation has many private wells with elevated levels of arsenic. Tribes throughout the U.S. are disproportionately affected by elevated levels of arsenic in their private wells, such as those on the Navajo Nation.
A paper outlining a two-year study on arsenic in drinking water among Indigenous communities in the Northern Plains confirmed that those populations have higher levels of arsenic in their water. Prolonged arsenic exposure can lead to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancers, and other serious health conditions.
The World Health Organization offers guidelines on the subject, saying, “Low-arsenic water can be used for drinking, cooking and irrigation purposes, whereas high-arsenic water can be used for other purposes such as bathing and washing clothes.”
A funding summary of the tribes project said there was speculation on if the water should be used for agriculture and livestock. So, even though Red Cloud is interested in potentially using this water for livestock and agriculture, there is still more research to be done to look at the viability of these wells for other uses.
Red Cloud helped write the 2020 Oglala Sioux’s Drought Adoption Plan. New water sources were the first solution to mitigate drought in that report. He hopes that other tribes look at their old wells on reservation lands to see if they can help mitigate drought — or if it’s better to just plug them up and let them sit.
“The bottom line is we’re looking to deal with extended drought and the increasing intensity of wildfires,” he said.
