NORTH SIOUX CITY, S.D. – The City of North Sioux City says progress is being made in McCook Lake as we enter week #2 after flood waters from the Big Sioux River ran through the area.

According to a release on the city Facebook page, North Sioux City officials say they have hired Blue Bell LLC to help coordinate communication and crisis management during this recovery process.

A ‘no access order” remains in effect for the impacted areas of McCook Lake and the lake itself remains closed. Crews have completed a temporary roadway in the area to help bring in critical infrastructure that was damaged or wiped out in the flood waters.

Residents of Penrose Drive will soon have controlled access to the street as officials determine a safe way for residents to gain access to their homes.

Electric has also been restored to 5 homes on the north end of Penrose Drive, but gas to the area remains shut off.

Crews were working to provide temporary water to a handful of homes later Sunday evening. After water service is restored, the drinking water will be sampled and tested by City personnel. As a precautionary measure, water for cooking and drinking should be brought to a rolling boil for three minutes before being used from the time of restored service through Monday, July 8th.

Crews are continuing work on debris removal on Northshore Drive.  Gas is also being restored to some homes on the west stretch of Northshore and Dakota Valley Elementary School.  At this time, there are no updates on water and sewer access for Northshore Drive.

A structural engineer and city inspector has begun assessing structures to determine their condition/safety level and if/when homes could be accessed. All homes in the impact area plan to be evaluated by Tuesday, July 2nd.

South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks is working with North Sioux City Police to retrieve boats on McCook Lake. There will be an opportunity for residents to retrieve their boats tonight from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.

Only operational boats will be retrieved and those who need to retrieve their boats will need to bring two people, an empty boat trailer, a photo ID and a life jacket.

 

PIERRE, S.D. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) – A new law barring the production or sale of high-inducing, hemp-derived cannabis products takes effect today after a judge declined to block it.

A Pierre-based shop that sells those products, filed a lawsuit in June in U.S. District Court in South Dakota. The business claims the new law’s provisions are unconstitutional and in conflict with federal law.

The 2018 federal farm bill legalized the production and sale of industrial hemp and hemp-derived products, provided they contain less than 0.3% of the intoxicating compound delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, known as THC, by dry weight.

House Bill 1125 was signed into law in March by Gov. Kristi Noem and targeted five types of chemicals that appear at low levels in hemp plants. The chemicals can be synthesized and added in amounts large enough for hemp products to ape the intoxicating effects of the delta-9 THC found in marijuana.

Marijuana remains illegal at the federal level, even though it’s legal in some states and medical marijuana is legal in South Dakota.

A violation of the new law will be a class 2 misdemeanor, the state’s lowest-level criminal offense. Like most laws adopted by the Legislature, its effective date is today, July 1.

Products like gummies, vape pens and smokable hemp containing the chemicals targeted by the new law are widely available across South Dakota. They’re sold in gas stations, grocery and liquor stores and in specialty smoke shops like Hemp Quarters 605.

The company had asked U.S. District Judge Eric Schulte to issue a preliminary injunction to block the law from taking effect as the case plays out in court.

At a hearing on that injunction Thursday in Pierre, Hemp Quarters 605 representatives testified that hemp-derived products constitute more than two-thirds of their retail business.

They argue the state is violating the U.S. Constitution’s commerce clause by interfering with the sale of federally legal products across state lines. An injunction is appropriate, they said, because they will suffer irreparable harm – namely the potential closure of their business – when the law takes effect.

To earn a preliminary injunction, plaintiffs must first prove they’re likely to “prevail on the merits,” according to an opinion that Judge Schulte filed electronically on Saturday. If the plaintiff – the hemp store in this case – is able to hit that mark, a judge must then find that the plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm without an injunction. The judge must also consider the wider implications of an injunction on other “interested parties” – in this case, the state and those affected by the new law.

A preliminary injunction denial does not settle the lawsuit or guarantee a win for the state, represented in the case by Attorney General Marty Jackley’s office.

Judge Schulte wrote that Hemp Quarters’ arguments weren’t enough to earn an injunction, even if the law might cause its business irreparable harm.

The 2018 farm bill did not expressly prohibit states from enacting laws regulating the hemp trade. In fact, Schulte wrote, it did just the opposite, allowing states to impose “more stringent” regulations for hemp.

“The Legislature’s passage of HB 1125 falls squarely within the police powers traditionally reserved to states, as it is intended to promote the health and welfare of South Dakota’s citizens,” Schulte wrote.

Schulte cited a case challenging a Virginia law regulating hemp in which the judge came to a similar conclusion.

On the commerce clause question, Hemp Quarters had argued that a truck driver from Minnesota carrying federally legal hemp through South Dakota could be subject to state prosecution.

Schulte disagreed. He wrote that the law wouldn’t apply in such a scenario, because it doesn’t criminalize the possession of hemp products. It only bans their production or distribution.

The opinion also noted that the Hughes County state’s attorney has said it has no plans to immediately prosecute the owners of Hemp Quarters. The Attorney General’s Office has made no such promise, Schulte wrote, but lawyers for the state pointed out that “The South Dakota Attorney General’s Office does not typically prosecute misdemeanor offenses such as those contained within HB 1125.”

 

PIERRE, S.D. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight) – A U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shields emergency room doctors from prosecution under Idaho’s near-total abortion ban won’t have any immediate impact on South Dakota, according to Republican Attorney General Marty Jackley.

The court did not rule on the underlying arguments in the case, but rather remanded it back to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on a technicality.

“Because the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the case, there’s no impact on South Dakota law at this point,” said Tony Mangan, spokesperson for Jackley.

South Dakota, like Idaho, has a near-total ban on abortion. There is an exception that allows abortion to save the life of the mother, but lawmakers rejected an attempt to define “life of the mother” in 2023. Rep. Taylor Rehfeldt, R-Sioux Falls, had introduced a bill to offer clarity to medical providers on when the exception applies, but it was tabled in the face of opposition from anti-abortion lawmakers.

South Dakotans are set to vote on a ballot measure that would restore abortion rights in November’s general election, pending a legal challenge from anti-abortion activists seeking to disqualify the measure.

The Idaho case originated in 2022, soon after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which overturned Roe v. Wade and returned regulation of abortion procedures to the states.

The U.S. Department of Justice sued Idaho to block it from enforcing its abortion ban for emergency room physicians who might need to perform an abortion when a pregnant patient is at risk of infection or other potentially serious health problems.

The department argues that prosecuting physicians under those circumstances would violate the federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, or EMTALA, which requires Medicare-funded hospitals to treat patients who come to an emergency room regardless of their ability to pay.

This week, the high court ruled 6-3 that it had taken the case too early. A lower court judge had granted an injunction, blocking the Idaho abortion ban from taking effect. The Supreme Court dropped that injunction when it agreed to take the case, leaving doctors open to prosecution.

This week’s decision reinstated the lower court’s injunction, the merits of which will now be argued before the Ninth Circuit.

 

LEOLA, S.D. (SD NewsWatch) – The debate over counting votes by hand vs. machine is being fought out in McPherson County, on the state’s northeast edge bordering North Dakota, with a population of about 2,300.

On June 13, citizen hand-counting boards were formed in the county seat of Leola, South Dakota, to conduct a post-election audit of 100% of the ballots from the June 4 primary, which had been tallied by machine tabulators on election day.

The auditing boards, mostly composed of residents who support hand counts and question the accuracy and security of voting machines, encountered problems.

The hand count in two of the county’s four precincts did not match election day tallies, and board members of those precincts ended the audits before the count was reconciled, according to county officials.

South Dakota Canvassing, an electoral activist group that supports eliminating machine voting and tabulators, declared victory on social media, posting the tally sheets and stating that the “hand count results were correct and the machine errors are not explainable.”

McPherson County State’s Attorney Austin Hoffman filed a request for declaratory judgment June 20 to have the ballots unsealed so the counts could be reconciled, though none of the county or legislative races were close enough to be impacted.

A state circuit court judge allowed the re-audit to occur June 25. Board members from the non-affected precincts were asked to handle the counting.

That re-audit established that human error during the hand counting accounted for the earlier discrepancies, and that machine counts from the primary election were correct, according to County Auditor Lindley Howard, who provided the tally sheets and other documentation to News Watch.

Howard also noted that the hand counting took about 15 minutes per race, which in a general election with 13 or 14 races could have caused reporting lags even in McPherson County, the state’s 54th largest county.

“If anything, it reinforced my opinion that hand counting is not the way to go on election night if you’re looking for speed and accuracy,” said Howard, who is also a member of the State Board of Elections. “If you take the minutes per race and human errors and extrapolate that out to bigger counties, I feel like you’re going to see some problems.”

Howard is not alone in that conclusion.

According to a News Watch survey of county auditors conducted in March, nearly 90% of those who responded (43 of 49) answered “no” to the question of whether hand counting is an “effective and efficient method of tabulating ballots.”

Mike Klipfel, a hand-court supporter who served on one of the audit boards that got the wrong tally, acknowledged in a phone interview with News Watch that human error occurred. But he said better tally sheets and procedures were available and that Howard was not prepared for the pre-election audit.

“The fact of the matter is that our county auditor failed at what she was supposed to do that day,” said Klipfel, who also serves as chairman of the McPherson County Republican Party.

McPherson County, which gave Republican Donald Trump 81% of the vote in 2020, has seen plenty of recent tussles between government officials and citizen activists as South Dakota grapples with election security and voting reforms.

Howard has clashed with South Dakota Canvassing supporters on legislative and legal issues, including drop boxes, absentee voting, voter-roll records and machine counting of ballots.

“Basically (the activists) are saying, ‘I’m a Christian, so I believe in election integrity, and you don’t agree with me, so you are doing Satan’s work,’” she told News Watch in 2023. “I would say that causes a lot of stress.”

Hand counting has replaced the acquisition of cast-vote records as South Dakota Canvassing’s most pressing priority, with Minnehaha County Auditor Leah Anderson voicing support for lessening the state’s reliance on voting machines.

“If done properly with a good system in place and training ahead of time, (hand counting) can definitely be effective and efficient, especially in smaller counties,” Anderson told News Watch earlier this year.

South Dakota passed a law in 2023 requiring post-election audits using hand counts of randomly selected voting precincts. The law calls for an audit of at least 5% of precincts, but McPherson County consists of just four precincts.

In February, the county’s board of commissioners voted in favor of a hand-counted post-election audit of all ballots cast in the June 4 primary election.

Needing 20 citizens to fill out four audit boards of five members each, Howard chose people who had expressed interest in hand counting as an alternative to machines.

One of those was Klipfel, a Leola farmer who supported a petition for a public vote to eliminate voting machines in McPherson County for 2024. The county commission voted in April to reject the petition based on legal advice that the measure’s wording could violate federal voting laws.

“Every election cycle, we believe, is the most important election in our life,” Klipfel said at a District 23 Republican forum in May. “This one is no different.”

The initial pre-election audit was held June 13 at the McPherson County Courthouse and took two-and-a-half hours. Two of the precincts came out fine. The other two had problems.

One of the discrepancies involved Precinct 3, where 127 Republican ballots were received. That should have amounted to 254 total votes for District 23 House, since people could vote for two candidates and undercounts would still be tallied.

The hand count ended up with 253 total votes.

“It is not numerically possible to have 253 total votes tallied, including under votes, with 127 ballots,” Hoffman, the state’s attorney, wrote in his June 20 request to unseal the ballots for another audit.

Hoffman made it clear in his filing that the results of the District 23 legislative races “will not be affected by the results of a post-election recount.”

Mark Lapka defeated Steven Roseland by 523 votes in the Senate race, while Spencer Gosch and Scott Moore prevailed by more than 1,000 votes in the House race over incumbent James Wangsness.

But since the discrepancies in the audit weren’t reconciled, county officials didn’t want to send inaccurate final voting tallies to the secretary of state’s office.

“If election integrity is what’s being asked for, ensuring the post-election audit is done correctly is part of that,” said Hoffman.

Howard, the auditor, told News Watch that Klipfel “was adamant that they weren’t going to recount. He said that they were right and the machines were wrong and he got up from the table. We were kind of at a loss as far as, ‘What do we do now?’ Because he was done.”

Klipfel disputes that account, saying that Howard suggested running the ballots back through the machine and that he questioned if that would violate state law.

“I told her that I wasn’t going to be responsible for doing something that was not legal, and that was the end of it,” he said.

In Precinct 4, there were 135 Republican ballots cast in the primary. The audit board tallied 262 votes in the District 23 House race. But the total should have been 270, with Hoffman again stating that a result of 262 was “not numerically possible” with 135 ballots.

Howard and Hoffman theorized that the board was likely thrown off by the fact that the McPherson County Commission race was only listed on four ballots. The board counted those ballots first and tallied the Senate ballots that also included the county race before setting those four ballots aside.

But they neglected to reincorporate those four ballots while counting the House race, making them eight votes short (two House votes per ballot). That explained why they came up with 262 rather than 270.

The same audit board “did re-count the Republican ballots to attempt to reconcile the tally numbers for the State Representative race,” Hoffman wrote in his filing. “However, it is believed that the four ballots were again not included in this re-count and the tally again came out to 262.”

Serving on the Precinct 4 audit board was Jodi Waltman, secretary of the McPherson County Republicans, who had worked closely with South Dakota Canvassing and its advisor, Rick Weible, on the hand counting petition.

Following the audit, South Dakota Canvassing posted the hand tally on Facebook and the Telegram instant messaging service, adding that “the results prove the machine is NOT accurate and is in violation of (Election Assistance Commission) requirements. The allowable error rate is 1 in 500,000 ballot marks. This is clearly over that rate, which means the machines must be decertified and immediately and discontinued for us. DECERTIFY!”

That post no longer appeared on Facebook by the time the re-audit was conducted June 25, confirming that the machine count from the June 4 primary election was correct. Jessica Pollema of South Dakota Canvassing responded to a message from News Watch but refused to comment for this story.

County officials cited human error for the discrepancies that occurred during the original post-election audit for Precincts 3 and 4.

“The eight-vote discrepancy in the original audit of Precinct 4 was human error from four ballots that were not included in the House race count when the board conducted the audit,” Howard said, confirming earlier theories of what occurred.

Tod Gohl, a Leola native who has been vocal at McPherson County Commission meetings and on social media about getting rid of voting machines, told News Watch that the audit results did not change his mind.

Gohl and other election reformists view South Dakota as a proving ground for claims that recent elections across the county were substantially impacted by hacking or fraud, allegations repeatedly rejected by courts of law as well as Democratic and Republican election leaders.

As for Howard, she said she’s glad that the audit results were resolved, but she’s trying to be realistic about who learned lessons in the process.

“For the people who are true believers, if you will, I don’t think it will make much of a difference,” she said. “But I’m hoping that people who are on the outer edges of the movement might see things like this and think twice.”

 

IOWA Undated (Mark Moran/Iowa News Service) – Weather researchers at Iowa State University say a shifting climate and warmer ocean temperatures are partially responsible for a record number of tornadoes this spring.

More than 100 were reported in Iowa, in May alone.

Eleven hundred tornadoes were reported regionwide in May — from Texas to Minnesota, and from West Virginia to Georgia. That’s more than twice the 30 year average.

One of the fiercest killed five people and injured dozens in rural Greenfield, Iowa.

ISU Severe Weather Meteorologist and Professor of Meteorology William Gallus said extreme heat from a changing climate has increased ocean temperatures, and is one contributing factor to this year’s storms.

“Mexico and Texas were having record high temperatures,” said Gallus. “That was allowing the Gulf of Mexico to rapidly warm up, get much warmer than normal, which means that is our main source of energy.”

Gallus said the weather pattern known as El Nino — characterized by warmer ocean temperatures that prompt more precipitation and provide fuel for severe weather — is now shifting to La Nina, marked by cooler seas and drier weather.

That could cause the rest of the tornado season to be less active.

Gallus said the high number of tornadoes in the region was unusual, since climate change models predict Iowa and neighboring states west of the Mississippi should being seeing below average numbers, which they have in recent years.

“The long-term trend has been for tornadoes to be hitting more places east of the Mississippi River,” said Gallus.

Gallus said data show tornadoes occurring on fewer days each year, but coming in clusters and with greater intensity.

He says some storms that have been listed as Category F3 are probably F5’s, but measurement methods in some areas are not adequate to gauge the storms’ intensity.