Linda and Jimmy Krsnak have lost their court battle against the Brant Lake Sanitary District. The Chester-based CSA operators have been fighting the installation of a sewage lagoon within a quarter mile of their home and organic crops. Last spring, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources approved the Brant Lake Sanitary District's plans for a central sewer, including the treatment lagoon. The Krsnaks sued the DENR, saying the state had failed to follow statute, administrative rules, and internal manuals.
In May, the trial court quashed the Krsnaks' suit. Wednesday, the state Supreme Court affirmed that quashing. In its ruling on Krsnak v. DENR, our supremes said the DENR acted wholly within the discretion granted it by the Legislature.
The court said one statute cited by the Krsnaks doesn't apply because it addresses discharge of waste into groundwater; the Brant Lake sewer lagoon will discharge wastewater into Skunk Creek, which is surface water. Perhaps we ought to be a little alarmed at the notion that waste we dump into a creek won't end up in the groundwater, but damn it, Jim, I'm a blogger, not a hydrologist.
The Krsnaks lost on their administrative rule challenge because they tried make the DENR apply rules on individual septic systems to collective sewers. The Krsnaks also submitted what sounds like a bibliography but not the actual text they needed to place on the record for the court. (How much are we paying attorney Jay Leibel again?)
As for internal manuals, there don't appear to be any, at least not to which the court can hold the DENR. The Krsnaks cited two wastewater facility manuals, one from a regional group of which South Dakota is not a part. Both manuals have the word "Recommended" in the title, and neither has been codified in South Dakota law or rule.
Debate remains over whether a properly managed sewage lagoon will create odor or contaminate the Krsnaks' water supply and crops. Perhaps if the Krsnaks can demonstrate that such poop-pond proximity will impact their marketing and profitability, the Krsnaks can try a takings-clause challenge. But this legal challenge to the DENR has proved fruitless.
Sad and troublesome!
SD Regulatory agencies are set up to protect the influentials from tree-huggers. The XL pipeline should first have gone to an evironmental agency with real teeth and tools to actually measure pollution and prevent it.
The SD Supreme Court has also made rulings that protect liquor businesses from suits when the drunks they turn out on highways kill innocents.
The interests with the money get what they pay for. The rest of us get screwed.
The Legislature needs to address this and require the DENR to write meaningful and explicit rules.
All of us, not just the influencers, need protecting from the tree huggers and greenies crying chicken little.
South Dakota is a sewer: why worry now?
The amount of fecal matter in the broccoli you buy at Linns Dakotamart in Lead before you bowl would is making you insaner, Larry.
Right, rd: we're so lucky you got a new keyboard.
Btw: what antibiotics and poisons do your cattle spew on sacred tribal ground?
Thank you for the Chester news. I would have missed it otherwise.
ugggggg.......troubling indeed.