Funding cut threat concerns water quality advocates

It’s an important program that produces real results, but it’s not worth keeping.

That was the message East Dakota Water Development District’s Jay Gilbertson took from a press release trumpeting the release of $2.5 million in funding for water quality projects in South Dakota.

The release came from the Environmental Protection Agency. The money came from the Section 319 program, which is designed to tackle “nonpoint” pollution – farm runoff, manure from pastures and the like.

It’s grant money South Dakota’s used for years to tackle pollution in the state’s public waters, two-thirds of which are too dirty for some combination of drinking, fishing, kayaking or swimming.

“Providing funds directly to South Dakota emphasizes the importance of partnering with states to help address their unique and critical environmental challenges,” said EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

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What the July 25 news didn’t mention was that two months before that, Pruitt’s agency proposed a budget that would zero out Section 319 funding in the next fiscal year.

“It struck me as a little disingenuous for the secretary to be lauding the benefits of a program the administration believes is unnecessary,” said Gilbertson, whose agency uses Section 319 funding for projects up and down the Big Sioux River.

The budget proposal is subject to Congressional approval, and there are signs the program will remain funded. The House’s budget proposal would restore $170 million in funding.

Each member of the state’s Congressional delegation – Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds and Rep. Kristi Noem – said this week they’d offer the program due consideration.

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Even so, Gilbertson’s not the only one troubled by the symbolism of a proposed budget that leaves no room for Section 319.

There are a handful of funding sources to help farmers pay for what are known as “Best Management Practices, or BMPs.

Those include planting buffer strips to capture runoff, installing fences and clean water sources to keep livestock and their waste out of rivers and streams and building barns with underground pits that trap waste and keep it from washing away and into water sources.

Section 319 funding pays for some of the project costs, but it also pays the salaries of the people who pitch the projects to farmers and monitor their success.

“If there’s nobody there to do the program, it just sits there,” Gilbertson said. “The 319 funding in South Dakota, to a certain extent, has been the glue that holds everything together.”

Barry Berg works for the East Dakota Water Development District.* He designed a program called S-RAM - Seasonal Riparian Area Management – that’s credited with heavy reductions in pollution along Skunk Creek.

Last year, the Big Sioux River-feeding creek north of Sioux Falls was de-listed for total suspended solids after years of impairment.

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Section 319 money’s not only paid for Berg and an assistant over the years, but contributed S-RAM payments to farmers for keeping livestock out of the creek.

The city of Sioux Falls matches contributions and uses state revolving fund money to help pay for the program upstream of the city, but total funding cut would be significant.

“It’s millions of dollars that we wouldn’t have,” Berg said.

A cut to the program would likely force the city of Sioux Falls to alter its approach to Big Sioux River cleanup, said Jesse Neyens of the Sioux Falls Environmental Division.

“We wouldn’t be able to accomplish all of the things we want to accomplish,” Neyens said.

Jim Feeney of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources can’t recall an EPA budget without any 319 money, but he has seen Congress increase funding after budgets that sought to cut payments.

The DENR uses the money to pay 60 percent of the salaries for the equivalent of 13 full-time employees who focus on water quality.

Feeney said the agency will continue to take applications for projects through the fall, evaluate them through the winter and wait if enough money’s awarded to keep working.

“All we can do is proceed with thinking we’re going to have 319 funding,” Feeney said.

*Correction, Aug. 5: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified Berg's employer