Agency director updates board on water bills, data-center rules and leadership changes

At the March 4 South Dakota Water Management Board meeting, Mark Mayer, director of the Office of Water, briefed members on state legislative activity that could affect board duties and announced internal staffing changes.

Mayer said the department appointed Adam Mathwitz as acting chief engineer and that the office will work toward finalizing the appointment in the coming months. He also announced that board member Ron Duvall has submitted his resignation and will retire, with a last day of May 8.

On legislative matters, Mayer described House Bill 1103, introduced by Representative Bodenbach, which sought to remove the Greenhorn exception from state law; he said the measure passed committee but failed on the House floor after sustained local opposition and outreach. He identified Senate Bill 37 as the water omnibus measure that included funding for observation wells, telemetry data loggers and a proposed $500,000 appropriation for an updated wetland mapping tool to respond to federal jurisdictional changes following the Supreme Court decision referenced in the briefing.

Mayer also noted several data-center bills that touched the board's responsibilities; he flagged Senate Bill 135 as one that would require data centers to coordinate with local water providers and report water-source arrangements to the Water Management Board. He told members this provision could expand the board's role to consider reasonable water-consumption rates for the data-center industry, a matter the agency has not previously regulated for customers served by municipal or rural systems.

Mayer summarized two concurrent Senate concurrent resolutions: SCR 606 (initially drafted to direct the South Dakota Conservancy District to receive 500,000 acre-feet of future-use water rights) was amended to simply recognize the importance of the Missouri River and assert continued prioritization of appropriations; SCR 607 urged congressional action to authorize large regional rural water projects, including Western Dakota Regional and Dakota Mainstem projects.

Mayer characterized the May meeting as likely to be "pretty stacked up" with contested cases and encouraged members to be prepared. He also noted the department is pursuing pilot work on data loggers, intends to issue an RFP for observation-well work and is monitoring both committee and floor action on the referenced bills.

Quotes from the meeting include Mayer stating, "I'm pleased to let you know that we have appointed Adam Mathwitz as our acting chief engineer, and he's hit the ground running," and that the department has a pending $500,000 request for updated wetland mapping in the omnibus bill. Mayer said there were no formal inquiries from Colorado or Nebraska to withdraw Missouri River water, but noted ongoing rumors and regional interest in large transfer projects.

Next steps: The department will continue to monitor legislative action, prepare RFPs and pilot projects for telemetry and observation wells, and return to the board with staffing updates ahead of the May meeting.