Water board approves Century Swine Pierre Shale permit despite petitioners' objections

The Water Management Board voted to approve water permit application 8982-3 for Century Swine on a motion to adopt the chief engineer's recommendation with standard qualifications, after a full evidentiary hearing on the hydrology of the Pierre Shale aquifer and local concerns about surface-water features.

The board’s acting chief engineer, Adam Mathiowetz, told the panel he had reviewed and adopted a technical report recommending approval with qualifications intended to reduce the risk of interference with existing domestic wells. Engineer Austin Secje, who prepared the technical review, testified that the application proposes to appropriate up to 30.68 acre-feet of groundwater annually from a single well completed into the Pierre Shale at a maximum pump rate of 0.11 cubic feet per second. "That there is available water," Secje said, describing his conclusion that available recharge at the scale of the formation makes the requested appropriation reasonably probable.

Petitioners and counsel challenged the technical record, emphasizing that Secje’s report contains no quantified recharge estimate for the local portion of the Pierre Shale and that there are no observation wells in the area the program can use as a baseline. "Recharge, in this case, is an x or a question mark," the Questioner argued in closing, urging the board to deny the permit absent a numerical recharge estimate and monitoring in place to detect unlawful impairment.

Board members heard that the Pierre Shale is commonly described as a low-transmissivity confining unit; Secje testified the formational heterogeneity and lack of site-specific studies made a precise recharge calculation impracticable with available information. He said the hydrologic budget compared existing withdrawals (approximately 272 acre-feet per year for the broader resource) with the proposed use and relied also on the low number of existing permits and the absence of documented complaints in the area.

Justin Roelofs, vice president of relationship management for Pipestone Management, testified for the applicant that the proposed sow farm would rely primarily on Dakota-aquifer wells and a pending rural (Webb) water connection, and that the Pierre Shale permit was sought as a redundancy to ensure reliability for animal care and cooling systems. Roelofs said the applicant had not commissioned an independent hydrogeologic recharge study or a numerical drawdown model for the Pierre Shale permit.

Petitioners and nearby landowners told the board they rely on surface sloughs and local water supplies and warned that drying or contamination of surface or groundwater would be irreversible. Garrett James Hines, a local farmer, said the project’s cumulative water uses—including multiple permits and a future rural water connection—had not been fully analyzed at the county level.

The board debated how to weigh the statutory standard in SDCL 46‑6‑3.1, which directs reviewers to compare withdrawals with the best information reasonably available about average estimated annual recharge. Acting chief engineer Mathiowetz told the board the program must use the best reasonably available information and that bedrock aquifers such as the Pierre Shale may lack numeric recharge estimates; he said other lines of evidence can be considered in such cases.

On the motion to adopt the chief engineer’s recommendation with qualifications (including the program’s standard well-interference conditions and a recommended observation-well measure), the board recorded the motion as carried on roll call. Ayes were recorded for Gibson, Grama, Kepler, Goldsboro and Scott Baker; the chair announced the motion carried.

The board directed staff to prepare findings of fact, conclusions of law and a final order to be circulated by Aug. 14; objections to those draft findings must be filed by Aug. 28, the chair said. The board’s action authorizes the permit subject to the stated qualifications and any conditions contained in the forthcoming findings.

Why it matters: The decision highlights a recurring administrative dilemma in groundwater permitting—how to act when site-specific recharge estimates and observation-well networks are limited. Petitioners argued the absence of numeric recharge and pre-approval monitoring makes detection and redress of impairment unlikely; the agency and its engineers said the best reasonably available information supports a grant with safeguards. The board’s order and the forthcoming findings will clarify what conditions the agency requires of the permit holder.

What’s next: Staff will draft the board’s written findings by Aug. 14 and accept objections by Aug. 28; the administrative record will close only after the board issues its final written decision.