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Contested Century Swine permit draws debate over Pier Shale recharge; staff recommend approval with qualifications
Summary
Century Swine’s application to appropriate groundwater from the Pier Shale aquifer prompted extensive cross‑examination: staff engineers said available information supports a recommendation to approve with qualifications, while petitioners criticized the lack of a quantified recharge estimate and observation‑well data.
The board conducted a contested hearing on water-permit application 8982-3 (Century Swine), which proposes to appropriate approximately 30.68 acre-feet per year from the Pier Shale aquifer for commercial swine operations.
Staff engineer Austin Secje presented the technical report. Secje described the Pier Shale as a bedrock unit with generally low transmissivity that yields small volumes of water from fractures or thin sandstone lenses; she testified there are currently four non-irrigation permits from the Pier Shale and estimated annual withdrawals for the aquifer at roughly 272 acre-feet per year. Secje said she did not calculate a numerical recharge estimate for the Pier Shale because comprehensive recharge data were not available for that formation and because characteristics vary substantially across the region; she concluded there is available water for the proposed application but recommended an observation well in the area (a recommendation, not a required condition).
Petitioners and their counsel focused on methodological gaps in the staff analysis: lack of a quantified recharge figure, absence of observation wells completed into the Pier Shale in the immediate area, no multi‑well drawdown or cone-of-depression modeling in the record, and limited well‑test data (the applicant’s record included a short-duration four‑hour air test). Petitioners argued those gaps mean the program cannot safely conclude withdrawals will not exceed average annual recharge without further study.
Acting chief engineer Adam Mathiewitz, who reviewed the technical report and adopted the prior recommendation, told the board the program’s statutory duty is to compare recharge and withdrawals using the "best reasonably available information," which can include observed water-level trends, regional analogs and professional judgment where direct numeric recharge data are not obtainable. He acknowledged that a full, multi-year recharge study with dense observation-well coverage would be resource-intensive and may not be reasonably available for a formation of this scale and use.
The technical record includes discussion that a new well in this formation could locally pump an isolated fracture or sandstone interval down faster than it would affect other distant adequate wells, and staff’s impairment analysis emphasized proximity and well construction factors. Secje and Mathiewitz acknowledged that an observation well would provide better baseline data; however, without a baseline the program generally relies on complaint-driven investigation and the well-interference qualification language recommended in staff’s draft permit.
The July 8 transcript records extensive cross-examination and argument over the sufficiency of evidence and statutory interpretation (SDCL 46-6-3.1) but does not contain a final board decision on the Century Swine application in the posted record; the matter remained part of contested-agenda activity at the hearing.
Why it matters: The Pier Shale is a bedrock/confined unit with limited transmissivity and spatial heterogeneity; decisions about whether to permit new withdrawals turn on both data availability and statutory interpretation of what constitutes reasonable evidence that withdrawals will not exceed recharge.
Next steps: The board will weigh staff recommendation, the contested‑case record and local ordinances or other evidence before issuing a written decision or continuing the matter to a later meeting.
