§ 46A-1-71 — Legislative findings regarding need for program of statewide water development and financing.

The Legislature finds that the proposed use of Madison formation water for widespread energy development in Wyoming presents an immediate threat to ground and surface water supplies and agricultural, domestic, environmental, and other beneficial water uses in western South Dakota; that prolonged and existing drought conditions in western South Dakota require the immediate provision of adequate and potable water supplies to municipalities and individual farms and ranches for human and animal consumption, and the failure to provide such water supplies endangers the economic viability of the agricultural industry in western South Dakota and the economy of the state as a whole; that the general lack of any water supply at all and the continued existence of water supplies containing radium, sulfates, iron, manganese, chlorides, fluorides, and nitrates constitutes an immediate and chronic hazard to the health, safety, and welfare of municipal and rural residents in the western portion of the state and requires the provision of adequate quantities of quality water to these residents; and that the economy of the state as a whole has been ravaged by the effects of drought to the extent that a general program of statewide water development and financing is immediately necessary to prevent widespread economic disaster.

Legislative History

SL 1981 (2d SS), ch 1, § 1; SL 1981 (2d SS), ch 2, § 1; SDCL Supp, §