Why Preserve FRENCH CREEK?

In August 2022, Custer County residents learned the City of Custer, South Dakota’s new Wastewater Facility Upgrade Plan and its new Surface Water Discharge (SWD) Permit from the State of South Dakota included the Black Hills of South Dakota’s clean, FRENCH CREEK as the new dumping ground for the City’s sewage wastewater. Upon learning this, residents requested a meeting with the City for the purpose of hearing firsthand the City’s Plan.

 

At the requested meeting, attended by Custer City contractors DGR and KLJ, Custer City Mayor Robert Brown, Custer City Administrator, and Custer City Planner, concerned Custer County residents learned:

 

• The new City SWD Permit from the State of South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources (SD-DANR) would allow moving the City’s treated sewage wastewater discharge location from its current location (Flynn Creek) to a NEW location on FRENCH CREEK, approximately 3 miles east of Custer City and about one mile south of Stockade Lake in Custer State Park. (Near the historic Glen Erin School site, the first public school established in the Black Hills in 1882.)

 

• The City chose FRENCH CREEK as its new sewage wastewater discharge location without regard to the environmental effects of the discharge. It was selected simply as the least costly alternative presented by its contractor, DGR Engineering of Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

• A proper EA and/or EIS would have addressed concerns about the degradation of FRENCH CREEK.

• The City was able to obtain this SWD permit from SD-DANR without communicating directly with or soliciting input from ALL public and private property owners who would be affected.

• The need to communicate directly with all stakeholders was identified in the City’s contract with DGR Engineering, but not enforced by the City .

 

• Further, in its SWD permit application, Custer wrote that “no comments regarding the FRENCH CREEK Alternative were received” without identifying that its only communication with the public was via a Public Notice in the local newspaper, whose total number of subscribers at that time equalled approximately 10% of the total County population.

 

Following the requested August 2022 meeting, concerned Custer County residents organized to protect the clean waters of lower FRENCH CREEK from being polluted with wastewater and formed Preserve FRENCH CREEK, Inc.

 

Between August and December 2022, Preserve FRENCH CREEK members also learned that prior to choosing to move its treated wastewater discharge location to FRENCH CREEK that:

​

• NO Environmental Assessment (EA) and NO Environmental Impact Statement had been completed for the NEW FRENCH CREEK wastewater discharge location.

The EA included in the City’s documentation was for its wastewater treatment plant location, not FRENCH CREEK.

 

•Further, NO Socio-Economic study regarding the FRENCH CREEK Alternative was completed. No effects to Custer County residents, the Custer State Park, local (and Black Hills) area businesses, schools, and governments as well as State government budgets by allowing Custer City to discharge wastewater into a highly visible, scenic, recreationally used FRENCH CREEK were studied.

 

 

What were the City of Custer’s alternatives to polluting a clean FRENCH CREEK under its new Wastewater Treatment Facility Upgrade Plan? *

1. No Action (i.e., leave facilities and routes as they currently exist)

 

2. Flynn Creek (included upgrading equipment and continuing to discharge to the current discharge location).

*Pipe for nearly two-thirds of the distance (under this Alternative) had previously been replaced and upgraded to pipe with a lifetime expectancy of approximately 100 years. However, the cost for this Alternative was calculated/presented to include pipe replacement for the entire distance when that was not necessary; thus, making the Flynn Creek Alternative more expensive than the FRENCH CREEK one.

 

3. Beaver Creek (Sidney Park Basin Outlet)

4. Beaver Creek (Airport/Hwy 385)

*The Custer Facility Plan alludes to the fact that residents and businesses affected by the Beaver Creek options participated in a socio-economic study*, with the result that both (Beaver Creek) options being “excluded from consideration due to the negative impacts (these alternatives) would have on businesses and residents.”

 

Had a Socio-Economic Impact Study for FRENCH CREEK been completed, it would have shown greater impact to area residents and businesses (than those identified for the Beaver Creek alternatives that caused exclusion) by having hundreds of thousands of gallons of treated wastewater discharged daily into FRENCH CREEK. A Creek that flows near shallow, household wells as well as beside Custer State Park* lodging, restaurants, campgrounds, and trails.

 

*Custer State Park is visited by millions each year in appreciation of its wildlife, scenic beauty, and the recreational opportunities provided by its creeks and lakes. These visitors provide hundreds of millions of sales tax dollars that support schools and government services in Custer County, Black Hills communities, and the State of South Dakota*

 

*Other more environmentally friendly and less costly alternatives than those presented by Custer’s contractors were provided by Preserve FRENCH CREEK in its presentations to the City Council, Custer County Commissioners, and SD-DANR BEFORE the City chose to move forward with constructing its wastewater pipeline to FRENCH CREEK in December 2022.

 

 

Also disregarded by the City and its contractor in selecting FRENCH CREEK as its new wastewater discharge recipient was South Dakota Codified Law 34A-10-8, which states “…No conduct may be authorized or approved which does, or is likely to, pollute, impair, or destroy the air, water, or other natural resources or the public trust in the resources, if there is a feasible and prudent alternative consistent with the reasonable requirements of the public health, safety, and welfare.”

 

“Feasible and more prudent alternatives” were identified by the City’s contractor, including continuing to discharge to the current Custer City wastewater location, a location identified in the mid-1980s as the best alternative and a discharge location used since that time.

 

 

 

1980s History of Custer City Actions Regarding Selecting a Wastewater Discharge Location

• In the early 1980s, when the clean-up of Stockade Lake (in Custer State Park) was mandated after decades of the Lake being polluted by City of Custer sewage wastewater, a committee of community leaders and government officials was formed to assist in determining the best location for the City’s sewage wastewater discharge.

​

• Records from that period indicate several public meetings being held, and studies completed, which resulted in a decision by the City of Custer to select Flynn Creek as its wastewater discharge location, where no private homes, household wells, businesses, or public visibility was present.

 

 

Follow this link to read historical documents about actions during that period.

(Link to historic articles )

​

​

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do

to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

~ Chief Seattle