MPR: The Prairie Pot Hole

The Prairie Pot Hole
By Cara Hetland
August 4, 2000

Farmers in Day County in northeastern South Dakota have spent the past eight years watching their farm fields become lakes. Day County is in an area known as the prairie pot hole. There's no drainage system for the sloughs now filled with water. Landowners who once grazed hundreds of head of cattle now see a new sight on their pasture land: fishing boats.

Randy Knutson's land is scattered between his home and his mother's a mile away. Water separates the two farmsteads that were once connected. He says at peak periods, hundreds of people come to fish what's now called Long Lake - a series of flooded sloughs. See a slideshow featuring other pictures of the area.
(MPR Photo/Cara Hetland)

RANDY KNUTSON LOOKS AT A SATELLITE IMAGE MAP of his county taken in 1998. Where there was once a perfect grid of roads and farm houses, winding roads around miles of water exist now.

"Back in '92 or '93 there might have been a little water just right in here in an area and all the rest of this ground was farm and pasture land," he says.

Then, Knutson's land held grazing cattle; now it's fishing boats and bobbers. Farmers in this area had to choose whether to raise crops or livestock. There wasn't enough dry land on each farm to do both. Knutson chose cattle. He says water intrudes on all of his remaining pasture land. Fencing off the dry land is expensive and time consuming. He uses winged fences to force swimming cattle back to the land.

Knutson's land is scattered between his home and his mother's a mile away. Water separates the two farmsteads that were once connected. He says at peak periods, hundreds of people come to fish what's now called Long Lake - a series of flooded sloughs.

Joining Knutson at his kitchen table in rural Webster, South Dakota is Ordean Parks. Parks and his family own more than 4,000 acres in Day County. The Parks family settled this land. He says in 1990, three-fourths of his land was tillable; now he's able to work one-fourth of it. The rest is flooded.

"How can people say that this is not my property? I've got a deed for it," he says.

Doug Hanson,the director of the Division of Wildlife for the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department says he understands. "Their economic livelihood and most of their lives have been spent on this place and they see it now under water and it seems like everybody is benefitting from this situation except them," he says.

Hanson says as long as there's legal access and the water is navigable it's open to everyone for recreational use. In fact the Game and Fish Department promoted the area by posting Long Lake on an Internet site as a hot fishing spot last winter.

Randy Knutson, Ordean Parks and a dozen neighbors are challenging that position in court. They want to know who has rights to the land they call home, who has control over and under the water.

"Does the public of South Dakota need every acre-foot of water for their survival?" Knutson asks. "These were never made public until '93 and '94, when the water and the fish came."

Both Knutson and Parks admit to dumping a day's catch in smaller sloughs on their property to avoid cleaning them. Over the years the fish have multiplied and, along with other fish from nearby flooded lakes, given Long Lake a reputation for having "nice eaters," good-sized walleye, perch and northerns.

But the legal issue here is not really about the size of the fish or the number of people boating, but rather "meandered water." At statehood, if a body of water crossed over a section line, which is a quarter mile square, it was considered meandered and held in the public trust. The rest of the land was deeded and settled.

The farmers contend that legal definition can not be amended over time. What was privately held land should remain so. However, the state says there's evidence that the area was flooded 50 years before settlers arrived.

Ordean Parks (left) and Randy Knutson (right) look at a 1998 map, which shows 50 percent of Day County under water.
(MPR Photo/Cara Hetland)

"The conditions were such that most of that area was dry, so deeds were given for the land," says Doug Hanson,the director of the Division of Wildlife for the South Dakota Game Fish and Parks Department. "But that doesn't change the fact that that land was subject to water being on it and that's exactly what's happened."

Hanson says Long Lake is now connected to another lake that falls into the state's "meandered" classification. The state considers them one body of water, and therefore public.

The farmers want control and compensation.

"They're being told not only can you not make a profit off your land because there's 12 feet of water on top of it but you can't even control who comes and goes across the top of it and uses it," says Jack Heib, the attorney for the farmers.

Randy Knutson lives a couple of miles from his neighbor Raymond Parks. Long Lake touches both of their property. The tree belt surrounding Parks house is now 10 feet out in the water and the lake is 20 feet from his front porch.

Last winter Raymond Parks was regularly jolted from his sleep by ice fishermen with augers. He says at its peak he could see hundreds of ice fishermen on the lake from his front porch. He has undeveloped pictures of sportsmen defecating next to his garage. Parks has had numerous confrontations asking sportsmen to leave his property. They both feel they have a right to be there.

Raymond Parks wants control, not only of who's on his property, but also how many fish are taken out of the water. He says if the courts rule the water is private property, the land owners agree they would close it to fishing while they decide how best to manage the area.

Hanson questions whether land owners are in a good position to manage Long Lake. He worries that one land owner might charge for access and wonders how people would know where the property lines are. Farmers say it's no different than having hunters on their land.

It will be several months before the lawsuit moves through the court system. A legislative committee will meet with landowners later this month to discuss both arguments. Ultimately the legislature can determine what's legal and who has rights to the land and water in Day County.

	Sign up to receive e-mail newsletters

	Audio help

	Text: Sm : Md : Lg