Published
Thursday August 23, 2001
Eight towns in North and South Dakota are
meeting this week with federal officials to discuss the effects
of transferring thousands of acres of land from the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers
to the state of South Dakota.
83,000 acres of land along the Missouri River will officially
be transferred next year. The land was apparently taken over
by the corps when they started construction of the Fort
Randall Dam
in 1946. The dam was completed in 1956.
| Fort
Randall Dam is part of a large-scale federal program for
the development of the Missouri River basin. The dam
lies in south-central South Dakota near Lake Andes above
old Fort Randall. United States Army engineers began
building this electric-power and navigation project in
1946. They completed it in 1956. The dam is 160 feet (49
meters) high and 10,700 feet (3,261 meters) long. The
earth-fill dam contains 50,200,000 cubic yards
(38,380,000 cubic meters) of earth. Its reservoir can
store 6.1 million acre-feet (7.5 billion cubic meters)
of water. The power plant has a capacity of 320,000
kilowatts, and began operating in 1954. |
 |
|
Several
American Indian tribes including the Yankton
Sioux Tribe
object to the transfer, claiming the land actually belongs to
them. It is their understanding that the land was to be returned
to them after the corps no longer had use for it. The Yankton
Sioux Tribe does plan to send a team to the meetings to lobby
against the transfer.
The transfer includes dozens of recreation areas currently owned
by the corps. South
Dakota Game, Fish and Parks
Department already manages 51 of these areas and another 15 will
transfer this January.
The land transfer was designed and introduced by U.S. Senator
Tom Daschle, D-S.D., who also worked with South Dakota Governor
Bill Janklow and some Native American tribes on the plan. |
