A bill that would prevent taking more water from aquifers than what they can replenish moved forward in the South Dakota Legislature on Thursday.
The bill moves from the House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee to the House floor on a 9 to 4 vote.
According to a 2025 USGS study, the aquifers that provide water to the Black Hills region may not be replenishing as fast as they are being used.
The proposal would remove the ‘greenhorn exception’ from state water law, a rule that allows the state additional authority in permitting water withdrawal even if the withdrawals exceed the annual recharge rate.
Representative Scott Odenbach, prime sponsor of the bill, told the committee the state is using water too quickly for it to replenish and needs to protect the water for future generations.
Mark Mayer, Director of the Office of Water for the DANR, said groundwater replenishment rates are unpredictable because all aquifers are different and depend on the characteristics of aquifers, including depth and width.
The greenhorn exception only applies to bedrock aquifers in the Black Hills, where the water quantity and quality are harder to measure.
In other legislative news, during Thursday’s session a bill to repeal Medicaid expansion failed.
