YANKTON, S.D. — Too much sediment has been a problem in South Dakota's Lewis and Clark Lake for decades, and experts say a solution will be difficult and expensive - but it has to be found soon.

The Army Corps of Engineers and others are searching for a fix to reduce the 5 million tons of sediment that pour into the lake annually from the Missouri River, and even more so from the Niobrara, which runs through Nebraska's Sandhills.

University of South Dakota Professor Mark Sweeney is a member of the Missouri River Institute. He said this has been a discussion topic for nearly 20 years, but finding a consistent sediment management plan for the lake is becoming more critical.

"All of the main-stem dams on the Missouri River do have this problem to a certain extent,” Sweeney said; “but Lewis and Clark Lake, it's the worst."

A delegation from the Yankton area met recently with federal officials in Washington to discuss potential solutions and funding possibilities. More than 1 million people visit the Lewis and Clark Lake area annually for camping, fishing and water recreation.

In 2011, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimated sediment had caused Lewis and Clark to lose 27 percent of its water storage capacity. Sweeney said a delta created by the sediment is popular with recreationists on the Missouri-Niobrara River confluence, but will eventually come at the expense of boat enthusiasts.

"On one hand you could say well, we've increased the number of recreational opportunities because there's actually a lot of really interesting canoeing and kayaking in the delta itself,” he said. “But if this problem continues to progress, the reservoir will fill up and you won't be able to take a boat out on it.”

Sweeney said it's estimated Lewis and Clark Lake could lose most of its capacity by the year 2050, while the delta will grow considerably in the next 100 years.

"If we do nothing then we're going to have these impacts in the future, recreation for one,” he said. “We won't be able to produce hydro-electric power out of the Gavins Point Damn for two. It could cause additional flooding hazards along some of the margins of the lake."

Proposals for dealing with the sand and mud include lowering the lake level and flushing it father downstream, decreasing the amount of sediment entering the lake, and encouraging oil and gas industries to use it for fracking.


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The Trump administration's long-term plan for artificial intelligence could have far-reaching environmental impacts across the country.

His strategy calls for the removal of land use rules considered prohibitive to the construction of AI data centers. Last year, then Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Microsoft would invest $1 billion to establish a new AI data center in Laporte to generate cloud computing infrastructure.

Ben Murray, senior researcher for the advocacy group Food and Water Watch, said fossil fuel plants are already being reopened to help meet high energy demands.

"We just need to be aware that anything that prolongs our reliance on fossil fuel is going to increase the problems that we're seeing from the climate crisis," Murray explained.

Murray argued high-tech progress should not come at the expense of increased household energy prices. Residents' support is low due to concerns about increased traffic and noise near the centers. The Trump administration said environmental and permitting regulations will only slow America's dominance in the AI field.

A report last year found emissions from data centers owned by Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft were more than seven times higher than officially reported. Computer servers using AI require far more energy than those without. A ChatGPT query, for example, can use up to 10 times more electricity than a standard Google search.

"These companies can seem as if they're decreasing their emissions and meeting net-zero goals but in reality, the emissions are amping up faster than ever for these companies," Murray pointed out.

Murray noted the push for more data centers is already leading Big Tech companies to backtrack on their climate goals. It is possible to power AI services with renewable energy sources, he added, but doing so requires political will.

As of June 2025, a 1,200-acre corn and soybean field just outside of New Carlisle has turned into eight Amazon-led AI energy centers. The tech giant plans to construct a total of 30 at the site.


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After one year, Washington's first comprehensive bee survey has documented 15 species that have never been collected in the state before.

The project is cataloguing native bees, which includes nearly all species in the state, but excludes honeybees.

Karla Salp is a communications consultant with the Washington State Department of Agriculture's Washington Bee Atlas program, which conducted the survey.

She said the data will serve as a baseline to track bee populations.

"The reason why this is happening in the first place is to answer the question, how are pollinators doing in Washington state?" said Salp. "And the answer is we don't know, because we've never actually looked at even what bees we have throughout the state."

Salp said the project also involves compiling a list of plants that each bee species pollinates so residents can make their yards more attractive to these beneficial insects.

As honeybee numbers continue to decline rapidly, Salp explained that native pollinators may become more important to Washington's agriculture.

"Knowing what native pollinators we have and how we can support them is really a sustainability issue" said Salp, "to make sure that whether we have honeybees here or not, there are options for pollination."

Volunteers collected over 17,000 bees on more than 600 different host plants.

Salp said the process of identifying them is slow because each one must be viewed under a microscope, and there is still considerable work to be done.

"We're expecting to find a lot more species" said Salp, "that are either rare or even new to the state. "

If people are interested in volunteering, an online application for the Bee Atlas program is available on the Washington State Department of Agriculture website.




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The Trump administration wants to overturn a conservation rule that had garnered more public comment than any in U.S. history up until that time.

Commonly known as the Roadless Rule, the U.S. Department of Agriculture regulation prohibits road construction, reconstruction, and timber harvesting on nearly 60 million acres of national forest land.

Sarah McMillan - the senior attorney and director of the Wildlands & Wildlife Program at the Western Environmental Law Center - said before it was adopted in 2001, 1.5 million people submitted comments, with the vast majority in support of the rule.

"This was a rule that was carefully, thoughtfully developed," said McMillan. "There was a long process of inventorying these roadless areas and identifying these remote, often mature and old-growth trees. This didn't happen overnight."

A rollback of the rule would allow more logging and drilling on federal lands, which McMillan said would worsen climate change, harm wildlife & vital ecosystems, jeopardize water quality, and negatively affect recreational opportunities.

The Bush administration attempted to repeal the Roadless Rule in 2005, but lost in the courts.

In announcing the proposed rollback, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins claimed more logging would improve forest management, which would in turn decrease forest fires.

But McMillan said that argument is disputed in a 2020 Wilderness Society study that found just the opposite.

"The truth is, un-roaded areas burn at a significantly lower rate than areas with roads," said McMillan. "So, fires start near roads."

McMillan said it doesn't make sense to allow private developers to log more trees when the planet is undergoing a biodiversity and climate crisis - especially because old-growth trees create a buffer against climate change.

Forests cover almost 30% of New Mexico's land area.




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