South Dakota’s Bridge To Nowhere: The Debate No One Wants to Have
Thursday, 18 December 2008 13:43
Written by Sam Hurst
STIP Project #483, the bridge to Red Owl
Several years ago, in the middle of a statewide campaign, a Democratic Party strategist explained what he thought was the most difficult political divide in South Dakota. "Sometime soon people in the cities are going to stand up to the rural politicians. They are going to refuse to subsidize rural communities, and country schools with no students, and they are going to refuse to pander to rural political power. The cities are just going to say, ‘Okay, bring it on. We've got the votes."
There is an old bridge to Red Owl. American taxpayers are about to spend just shy of $400,000 to rebuild it. Why?
Project #483 of the South Dakota Transportation Improvement Program (STIP) is scheduled for 2009. In a recession, with tax revenues sagging, the state might reasonably be expected to slow down, or postpone projects like the Red Owl bridge. But President-elect Obama has announced that he is prepared, on "Day One", to fund hundreds of billions of dollars in "shovel ready" infrastructure projects to stimulate the American economy. And Governor Rounds has announced that the state is prepared to spend "...all the money the federal government wants to send us" by completing the hundreds of bridge and road repair projects in the STIP report. Which brings the bridge to Red Owl front and center in a public debate that, so far, no one wants to talk about.
Bear Butte from Highway 34
Drive east from Sturgis fifty miles. Hay bales stacked in pyramids frame the foreground of Bear Butte in the early morning sun. Highway 34 undulates over the Belle Fourche River, past Elm Creek, past Gary Cammack's ranch supply store, the post office, and the Bull Creek Cafe in Union Center.
A narrow gravel road turns hard north out of Enning. The road is straight for eight miles, until it bends to the right around a small dam built by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) in the 1930s, then abruptly left before passing over the bridge that spans Red Owl Creek and greets visitors to the town of Red Owl; population 0. The Red Owl Garage is the sole sign of life.
The Road to Red Owl
In the thirty-six square miles around Red Owl there are 29 people. Ranch families. Fewer than one person per square mile. It wasn't always that way.
Retired Rapid City physician Richard Kovarik grew up in Red Owl in the 1930s and 40s. He attended a one-room school a mile north of town. Richard's father, Rudolph, owned the local general store. There was a dance hall that hosted community socials on the weekends, a garage, a cream station, and a bank, which Dr. Kovarik remembers as the only bank in the region that repaid all its depositors after the bank collapse of the Great Depression. For a few years, there was even a restaurant in Red Owl.
"The people were really colorful." Dr. Kovarik remembers. "Some of the cowboys had come out for the ‘last roundup' of free range cattle in 1905, and stayed on to live in town. It was a wonderful town to grow up in. There were baseball games every Sunday, with teams from the reservations, and rodeos in the summer. It was self-contained. Most people didn't go to Rapid City or Sturgis except maybe once or twice a year." Dr. Kovarik's voice goes quiet for a pulse, and then he continues.
"I drove through Red Owl a few months ago, and it was deadly quiet."
It is easy to ridicule Alaska's pork barrel "bridge-to- nowhere." Who would ever support the construction of a new bridge to an island where no one lived? But how would the public respond to the idea that South Dakota is about to spend half a million dollars on a bridge to a town where hundreds of people lived seventy-five years ago, but no one lives now?
This is a problem no leaders in state government (or the Obama economic team) seem to be considering, and there are no easy answers.
--Perhaps the bridge is part of a road that goes somewhere important? No. It doesn't. The road comes to a dead end a mile north of town.
--Perhaps it would cost more to demolish the road, put culverts in the dry creek bed, and patiently go around Red Owl Creek on those few days every few years when a flash flood rushes through.
--Perhaps a bridge-to-nowhere is the best way to employ local ranchers, and put money in their pockets. No, STIP contracts are bid out to private contractors who bring a work crew to Red Owl and take the money to Rapid City, or Sturgis, or Sioux Falls, or even farther from the local economy.
The dilemma for both President-elect Obama and Governor Rounds is that so much emphasis has been put on job creation and immediate economic stimulus that the actual social and economic value of projects is almost beside the point. In that space between urgency and value lays a lost opportunity for rural South Dakota.
State Representative Larry Rhoden (R-29) ranches a mile west of Union Center. I ask, "Are there more valuable things to do with the money than rebuild the bridge?" "I can't think of any off the top of my head." The line of questioning startles him. "It would be one thing if the bridge wasn't a necessity. But it is a necessity for local traffic." What local traffic?
Like most citizens, Larry Rhoden cannot escape the name of the town on a map, and a sentimental sense of place. "I grew up playing basketball in Red Owl." The town exists in his imagination, and his memories, even if it does not exist in reality.
Infrastructure repair is never debated in the context of larger social and economic goals for the state. Bridges are repaired, and roads are resurfaced because they are there, no questions asked. Not repairing the bridge to Red Owl would be like reversing progress. It is almost unimaginable, even though it is without purpose in today's world.
Representative Rhoden is inclined to think more about private initiative than public stimulus. He has a neighbor who is exploring ecotourism, "Give people a ranch experience." He explains. But he never takes the next step. Successful ecotourism has no problem with isolation, or difficult roads, or impassible creeks. Ecotourism thrives in remote areas that offer authentic biodiversity and wildlife. Maybe the bridge repair money should be used to hire ranchers to enhance wildlife habitat, replant native grasses, restore riparian zones, and enhance wildlife, all of which would increase the long term value of their ranches. In that context, $400,000 would go a long way, and could go directly into the local economy.
At the Bull Creek Café in Union Center two women sit at a table, chatting quietly; the hostess and the cook.
"How's business?" I ask. "Slow."
"Who eats lunch here?" "We do." They giggle at the obvious joke.
"Where do people work around here?" "They drive to Rapid City or Sturgis." More laughter. "Mostly, the women work. The men stay home and run the ranches and raise the kids."
"How many children go to the Union Center School?" "Three. Two eighth graders and a second grader. Most of the children around here go to Enning, maybe forty kids from the local ranches." A pause, then: "There are only seven rural school left in Meade County, they can't stay open much longer."
What's going on in Red Owl, and Enning, Union Center and dozens of other rural communities hanging on by their fingernails, is part of a long-term trend, a slow depopulation of the rural landscape of the Great Plains that has been taking place for well over fifty years. A bridge over Red Owl Creek can't change the march of history, or stimulate the local economy. But a new vision for rural South Dakota could. If only we had the imagination to dream it, and the political will to talk about the problem.
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Subscribe to this comment's feedThis is why Americans hate Congress, but like their own representatives. Pork barrel is defined as a project over the state line.
The question is....who goes first? Ask your federal representative what they are prepared to vote no on...you may be surprised at the reaction.
Some sporadic attempts have been made to set up think tanks to study rural America and small towns--especially on the plains-but the very factors that drive people away from the villages discouraged such efforts on the Plains.
Family farms and ranches have been displaced by the need for scale of size. Rural life is becoming residential and suburban, but that pattern of life does not fit the stereotypes with which rural life is perceived.
The end of rural subsidies in their current forms may be what it takes to clear the perception of rural America.
You know Sam, if you are going to write this type of hatchet job, you ought to get the facts right.
The Red Owl road does not end in a dead end one mile north of Red Owl. It tee's into the old Marcus road. Did you ask how many of those students who go to Enning are carried over that bridge every school day?
Did you find out that that road with that bridge are part of a 6 day a week mail route?We send out tax money to town every year? Why shouldn't we get some back. If not for this project than for otyhers. for this project, than for otherws. We
Did you find out that that road is a 6 day a week mail route?
The 400K may be much better spent on things that would more directly stay in the area. Repairing a bridge goes to a crew that comes in for a time, maybe from another state, and then is gone taking the money with them.
Infrastructure spending does not have to be only roads and bridges. Use a little human creativity. What does the Red Owl area community really need?
I
As far as the city people standing up to the rural politians that is hogwash since the rural communities had to fight tooth and nail for any and all representation that they receive. The most responsible
and determined people come from the rural communities and deserve as much consideration as any city!!
It is amazing how you complain about the amount of tax dollars going to fund a bridge. I have seen the amount of taxes a person who lives in town has to pay out and i have also seen the amount a land owning ranchers has to pay. Pretty sure the rancher is forking out a whole lot more.
Red Owl is a place for a COMMUNITY to gather at. Celebrate weddings, birthdays, anniversarys, and morn the death of loved ones. That bridge connects us to each other.
I understand that this can appear to be a misuse of finances but I am certain that your perception is a mistake. I grew up between Union Center and Enning. At least once a week I crossed that very bridge. You speak of finding alternative routes but do you understand the distances that you are speaking of.
The distance that school children who daily commute over this bridge would be crazy. If there was running water over this spot in the road, what is the chance that you have in taking a less traveled road? Believe it or not, this is a main thoroughfare. You are speaking of more just a few minutes extra to get to school.
SD is a place of extremes. It will have flooding and it will have draught. It will have major snowstorms and it will have wild fires.
In an area that logs in rainfall just barely 2 inches more than classified dessert, you are looking at potential fire hazards. Can you imagine the damage that can be done by the sweeping fire that could have been prevented by a quick crossing? I know that one untreated fire could wipe out all the cost that had been (((saved))) plus accruing much more damage. You might point out that if it was dry at the time of a fire, you would be able to cross just fine. Maybe. The best chance of getting a crossed is if there is a good bridge that wouldn’t be washed out or damaged.
Just because you can’t see houses or people all the time doesn’t mean that they are not there. These people are private and their houses usually are out of sight. However—each one is the local fireman or lady. (There is no county fire prevention out there beside what these ingenious private citizens have created out their own need)I invited you to come to central Meade County when there is a cloud of smoke in the sky. I think you will be amazed how many people might be using this (((useless))) bridge.
I'm guessing he said it to make a point, one which perhaps you all, in your haste to defend your hometown may have overlooked.
I understand.
I'm proud of my hometown too.
But maybe it would be helpful to look at what Sam is really saying a slightly different way.
Let's assume that the population of Red Owl is really 100.
Don't get too concerned about the actual number here, just follow me if you would please.
Now imagine that Governor Rounds just decided to give every Red Owl resident $4,000.
You can do whatever you want with it.
Are you really saying that every single one of you would want to put that money into a pool, hire a contractor and fix your bridge?
Or is it possible that some of you might find some better use for those funds?
Now remember, that $400,000 IS your money.
And Sam's, and mine.
And none of us really want to see that money wasted if there are indeed better things to do with it.
Do we?
Regarding population, it's true the Great Plains have experienced a long slide in population, but there are and will be limits on how far that can go. No matter how big ranches and farms get, there are a minimum number of workers needed per unit of land. Computerization and mechanization have made everyone more efficient, but in agriculture in particular, there will always be a need for a certain amount of people. You can't maintain fences and water sources by remote control, or do calving, roundups, pasture rotation, etc without boots on the ground.
Regardless of whether it has reached its nadir, population can't be the only criterion for infrastructure spending. Sparsely-populated places need roads not only for those who live there, but also for those who pass through: for linemen and construction workers who will build the new power grid carrying the wind power our city cousins are so keen to have, for those who build and maintain oil and gas pipelines and wells, for hunters, for truckers who haul the agricultural production away from the big ranches, for photojournalists who venture off the beaten path to take beautiful pictures and tell untold stories, for fossil and rock collectors, wildlife biologists, archaeologists, and yes, even for those eco-tourists. Meade County's country roads are open to all of these users, and they all benefit from our road infrastructure.
Finally, this shouldn't be a Red Owl vs. Sturgis or Red Owl vs. Rapid City issue. There is room for improvement in how government funds are spent in Sturgis and Rapid City, but it's nothing in comparison to the waste in our big cities. Liberals persist in favoring spending on under-used, over-budget mass transit while their commuters waste millions of gallons of gasoline in their stop-and-go traffic congestion. The fuel, time, and money squandered in the name of the mass transit fetish is a national scandal.
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