Every morning this summer, Gordon and Connie Howie woke up on their ranch in central Pennington County and turned on the kitchen faucet, unsure if any water would come out.
Connie Howie, 76, said: “We couldn’t do our laundry, wash our dishes or take a shower except for a little trickle of water. Other times we just had a little bit of water because it seemed to come and go.”
Like many ranchers and residents in rural western South Dakota, the Howey family relies on a well to provide water for their lives and livelihoods.
But this year, perhaps the worst in recent history, many shallow wells are running slowly or drying up completely, forcing people to go to great lengths and spend huge sums to provide clean water for themselves or their livestock.
Experts say several years of limited winter snowpack and insufficient rainfall, combined with increased water use, have caused water levels to drop in some underground aquifers that are the main source of water for large swaths of the Montenegro region. The problem is greatest in areas outside the piped coverage of municipal and rural water systems.
High temperatures in the summer of 2026 will exacerbate the problem, as humans, crops and animals will all need more water than usual to survive.
“We have a well at our house, but it’s not functioning properly because the aquifer is drying up,” Gordon Howie said. “For 20 years you could count on this well 24/7 and it would never stop helping us, but now it doesn’t provide enough water for everything we need.”
The Howeys are purchasing bottled water for drinking and placing fresh water jugs throughout the house for daily use. One day in late August, the couple towed a trailer to a public water station in Rapid City and spent $17 to fill a 1,300-gallon tank they were using to keep their 150 Texas Longhorn cattle alive at the Caputa Ranch, about 10 miles southeast of the Rapid City Regional Airport.
“I’ve lived here all my life and I’ve never seen a drought this dry, this hot, this long,” said Gordon Howie, who served in the Legislature from 2009 to 2011 and ran for governor in 2010. “We’ve had some droughts, but this is the worst I can remember, and I’m 77 years old.”
Self-service water source helps those in need
Across the plains of western South Dakota, some residents who relied on shallow wells, often 1,000 feet deep or less, were forced to find alternative water sources.
Some are taking advantage of a somewhat obscure water-dispensing system in which users insert coins or bills into a vending machine, which triggers suspended water spouts to provide fresh water that is collected in a tank in a pickup truck or trailer. There are water stations in Black Hawk, Deadwood, Piedmont, Rapid City, Spearfish and Sturgis.
These self-service water stations have been busier than usual this summer, especially in Rapid City, where Johnson Asphalt Co.’s spouts are the only bulk water available in town and there are often long waits to use them.
“Everybody’s hauling water right now,” said Nick Randall, a foreman at Johnson & Johnson Asphalt, whose shop and water station are located in an industrial area off Dyess Avenue.
Randall said the asphalt company built the water station for its own trucks that use the water on paving jobs, but decided to make some extra money by selling it through a self-service system.
Until this year, Rapid City had three or four places to buy bulk water.
But now, Johnson & Johnson — which gets its water from Rapid City’s municipal system — is the only public tap still flowing.
Lately, Randall said, trucks and trailers have been lined up at the tap, causing some inconvenience to business.
“Sometimes there are so many people in line that our own trucks can’t get in or out,” he said.
Ralph Bifulco, 62, drives his pickup truck with a water tank in the back to J&J Asphalt every day and spends $7.50 to fill the 550-gallon tank with drinking water.
Bifulco lives in the Ashland Heights community southwest of Ellsworth Air Force Base, where soil, surface water and groundwater have been contaminated by toxic chemicals from base activities.
The area has been declared an Environmental Protection Agency Superfund site. Despite extensive cleanup and remediation activities, in 2016 drinking water wells near the base were found to be contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), so-called “forever chemicals” used in firefighting foam, according to the EPA.
Bifulco said he needs Johnson & Johnson water for all his daily activities.
“We don’t have clean water to do anything with,” Beaverco said. “If you can’t drink it, why would you bathe or do your laundry with it?”
Busy water truck in summer
Many rural residents have access to clean water delivered by truck, which requires planning and expense.
Businesses like Frontier Water in Rapid City have been extremely busy this summer. It uses three trucks with loads of up to 2,500 gallons at a time to deliver to homes and ranches in the Black Hills region.
“With all these shallow wells drying up, it’s really boosted my business,” said Frontier owner Darin Klapperich, who also ranches northwest of Rapid City.
Krapelic collects purified fresh water from municipal systems across Montenegro and makes it available to anyone for any reason.
“From swimming pools to hot tubs, from cattle to cisterns, if you want to pay for shipping, I’m your guy,” he boasted.
But this summer, most of his runs have been providing drinking water to people and cattle.
On arrival, the water is poured into cattle tanks or storage tanks for household use. In some locations, Klaperich said, he fills underground concrete cisterns that people use to store water and occasionally drains water into wells to partially fill them.
The average household uses about 150 to 200 gallons of water per day, but many rural residents are looking for ways to reduce their daily water use during droughts, Krapelich said.
“If you have a shallow well, you’re going to have trouble. But it’s amazing to see all the tricks people are using now to save water,” he said.
Concerns about remote aquifer depletion
While the large, deepwater Black Hills aquifers such as Madison, Minnelusa, and Inyankala are smaller in size and still provide adequate water supplies, many smaller, shallower aquifers mined by individual aquifer users have dried up or are close to drying up. Even some wells that do not penetrate deep into large aquifers may experience reduced flows.
Mark Anderson, an adjunct geology professor at South Dakota Mining and former director of the U.S. Geological Survey, said the Black Hills region is facing a precipitation shortage that prevents underground aquifers from replenishing water as quickly or as abundantly as usual.
Coupled with the large number of wells being drilled, the lack of rain and snow raises concerns about the aquifer’s long-term ability to recharge enough to meet the needs of a growing population, Anderson said.
as news watch reportThis concern is underscored by a recent U.S. Geological Survey study that showed some of the Black Hills’ six “underground aquifers” are using water faster than the aquifers can be replenished.
Anderson, who now works as a water consultant, said he was working with a client who recently drilled two new wells up to 1,000 feet deep but did not find enough water to justify completing the wells. It’s unclear whether drought or poor geography are the cause, but Anderson noted that some monitoring wells around the Black Hills have shown lower water levels in recent years.
“When we have several years of below-average precipitation, well water levels drop significantly,” Anderson said. “This past year has been phenomenal, with warm temperatures and very little snow or rain in the Black Hills.”
An expensive but necessary project
To avoid future droughts, the Howies plan to drill a new, deeper well to replace the 30-foot well that has dried up. The couple will continue to use a reverse osmosis system in their home to purify well water for drinking and other uses.
Before choosing a site for the new well, the couple hired a “shaman” who would use a divining rod in hopes of identifying groundwater through a process called dowsing.
Gordon Howie said he expects the project to be expensive, with drilling costing about $100 per foot and new pumps likely to cost between $20,000 and $50,000.
Until then, he’ll continue his twice-weekly water-gathering ritual, placing the trailer under the Johnson’s spigot, climbing up a ladder to connect an extension tube to the spigot, dropping bills into the payment slot and filling the water tank on the trailer.
“I let every last drop of water go in because those cattle have to have water,” he said.
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This story was originally published on south dakota news watch and distributed in partnership with The Associated Press.
