CHAMBERLAIN (AP) – Infrastructure spending in the next year was a priority in this year's South Dakota legislative session.
Now months later, Gov. Kristi Noem along with Schools and Public Lands Commissioner Ryan Brunner and a number of local officials on Tuesday visited the sites of infrastructure improvements already being made in and around Chamberlain. Those improvements include making major improvements to Lake Wanalain Dam and drudging a marina in the city, KSFY-TV reported.
“What you see here is the city of Chamberlain is spending a million dollars to dredge the marina,” Brunner explained. “If our state dam were to break, it would damage their marina and would undo all their work with the sediment coming downstream.”
Governor Noem signed at least five infrastructure bills into law this past year, amounting to millions of dollars in spending across the state.
“My conversation with the legislature was let’s make sure we put money into the reserves, and then invest into long term infrastructure,” said Noem. “Railroads, dams, roads, and bridges so that we make a difference not just for the next year or two, but over the next thirty or forty years. That is exactly what these projects are doing.”
