A 2022 view looking up into the South Dakota Capitol dome in Pierre. (Joshua Haiar/South Dakota Searchlight)
By: Makenzie Huber
PIERRE, S.D. (South Dakota Searchlight) – Majority Leader Scott Odenbach waved his hand behind him, gesturing to the lawmakers’ lobby just a few paces beyond his desk on the House floor.
“I would ask anyone in this room to walk right out the doors here and see the plaster crumbling and running down the walls,” the Spearfish Republican said in late February.
He was speaking in support of a bill to restore, maintain and repair South Dakota’s Capitol building. Lawmakers approved $3 million, growing the pool of funds set aside during the past six years for Capitol building and grounds projects to nearly $12 million. About $9 million remains unspent.
Signs of disrepair from age and neglect are scattered throughout the 115-year-old building, from that chipping plaster to cracked paint and water damage. There are also concerns about Capitol Lake, fed by a well once thought to be a sinkhole risk and adorned with a Flaming Fountain that no longer flames.
As the list of projects grows, the state official in charge of maintaining the complex is considering a full renovation of the building and trying to solve the puzzle of the lake’s future.
Board approves $1.2 million restoration and renovation study
The citizen board that oversees Capitol restoration projects approved a plan Wednesday to divide $3 million among three projects:
- Up to $500,000 on plaster repair and paint in public spaces.
- $1.3 million to restore the Capitol dome.
- $1.2 million to map out a plan for a full restoration and renovation of the rest of the Capitol building.
The plaster and paint needs are immediate, but Commissioner of the Bureau of Human Resources and Administration Darin Seeley said walls torn down to address potential infrastructure repairs might make painting more than necessary now a waste of taxpayer dollars.
A 2023 study by the bureau found plumbing, heating and cooling, and electrical code violations throughout the building due to its age — some piping is original to the building’s 1910 construction. The estimated cost to fix those issues at the time was $75 million.
“As appreciative as I am of the $3 million appropriation, it’s really important we don’t spend $3 million just to spend $3 million and then tear it back apart,” Seeley told members of the Capitol Complex Restoration and Beautification Commission.
The bureau wants to restore the Capitol dome to give South Dakotans an “introduction” to what a full restoration would look like, Seeley said. That could help with fundraising efforts if the state decides to pursue a full restoration and renovation.
The structural changes and further renovations Seeley envisions will likely require private sector dollars, Fort Pierre Republican Rep. Will Mortenson told South Dakota Searchlight, which is “an entirely different conversation.”
The $3 million Mortenson pushed for this year is intended to fix the “glaring needs” inside the Capitol.
The dome work will include repairing damaged plaster, repainting the walls, replacing lights on an arch near the grand staircase and installing lights on the dome ledges to highlight the decoration and detail inside.
The legislative budget committee sent a letter of intent to Seeley in March, requesting an annual report until the newly appropriated $3 million is spent. The report will detail each project, its rationale, cost and timeline.
Plaster repair will begin this year, while dome restoration work on site will begin next April after the end of legislative session.
Capitol Lake improvements no longer an ‘emergency’
Doubt surfaced among some lawmakers this session about the need for more money when taxpayers have yet to see many results from past funding.
About three-fourths of the $12 million in funding is devoted to the grounds, and for Capitol Lake, which is fed by an uncapped, free-flowing well more than 1,300 feet deep. The well was drilled in 1910 by Peter Norbeck, who led the Norbeck Drilling Company before serving as South Dakota governor and a U.S. senator. The well produces not only water around 95 degrees Fahrenheit for the lake but also natural gas, which was diverted to light and heat the Capitol for decades before it caused an explosion in 1958.
The gas flowed reliably enough for years afterward to light a flame atop the flowing water that came to be known as the Flaming Fountain. But by 2008, the gas sputtered. A 2019 report by a team from South Dakota Mines said the underground pocket of natural gas was probably almost depleted, and that the well’s steel casing could be corroded and in danger of a sinkhole-inducing collapse that would make it difficult to stem the flow of water.
After that, state officials began planning to replace the lake’s water source.
Seeley told South Dakota Searchlight the state has until July 2027 to spend about $3.9 million in legislatively appropriated funds on lake improvements, due to a spending deadline in state law. A $2 million lake grant from the state Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources remains unspent as well. The grant is intended to help establish an alternative water source for the lake, and to conserve water by pumping it from the lake to water the Capitol complex green space. The plan would conserve more than 8 million gallons to water 40 acres.
About $3 million has been spent on the lake so far. The money was used to study the well, plan an alternative water source and dredge the lake. The dredging cost about $2.6 million, according to a contract with Morris Construction Enterprise.
The bureau is waiting to spend the remaining lake funds because it discovered that the situation with the well isn’t as urgent as feared, Seeley said. Engineering and design firm Snyder and Associates tested the water quality and inspected the bottom of the well via camera last year.
“We don’t have an emergency,” Seeley said. “I don’t want to waste money, so we’re stepping back to consider the bigger picture.”
The well as it currently stands is not a viable long-term water source for the lake, Seeley said. The report said that although the well is in “relatively good condition,” it is constructed of “unverified and obsolete materials,” isn’t in compliance with modern design standards and “likely surpassed its expected design life.”
Replacement options include restoring the existing well and controlling the water flow, drilling a new well on the site and using a reverse osmosis system to improve the lake’s water quality, or piping water from the nearby Missouri River.
Because the warm well water keeps the lake from freezing over, thousands of Canada geese — the unofficial Capitol mascot — inhabit and leave droppings in and around the lake year-round, leading to poor water quality. Stormwater runoff compounds the problem, according to Snyder and Associates, which helped dredge the lake in 2023. Some new water sources, such as transporting Missouri River water, would allow the lake to freeze over in the winter, removing the geese and droppings for part of the year.
The return of a Flaming Fountain is questionable. The options to replace the lake’s water source don’t involve finding a new source of natural gas in the old location. While a new Flaming Fountain of some form is proposed for the Capitol Lake conceptual design, “the flame as it was known cannot return,” a bureau spokesman said in an email.
Lakota Code Talker Memorial has a ‘whole bunch’ of fundraising left
Mortenson carried bills to improve the Capitol Lake and the Capitol building during the 2023 and 2025 legislative sessions. He expected the 2023 funding would not only go toward replacing the lake’s water source but toward sitework for a Sioux Code Talker Memorial to honor “some of South Dakota’s most worthy heroes.”
The Sioux Code Talker Memorial is a planned site at Capitol Lake to honor Lakota, Dakota and Nakota code talkers who served in World Wars I and II. More than two hundred tribal members from South Dakota served in the military, using their native language to communicate during battle without enemy forces cracking the code.
The memorial will include a wall of names for Oceti Sakowin code talkers and two bronze sculptures created by Sioux Falls-based sculptor Darwin Wolf. The memorial’s donation drive is open on the South Dakota Community Foundation website. Robert Dunsmore, tribal service officer for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and a member of the code talker fundraising committee, said the group has “a whole bunch” of fundraising left.
The Bureau of Human Resources and Administration will “have a role to play” in ensuring “access to the approved site” when the fundraising is ready, a department spokesman said in a statement.
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