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SDSU Extension is warning ranchers to watch for excessively salty water because it can cause blindness in cattle. Testing the water is the only way to know if it is exceeding safe levels.
It's not just "drought" hitting western South Dakota, it's a real fear of surface water contamination that literally can kill cattle.
That danger to livestock "is spreading like wildfire in this area," according to Robin Salverson, South Dakota State University cow-calf field specialist.
She added, "It's not getting any better."
Even several inches of rain won't likely add enough water to drought-depleted surface water sources.
Since thunderstorm rainfall tends to be spotty, she said,"We're going to need a gully washer" in general across western South Dakota.
The drought conditions have been evaporating surface water sources, concentrating such dissolved solids as salts and sulfites.
Salverson, who is based at the Lemmon Regional Center, said last week that she had tested surface water sources that normally serve livestock from the Missouri River to the Montana state line.
More than half of the 150 water samples she tested came out with dissolved solids over the red line for danger to cattle.
"It's a big deal," she said. Of samples collected over a two-week period, the state said 56 percent tested dangerously high for dissolved salts.
It's serious enough that she's even warning ranchers who have well water for their livestock.
"If you have a well, watch it," she said. If the well goes down, that could take cattle toward anything that looks like water on a given rangeland area.
She said surface water used by cattle should be tested: "Period."
"Call us to bring it in or in some cases we can go out," Salverson said. The water testing is a free service of the SDSU Extension Service.
Surface water usually used by cattle in the region could vary from stock dams to creeks.
SDSU regional centers in Rapid City and Lemmon, Butte and Harding County extension offices could test a clean sample of surface water.
Salverson said she's encouraging everyone to test surface water sources used by livestock, "especially if it's the only water source.
She said that the test for dissolved solids is the only way a rancher can tell if a stock dam or other water source is a potential danger to cattle.
"There is really no way to do it visually," she said.
Tests in Butte, Meade and Pennington counties have brought results of real concern.
"Polio has been occurring," Salverson said.
Along with bovine polio, she said the high concentration of salts can bring weight loss and possible death.
Earlier in the week she had said the poor water quality also was leading to blindness.
Regardless, she said, the poor water quality could lead easily to weight losses.
Sheep, another major livestock in northwestern South Dakota, also are a concern, according to Larry Prager, general manager at Center of the Nation Wool in Belle Fourche.
Prager said Friday, "Drought's drought."
"Sheep can deal with it better," he said, but that doesn't mean there's no concern among sheep ranchers in the area.
"It can still bring heat stress," he said.
Ranchers also are checking surface water areas for sheep bogged down in mud where they had been searching for water.
Butte County proclaimed the drought a local disaster, joining similar declarations in eastern Wyoming and neighboring South Dakota counties. That could bring federal aid to businesses and ranchers in affected areas, according to Brent Kolstad, regional coordinator for South Dakota Emergency Management.
Kolstad last week emailed West River counties in his region that assistance for water hauling and aid in wells, pipeline and tanks may be possible with a drought disaster declaration.