Enhancing Our Environment

Our service area is home to incredible beauty—from thick forests and open prairies to rushing rivers and serene lakes. We’re good stewards of our surroundings and those who inhabit them, helping create vibrant and vital communities.

One creative way our employees have enhanced our environment includes fish! The South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks Department nets bluegill—a species of sunfish found in shallow, vegetated areas of water—out of a pond on Big Stone Plant property in Big Stone City, South Dakota. Volunteers have been involved with operating and maintaining rearing ponds to help ensure these fish grow safely until South Dakota Game, Fish, and Parks employees relocate them to area waters. Anywhere from 5 to 15 million fish go into the pond every year.

“In a small community, volunteers are the lifeblood . . . there’s no doubt about that,” said retired Big Stone Plant First Operator Dan Scoblic. “You find a project you’re passionate in and that’s the one you volunteer for.”

Environmental stewardship is one of many ways we make an Otter Impact in the communities we serve.