This commentary was written by Brad Johnson of South Dakota Searchlight, an online news organization.

At the same time the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposes to turn Lake Kampeska near Watertown into an artificial flood reservoir, it now plans to study artificially sending water from the massive Bitter Lake basin down the Big Sioux River.

The latest $850,000 waste of federal taxpayer money will begin soon. This is how the Corps explains its Day County work plan:

“The overall objective of this study is to evaluate conceptual alternatives and management actions that would help to lower water levels throughout the Waubay chain of Lakes.

“The 10 major lakes in this chain are Bitter Lake, Blue Dog Lake, Enemy Swim Lake, Hillebrands Lake, Minnewasta Lake, Pickerel Lake, Rush Lake, Spring Lake, Swan Pond and Waubay Lake.”

The study’s goal is to develop “conceptual options for lowering Bitter Lake since it is located the farthest to the south and all of the other lakes eventually drain to it.”

There is a lot the Corps plans to study, but the outcome is predictable. There is no economically or environmentally feasible way to lower Bitter Lake, which is one of the three closed basins in the United States, the others being Devils Lake in North Dakota and the Great Salt Lake in Utah.

For about five decades from the 1930s to the 1980s, Bitter Lake was considered to be a huge marsh with its shoreline about a mile away from the town of Waubay. Before a period of wet years in the 1990s, the lake “was a 3,000 acre alkaline slough with an approximate depth of three feet,” according to a South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks report.

It now covers 15,000 acres with a maximum depth of about 30 feet.

Correspondingly, Waubay Lake also grew dramatically. It now covers more than 15,000 surface acres with a depth of about 31 feet. The lake’s elevation is about 15 feet above the state’s previous ordinary high water mark.

It is understandable people in Day County want water to disappear. Thousands of acres of private land are flooded and no longer productive. Day County landowners, government, communities and businesses have felt impacts.

The Big Sioux River basin is the likely source of relief as the southeast corner of Bitter Lake is relatively close to the river’s upper basin.

A high ridge separates the two.

A 2012 story written for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis by Ron Wirtz, editor of the Fedgazette, explained the situation.

“Studies of sedimentation and other methods have shown that the peak water elevation in Bitter Lake over the past 10,000 years is 1,803 feet [above sea level]. This summer it was mere inches below that level and three feet above its previous modern-day high of 1,800 feet asl. Water will eventually flow out of Bitter Lake if it ever hits 1,811 feet, but if that happens, half of Day County will be submerged, and ‘Waubay will probably be a ghost town,’” said Williams.

Wirtz was quoting Wes Williams, director of emergency management in Day County at the time of the story.

A 1999 U.S. Geological Survey report ran simulations of Bitter Lake spanning 10,000 years. In that 10,000 year-simulation, “Bitter Lake exceeded an elevation of 1,814.0 ft, which is high enough to result in large flows to the Big Sioux River, an average of once every 2,500 years and stayed above this elevation an average of five years before subsiding.”

The Corps intends to review that study. Here’s the likely conclusion of the Corps’ update.

Because of natural features, nature will not provide relief. The only way to lower the closed basin is to create an unnatural connection to the Big Sioux River, either through a massive underground pipeline or a huge ditch through a hillside.

Both would be enormously expensive and would generate major opposition from Big Sioux River corridor interests.

Essentially, after $850,000 is spent, we will learn once again that Mother Nature, who brought the water, is the only source of relief.