New Underwood 

Teresa Hall serves as the mayor of New Underwood. She is also a board member for WDRWS. “It’s a really worthwhile project,” she says. “I really think it’s important that New Underwood gets in on the ground floor. If we don’t take part in things like this, we’ll get left behind. This will keep our town alive.” 

Hall deeply cares about her hometown and adores the lifestyle that New Underwood provides for her and her family. “I moved to New Underwood when I was in seventh grade. I graduated high school here, moved away and then moved back. I just really prefer small town living,” she says. “I’ve got family here. My husband’s family is here. I work in insurance right here in New Underwood, and let me tell you what, it’s been the best.” 

New Underwood was incorporated in 1908. The town has relied on two wells for their water. “And they’re always at risk of failing,” Hall says. 

Small Towns at Risk 

“I don’t want us ever to be without water. If we don’t have water, we don’t have a town,” Hall says. For communities like New Underwood, the need to create redundancy in their water system may be even more pressing than that of larger communities. 

Due to geological and topographical features, communities east of the Black Hills usually rely on shallow wells to tap into aquifers. These shallow wells are typically more vulnerable to degradation of water quality and depletion. For this reason, it is likely that as water sources are strained more in western South Dakota, the first communities to feel the repercussions would be smaller communities on the plains — like New Underwood. 

Mayor Hall is optimistic for both the future of this infrastructure project and of her hometown of New Underwood. “I’m really excited about the future, and I hope that the momentum just keeps gathering. We just need to get the word out. It’s important that people know that this is going on and why we’re doing it.” 

Life Without Water 

As a child, Hall had a first hand experience of a life without ready access to water. She knows the struggles and the decrease in quality of life that restricted access to water brings. 

“We all typically take water for granted. When I was a little girl, we lived on the Cheyenne River. We, of course, had a well with a pump, and sometimes we would go weeks without electricity in the winter. That meant that we couldn’t pump our water. So, a lot of times, we would have to go out and melt snow. If we didn’t, a lot of stuff would come to a stand still. We had to have water to basically do everything.” 

The act of western South Dakota piping in water from the Missouri River is by no means a minor project. “It’s going to take many, many years for this to come to fruition,” Hall explains. “But every year that we wait, is another year that we’re behind. If you want to make a change and make a positive impact, a lot of times you just have to start yourself. So I hope that if I step up in my way, other people will be able to see the need and step up themselves. I hope that we’ll create some momentum that way. ”