ABOUT
The Fall River County Conservation District was organized after a ten year period of drought, which forced people to realize that soil and moisture must be conserved if this area was to be self supporting. A temporary committee was formed, an education meeting held, petitions circulated, and on February 21, 1941 a hearing on the formation of the district was held.
Following the approval of the State Committee, and educational work by the County Extension Service, a referendum on the creation of the district was held May 12, 1941 at Oelrichs, South Dakota.
Clarence E Daech and Earl B. Robinson were appointed supervisors on May 19, 1941. A certificate of organization was issued to the district on June 12, 1941. On July 22, 1941, Cornelius Hofman, E.G. Roll, and John N. McLain were elected supervisors.
The largest irrigation project is Angostura Project. When completed in 1950, Angostura Dam and Reservoir on the Cheyenne River, a Missouri River tributary, could store 220,000 acre-feet of water, of which 60,000 acres feet would be used for flood control and the remainder was used for silt retention and for irrigation of land in the Angostura Unit. The Cheyenne River basin above Angostura Dam contains 9,100 square miles and has an average annual run-off of about 126,606 acre-feet. Angostura Main Canal, with 293 cubic feet per second initial capacity, was originally approximately 37 miles in length.
The following were some of the major conservation practices: contour planting, crop residue management, contour and wind strip-cropping, stubble mulch tillage, irrigation (only on medium and heavy textured soils), grass and hay seeding, proper range stocking, terracing, field and gully diversions, grassed waterways, stock water dams (with trickle tubes), and farmstead windbreaks.
