Who pays for the water?

State and local officials in Nebraska are giving Tyson the business after the giant meat packer announced plans to shut down the Lexington beef plant and put 3,200 people out of work.

Tyson should do this and that to get right by the community that put up with it for 25 years, they say. You can’t trade on wishes and hopes. Cattle are in historic short supply mainly because of disease, drought and consolidation. Tyson had to cut its losses somewhere. Lexington and Nebraska should not have been so easy 25 years ago.

Tyson shut down its Perry pork plant last summer, built in 1965. Pork losses grew while sales volume kept pace with inflation in 2025. 

Storm Lake’s plant was built in the 1920s, landlocked and distant from a four-lane highway.

We are in the midst of a crucial water discussion where massive rate increases are contemplated to rebuild an overwhelmed system. Massive increases on householders, that is.

Residential rates will double while industrial cost share will drop by 50%, according to city documents.

City Hall is quiet about its talks with Tyson, which gulps half our water. The Arkansas company paid for part of a new water tower and line. It will continue to enjoy discounted water rates for high volume. That means working stiffs — and that is what Storm Lake is built on at $20 per hour — will shoulder the greater burden for water treatment and distribution.

The cost is estimated at $125 million. This is for a system twice what a town of 12,000-15,000 people would need were it not for meatpacking.

If Tyson closes, the town will be devastated temporarily. We will be left with a huge debt load on a 40-year schedule for water and sewer after the workers flee. The town is indentured to the company.

The company has invested in this water project. It has recently spent millions on freezers. It has toughed it out through bird flu wipeouts of turkey production. There are no indications that Tyson has any intention of leaving Storm Lake. It gets a good deal.

There were no indications in Perry or Lexington, either.

These places survive. JBS is moving into Perry in Tyson’s wake, building its own facility. Lexington will adjust. Fort Dodge did. Cherokee used to be a meatpacking town and dropped in size by a third since 1960, but it remains gorgeous, affordable and comfortable without the stench. 

Storm Lake took its gut check when Hygrade shut down over four decades ago. IBP came in paying half the wage. We cut taxes and rates to accommodate IBP’s first foray into boxed pork. This traditionally has been Tyson’s most profitable pork plant for a lot of reasons. 

Things can change. Water is becoming costly. We are poised to offer Tyson what it needs. That is why local officials don’t want to talk about it. They’re scared, or at least they should be.

Scarcity is a real concept now. The Dakota aquifer cannot long stand the drawdown from livestock, ethanol and other human enterprises. Neither can the deeper Jordan aquifer. The costs are upon us, drowning us.

Several years ago state hydrology experts warned that the Dakota aquifer could not sustain its production in the Storm Lake and Cherokee region. We continued to increase consumption since then with larger livestock operations, more meat processing and ethanol production. The state halted aquifer modeling, alarmed by reality. The county induced a soy processor to come in and have at it.

It’s called flying blind on purpose.

How much water could Tyson conserve? We don’t know. How will anticipated increases in consumption affect already stressed aquifers? The state stuck its head in the sand. How much will Tyson pay? Nobody says. Then the deal goes down. Later the lights could go out. It happens.

Storm Lake gets no guarantees if it builds a water plant. Who will reimburse Lexington? Who gets left holding the bag? Corporations drink deeply from our cup while we give it away.

That might be a reason Iowa has the worst economy among the 50 states. We are in a second-world mentality, busy exporting people and soil while polluting the river and drinking the well dry for absentee owners.

Sioux City could not imagine itself without the stockyards. Dubuque gave up on slaughter in favor of education, financial and medical services, and gambling. We have a college and a lake. We would survive somehow. Walmart would take a big hit, along with taco shops. We would not need to expand schools. Where would the pork go? Iowa Select will find an outlet.

So we should not give away the farm and later find ourselves stuck in a rut. Water is everything. The deal might be done by now. It is not our place to know who gets the water and for how much, until we wake up one morning to a town without meatpacking.