Brant Lake Flush with Earmark Cash: Johnson Tags $400K for Sewer

More cheers for earmarks in Lake County! Wednesday's Madison Daily Leader (what, print edition only, for big news like this?) reports that Senator Tim Johnson shoehorned $400K into the Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill to help build a sewer system around Brant Lake. The money, approved this week by the Senate Appropriations Committee, is just part of $6.7 million Senator Johnson managed to work into the bill for South Dakota.

Brant Lake Sanitary District board member Jan Nicolay tells MDL's Elisa Sand that the board is grateful for the money, though they won't be counting chickens until they hatch out of a full vote of the Congress. We should also note that the $400K is just a tenth of the $4 million Brant Lake will need to build its sewer (ah, so that's why no one runs for the Lake Herman Sanitary District board—we'll never have $4 million!).

But wowza wowza: $400K for Brant Lake, $190K for the LAIC, $1.1 million for Highway 34—what would we do without big federal spending? I guess the Tea Parties will never get traction in Lake County....