Considered one of South Dakota’s worst agricultural disasters, the Oct. 3-5 storm dumped up to 48 inches (122 cm) of snow on parts of the state.

The South Dakota Cattlemen’s Association, the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association and the South Dakota Sheep Growers Association have partnered with Black Hills Area Community Foundation to raise funds to aid livestock producers affected by the blizzard.

“We have received, in gifts and pledges, approximately $400,000 from around the country,” said Regina Jahr, executive director of Black Hills Area Community Foundation.

“The ag community spread the word on Facebook pages, their blogs, their agriculture publications, and through all the sale barns,” Jahr said.

AgChat, a foundation that assists farmers and ranchers through social media platforms, partnered with Tyson Foods to hold an online fundraising event on Oct. 21.

Tyson pledged to donate $10 for each Twitter post including the hash tag #RancherRelief Tweet, up to $50,000. The event resulted in more than 5,000 tweets worth $50,000 in only a few hours, they said.

AgChat has set a goal of raising $500,000 for rancher relief.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture also has pledged assistance to South Dakota livestock producers cleaning up from the storm.

“We are only at the beginning of this recovery, and it will take time and billions of dollars,” Jahr said.

A unified campaign has been established at the AgChat Foundation’s giving site. To donate to the Rancher Relief Fund visit, www.giveblackhills.org and search “Rancher Relief Fund”.

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Authorities are tallying up the losses which could run into the millions of dollar as the worst drought in 56 years expands, devastating the corn and soybean crops and forcing ranchers to cull their herds due to scorched pasture.

"Nationwide we are talking tens of millions to hundreds of millions (of dollars in losses). It just depends upon how long it lasts and how widespread it becomes," said fisheries biologist Dan Stephenson of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

"If this drought persists into fall, when the duck and other waterfowl pass through on their way south, there could be a larger problem," Stephenson told Reuters.

In Iowa, losses were estimated at $10.1 million after 37,000 fish were found dead along a 42-mile stretch of the Des Moines River from the dam in Eldon to the Farmington Bridge in the northeast of the state.

"Temperatures were extremely high … I mean 97 degrees (Fahrenheit; 36 Celsius) is essentially unheard of on this stretch of the river and it’s certainly higher than anything I’ve ever seen," says fisheries biologist Mark Flammang of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.

Flammang said the majority of fish killed in Iowa were shovelnose sturgeon, with a value of $116.20 per lb based on guidelines from the American Fisheries Society.

After one of the mildest winters on record, the weather turned dry and temperatures began soaring into the triple-digit degrees Fahrenheit in the Midwest, which grows 75 per cent of the country’s corn and soybean crops.

Excessive heat arrived early for the game fishing industry, in June rather than the usual August to September. When June’s record high temperatures burned through the Midwest, it was too late for the fishing industry to fix the problem.

"We install large pond and lake aeration systems to keep the water moving and oxygenated during stressful times, however the dilemma here is that these systems need to be installed in spring to start circulating water before the heat arrives," Nate Herman, owner of Herman Brothers Lake and Land Management Company in Peoria, Illinois, said. "Cooler water at the bottom needs to be mixed slowly before summer or you kill your fish yourself."

Fish are particularly susceptible to even subtle changes in their environments. Oxygen levels usually fluctuate during the day and night depending on temperature and other factors.

But the hot weather heated some waterways to between 85 and 90 degrees, forcing oxygen levels in the water down to a degree that caused fish to suffocate.

"The warmer the water, the less oxygen it can hold," said Herman.

Five parts per million of oxygen found in water is conducive to fish, three parts per million stresses them, and at two parts per million or less they start to die, he said.

The drought hit cool-water species of fish like black crappie, northern pike and walleye disproportionately harder as they are not accustomed to warm conditions.

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The October study showed 46 deaths and injuries so far in 2010, exceeding the previous record of 42 documented cases in 1993 from 16 U.S. states.

Of the 46 incidents through October, 25 were fatal. Most cases were in Illinois, which had 10 cases of death or injury, followed by Minnesota with eight. Iowa and Wisconsin reported five cases each.

The high toll was due to the poor quality of the corn crop harvested last year due to rain damage, Purdue University’s Agricultural Safety and Health Program said.

Many of the injuries and deaths resulted from accidents inside storage bins. Workers entered silos to free up grain stuck to the wall and got sucked into the pile.

The study said 70 per cent of these “entrapment” cases occur on farms, and 30 per cent at commercial grain facilities.

Bill Fields, a professor in the department of agricultural and biological engineering at Purdue University, who led the team which did the study, said:

“A person can become entrapped within seconds and become buried with little likelihood of survival. Most entrapments result in fatality.

“The 2009 corn crop was put into storage bins with moisture levels too high, so it lumped together… causing workers to have to go in to break it up to make the grain flow easier. That’s when they become trapped.”

Since documentation of such cases began in 1964, there have been 800 cases of fatalities and injuries.

The commercial grain industry is regulated by standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Fields says laws are on the books which should prevent most of these cases from occurring in commercial facilities. The difficulty, he says, is that not everyone complies with these rules and farms are exempt from them.

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