West Dam's Contract Ends October 7. The Lake Custer Remembers Comes Back in Stages.

"By this time next year, West Dam will be full once more." That was the opening line in the Custer County Chronicle last December. The city council had just accepted RCS Construction's $1,945,566.87 low bid to rebuild the dam, and RESPEC's Steve Bareis told the council the work should be finished by the following September.

That date has moved, but not far. On September 8, the council unanimously approved a time extension that set RCS Construction's final completion date at October 7, 2026. That's this week. None of the public records we found say yet that water is going back into the basin. The dam itself is only one of several things the project is returning to the west side of town, and each one is on its own schedule. The structure being finished now was designed first to protect the town. The reservoir people remember will arrive after it, piece by piece.

Why Custer Couldn't Just Patch It

The old dam began leaking in 2012 when its outlet structure broke. The reservoir drained completely, and the basin has sat as a weedy, half-boggy hollow beside Rocky Knolls Golf Course ever since. A repair might have worked if the state had still seen it as the same dam. It didn't. The South Dakota Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources now lists West Dam as a Category 1 high-hazard dam, meaning its failure could cause loss of life. The city was ordered to fix the safety problems and keep the reservoir drained until it did.

The engineering review was blunt. It found that "the dam does not have sufficient spillway capacity" and that the embankment "was not constructed in accordance with generally accepted dam enhancement engineering practices."

That finding set the size of the new dam. It is designed to pass 12,000 cubic feet per second. The flash flood that hit Custer on August 2, 2019, peaked at an estimated 1,200. The state's background sheet on that flood lists evacuations, flooded businesses, power failure and a contaminated municipal water supply. So the new dam is built for a flood ten times the worst one most residents have seen. The Chronicle's April 2025 project feature called it a dam built to survive "a Noah's Ark-type event." The same story pointed out that it reduces flood risk a great deal but does not remove it.

The reservoir also has a firefighting job. Plans call for a fire-suppression supply of about 73 acre-feet, roughly 24 million gallons, with two dry hydrants. The Chronicle feature adds that aircraft fighting forest fires can fill their buckets there.

Money Came From the Town, Not the Capitol

How the project got paid for helps explain the order of everything that follows. In 2025 the city asked the Legislature for $1.5 million through HB 1237. On February 26 the Joint Committee on Appropriations tabled it. An earlier plan for the National Guard to do the work as training never happened. According to the Chronicle, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers objected because French Creek would have had to be diverted several times.

An ad hoc West Dam Committee led by Mike Tennyson stepped in. Tennyson sits on the Black Hills Area Community Foundation board, and the foundation set up the Custer Community Development Fund to hold donations. By December 2025 the committee had raised $1.7 million during the year. Together with in-kind donated work, $1 million in city funds and other expected funding, that was enough to start phase three. Local businesses are still contributing. At its August 3 meeting, the council formally recognized Moss Rock Landscaping's donation of $14,400 in seeding and $74,700 in sediment removal.

Committee member Jim Ashmore told the council that Game, Fish & Parks "didn't have interest in the project unless the community got behind the effort." Once the community did, GFP pledged $402,000 for fishing docks and fish habitat.

The Order Things Come Back In

The project has four phases, and they line up with what residents will see in roughly the order it will appear.

1. Phase one: diversion and erosion control. Water was diverted out of the reservoir and storm water protections went in, at a cost of $99,435. This phase is complete.
2. Phase two: getting the mud out. This was mass excavation of the reservoir bed for $575,150. As far as anyone knew, the basin had never been dredged, and the silt was six to eight feet deep. In August the Chronicle reported this phase, including work around Rocky Knolls' ninth green, was winding down.
3. Phase three: the dam itself. This is RCS Construction's contract, now due October 7. In August the council approved a $13,067.70 change order for culvert repair, and the minutes note that the DOT had verbally committed $8,215.80 toward it.
4. Phase four: the park. This phase is not under construction and has not gone to bid.

Phase three is the one finishing this week. Tennyson put it simply in December: "(Phase three) is going to complete the project in its entirety so we can put water back in it." How fast the basin fills after that depends on French Creek. We have not found any published refill date, so for now the Chronicle's December forecast is the only timeline on record.

It may also help to adjust expectations about size. The city's original water right from the 1930s covered about 30 acre-feet, far less than the more than 50 acre-feet the old dam actually held. In 2016 the state Water Management Board approved an additional 47.5 acre-feet. The design was also trimmed to save money. The vertical outlet pipe is three feet square instead of five, and the secondary spillway was narrowed from 200 feet to 100. The Chronicle reported that the finished dam's height and armoring keep its flood capacity intact.

What Changes for Rocky Knolls Golfers

Golfers will see the first changes. The old road access to Rocky Knolls across the top of the dam is gone for good, and Wazi Lane becomes the main way in and out of the course. Tennyson told the council that Wazi Lane will need repairs once the heavy project trucks are finished with it, and a Wazi Lane rebuild is on the phase-four list.

The master plan also rebuilds the ninth hole as an island green, which the Chronicle reported is believed to be the only one in the state. The ninth-hole work was planned for late fall so it wouldn't cut into golf season. Some of the material dug out of the reservoir is being kept at the course for improvements.

The clubhouse has its own separate project. Rocky Knolls says on its website that it is "working to renovate our clubhouse" and has posted concept images of the planned interior and exterior. Its own fundraising campaign could raise around half a million dollars for the course and clubhouse. The council's October 5 agenda includes a request to waive $7,205 in building permit fees for a clubhouse interior renovation and addition at 25153 Wazi Lane. That request had not been voted on as of this writing.

The Park Is the Part Still Waiting on Donors

The trail, courts and fishing that people talk about most are all in phase four, and phase four depends on more fundraising. In March the council assigned the design work to DGR Engineering. The task order describes a recreation trail along the north side of West Dam connecting Gates Park, the new dam area, proposed sports courts and the existing Highway 16 pedestrian path. It also covers a pickleball court, a basketball court, grading for soccer, a butterfly garden, an interpretive center and a donor recognition area on a site of about 10 acres. Estimated construction cost is $1.2 to $1.3 million. The scope of work includes a topographic survey "after dam construction," which is why this phase is next in line.

The full phase-four wish list Tennyson presented in December is longer. It adds parking, restrooms, playgrounds, picnic shelters and gardens, for a projected total of about $2,917,000. Some items are required by grants the committee has already won, including the trail to the Gates Park ballfield, fishing docks and habitat, and donor benches and wall. The committee is also hoping for as much as $750,000 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service toward the butterfly park. "We are hoping the pickleball enthusiasts will open their checkbooks and write some checks to support those particular features," Tennyson said.

On fishing, GFP has pledged to place the fish habitat so fish can spawn. We have not found a published stocking schedule for the refilled reservoir.

What the Town Lost in 2012

The Chronicle's history of the reservoir recalls fishing, swimming, ice skating, water-ski shows and the "Sink or Swim" boat races. Tennyson remembers someone falling off a boat during one of those races and landing "knee deep in mud." Mayor Bob Brown explained why he made the dam his priority: "That's what people talk about. That's what we lost."

Whether those uses return depends on water levels, on phase four, and on what the city and GFP decide to allow. The October 7 deadline doesn't settle any of that. What the deadline delivers is a dam that meets the state's high-hazard standard, can hold back ten times the 2019 flood, and gives fire crews a place to fill their buckets.

If you live on Custer's west side or golf at Rocky Knolls, the next few months will reshape the area around Wazi Lane. If you're weighing a property near the dam or trying to understand how these projects affect what you already own, Joel Hawkins and our team follow the council records closely and are glad to talk it through with you. Schedule a free consultation, and we'll walk you through the West Dam timeline as the details firm up.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.