The hills capture moisture, feed springs and streams, and recharge aquifers that supply water to large areas of South Dakota and parts of neighboring states.

In a semi-arid region where water is a critical resource, the water resources of the Black Hills have enormous practical significance.

The 1868 treaty’s promise of “absolute and undisturbed use and occupation” of the Great Sioux Reservation included, necessarily, the water resources of the Black Hills.

The taking of the Hills in 1877 was also, in effect, the taking of those water resources — resources that the Sioux had used and that have since been used by the state, by municipalities, and by agricultural interests throughout the region.

This dimension of what was taken is rarely quantified in discussions of the Black Hills judgment fund.

The $17.1 million fair market value assessed by the Court of Claims as of 1877 reflected the land values and resource values of that period.