Buying and selling wooden reels in South Dakota

East River and West River

South Dakotans divide their state at the Missouri River, and for moving reels the division holds. East River is farm country with most of the people: Sioux Falls, Brookings, Watertown, Aberdeen, Mitchell and Huron, linked by I-29 and I-90 and close to Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska. West River is ranch country, badlands and the Black Hills, with Rapid City as its hub and long gaps between towns.

An East River lot looks toward buyers in Sioux Falls, the Twin Cities and Omaha. A West River lot looks toward Rapid City, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska's Panhandle. A reel pile in Chamberlain, where I-90 crosses the river, can go either way, and we price whichever direction is cheaper for the size.

Small utilities, many co-ops

South Dakota's electricity sales are spread among many small providers. In EIA's 2024 table the largest retailer, Northern States Power Co, the Xcel Energy company serving the Sioux Falls area, sold 2,243,625 MWh. NorthWestern Energy's South Dakota operation and Black Hills Power follow, then two cooperatives, Southeastern Electric and Sioux Valley Southwestern. Dozens of other co-ops and municipal systems cover the rest of the state.

Small systems still do steady line work: rural rebuilds, conversion of old overhead lines to underground, service to new hog and dairy operations, grain elevators and ethanol plants, and growth on the edges of Sioux Falls. That work leaves URD and service reels, mostly 42 to 66 inch flanges, at many small yards. Few of those yards ever hold a full trailer, which is why combining lots matters so much here.

Sioux Falls: the state's busiest reel market

Sioux Falls is the largest city in the state and has grown quickly, with new housing, health care campuses, warehouses and food plants on its edges along I-29 and I-229. Each project wires new feeders and pulls building wire, and electrical contractors there hold mixed lots of non-returnable reels from several makers.

Those lots are easy to place. Sioux Falls is about three hours from Omaha and four from the Twin Cities by interstate, and trucks run that triangle constantly. A full van of small and mid reels from a Sioux Falls yard is among the cheapest lots to move in the northern plains.

Rapid City and the Black Hills

Black Hills Power serves Rapid City and the northern Black Hills. The terrain there is steep and wooded, unlike the rest of the state, and line work includes rebuilds after wind, snow and wildfire as well as service to growth around Rapid City and Box Elder. Reel lots from the Hills tend to be smaller and more varied.

Rapid City is about 350 miles west of Sioux Falls on I-90, and a similar distance from Billings. A West River lot often travels best combined with reels from north-eastern Wyoming or south-eastern Montana.

BEAD and the remaining rural gaps

NTIA's June 2023 BEAD table set South Dakota's allocation at $207,227,523.92. Much of the state's farm country was already wired with fiber by rural telephone cooperatives, so the remaining gaps are concentrated in West River ranch country and on tribal lands. Those routes are long, with very few homes per mile, and they use reels steadily.

Fiber crews need empties with drums no smaller than 20 times the cable's outside diameter, as NEMA WC 26 sets for fiber. For a 0.5 inch drop cable that is a 10 inch drum, but the same rule says never under 12 inches, so a 12 inch drum it is. A 30x18x12 or 36x30x17 covers most of that work.

Plains weather and reel storage

Hard winters, strong wind and spring floods along the rivers all affect stored reels. Light empties left unchocked roll in a gust. Reels lying flat fill with drifted snow and freeze in place. Low corners of a yard flood in a wet spring and soften the staves. Stand reels on their flanges on gravel, chock them, and keep them above the spring water line.

Spring load limits on many county and township roads restrict heavy trucks while frost leaves the ground. An empty reel trailer is light, but a loaded one may not be, so tell us if your yard is on a posted road.

What the desk needs from a South Dakota seller

• Each size as flange x traverse x drum, read from the reel stencil.
• A count for each size.
• A wide photo, a stencil photo per size, and close shots of torn drive holes, broken staves or damaged arbor holes.
• Town, and whether you are East River or West River.
• Road access, any seasonal load limits, and what you can load with.