Reice Haase, director of the North Dakota Department of Water Resources, testifies to the interim Advanced Nuclear Energy Committee on June 16, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Orledge/North Dakota Monitor)
BISMARCK, N.D. (North Dakota Monitor) – A nuclear reactor in North Dakota could require as much water as a coal power plant, and the regulator responsible for managing the state’s water resources says the Missouri River is the best available source.
Reice Haase, director of the North Dakota Department of Water Resources, said the state uses less than a spoonful of the gallon of water that is the Missouri River as a water resource. The river is a far better option as a water source than groundwater if a nuclear reactor is built in North Dakota, he said.
“By far, the Missouri River is our greatest resource for surface water in North Dakota,” Haase said.
The Missouri River is not a resource available to North Dakota exclusively. It originates in Montana. Downstream of North Dakota, the river flows through or borders South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas and Missouri.
Haase said his department has had extensive discussions about Missouri River water use with the state’s neighbors and the state of Missouri. Only the latter has disagreed with North Dakota’s approach to water use, Haase said.
“I will say that the state of Missouri disagrees with us on our water use,” Haase said. “Our message to the other states is, once again, our use of water in North Dakota is responsible.”
The remarks were made during a presentation to the interim Advanced Nuclear Energy Committee, a hybrid legislative committee composed of legislators, executive branch officials and private sector representatives.
The committee is studying the feasibility of using nuclear energy to generate electricity in the state and what obstacles may exist. Its focus has been on small modular reactors, smaller than the nuclear power plants that have typically been built.
There are 98 SMRs under development around the world, said Will Bridge, chief operating officer of Nucleon Energy. Those reactors involve different designs based on various technologies and the industry has thus far not reached a consensus on which is preferred.
“It really is a race to commercialization, a race to affordability,” Bridge said.
While the economic feasibility of these nuclear reactors is still years away, legislators and regulators are working together to determine if North Dakota could handle such a project.
Sheri Haugen-Hoffart, representing the Public Service Commission on the committee, said her agency would have authority to oversee the siting process of a nuclear power plant, but only within certain boundaries defined by state law.
“The PSC’s authority under the act is regulatory in nature. It is focused on where and how facilities are sited, but it does not extend to prohibiting construction outright or determining whether a facility is economically needed,” Haugen-Hoffart said.
She said they would not have any jurisdiction over nuclear power co-located with an existing power plant or industrial site that has already received regulatory certification from the Public Service Commission.
Haugen-Hoffart was not advocating for or against nuclear power. But she told the committee concerns that need to be addressed before nuclear development begins include a process to ensure there is a way to decommission the facility and a long-term storage site established for nuclear waste that does not currently exist in the United States.
“Until this part of the problem is resolved, any nuclear facility risks unknown and uncapped costs for storing the spent fuel onsite, whether the plant is operational or not,” Haugen-Hoffart said.
Nuclear energy has caught the attention of at least one member of North Dakota’s next generation. Jayson Needham, a 12-year-old resident of Pembina, presented to committee members.
He explained how a nuclear reactor generates electricity by boiling water into steam, warned legislators of the risks associated with a nuclear power plant, and briefed the policy makers on what led to the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl, north of Kiev, Ukraine, in 1986.
He first began researching nuclear power a few years ago in fourth grade when he came across a YouTube video on Chernobyl. Needham has since been learning about other nuclear incidents, including the accident in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 as a result of an earthquake and subsequent tsunami, as well as the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania
“Chernobyl was actually what, like, caused me to go into everything nuclear,” Needham said. “Then it was Fukushima, and then Three Mile Island.”
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