Big Bend Dam with an annual production of 969 million kilowatt hours, and meets peak-hour demand for power within the Missouri River Basin. Located near Fort Thompson, South Dakota, just south of a major bend in the Missouri River (from which the dam takes its name), Big Bend Dam creates Lake Sharpe, named after South Dakota Governor Merrill Q. Sharpe. The lake extends for up the course of the Missouri River passing through Pierre, the State Capitol, to Oahe Dam, another major power-generating and flood control dam. Lake Sharpe covers a total of and drains an area just under . South Dakota Highway
Lake Oahe Dakota were flooded by the Oahe Dam alone. As of 2015, poverty remains a problem for the displaced populations in the Dakotas, who are still seeking compensation for the loss of the towns submerged under Lake Oahe, and the loss of their traditional ways of life. Lake Oahe became a point of contention in protests to block the Dakota Access Pipeline. The construction project has been controversial for its environmental impacts, and several Native American tribes in the Dakotas and Iowa have opposed the project. These include several Sioux nations and the Meskwaki. In 2016 a group from the Standing