There is new class of society emerging in Imperial Fargo-Cass.
They trade in baloney and their stock is bull – and this isn’t referring to sandwich meat or something for the BBQ.
The sheer magnitude of the baloney suggests that Keith Berndt is a billionaire of bull among many.
Pondering the correct name for a community of this elite group could range from Cargo or Fargass based on the load of bull they are pushing to the effervescent stench of what they are floating – hoping someone doesn’t notice.
What is truly remarkable is how disconnected from reality their grandiose claims of bull can be with little or no connection to reality.
For instance, the proposed Fargo Dam and FM Diversion price tag settled in around $1.8 billion in 2011 and has miraculously not moved since, yet the proposed losses associated with a potential 100 year flood in Fargo have nearly tripled?
Let’s step into the way-back time machine and check the public reports against Keitht Berndt’s $10 billion dollar estimated loss figure he recently shared with the Star Tribune.
Public Reports
2009 July – State Water commission Newsletter
↳ 100 year damage estimate $2+ billion2009 December – USACE Alternatives Screening Document
↳ 500 year damage estimate $6+ billion2011 September – USACE Final Environmental Impact Statement
↳ 100 year damage estimate $2.1 billion2011 December – RRBC Comprehensive Report
↳ 100 year damage estimate $2.5 billion “Fargo and Moorhead”2012 November – RRBC LTFS Executive Summary
↳ 100 year damage estimate $3-4 billion “Red River Basin”Floods for Comparison:
Nashville, TN 2010
est 11,000 structures incurred major flood damage.
Flood Damage approximately $2.65 billion (USA Today)Minot, ND 2011
est 4,100 structures incurred flood damage
Flood Damage approximately $2+ billion (www.infoplease.com)
So are we “really” supposed to believe that the $10 billion 100 year loss estimates provided by Keith Berndt are factual in any way? Especially, since Fargo exceeded the FEMA 100 year level in 2009.
Fargo’s loose estimate of 3,000 properties below the 100 year flood plain would be roughly $3.3 million per property…, and that would have to be a 100% total loss. Even if there were 11,000 properties (like in Nashville, TN) that experienced a total loss it would still be over $909,000 per property. (**sniff sniff** doesn’t pass the test) Fargo, Cass and the USACE had to have pumped up their numbers to get a favorable cost benefit ratio.
If overstated loss numbers are considered “acceptable” because the end justifies the means…, then how can any local Fargo-Cass official or U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representative be trusted?
Even worse…, if Keith Berndt is willing to share misinformation to a national newspaper (Star Tribune) on a project this large, what other nuggets of misinformation have been swept under the rug and kept from public scrutiny?
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