<< Read and Download Original Dean and Paula Swenson Comment Letter >>
November 6,2011
RE: Comments of the proposed Red River Diversion Project – North Dakota Army Corps of Engineers,
I believe that the project, as put forth, is an unsustainable project. There is no where in the world where there has been a project of this scope built. Given the ACE track record this last spring (2011) of disregarding private hydrologists warnings that the water content in the soils and the excessive snow pack in the mountains would lead to unprecedented flooding, I don’t believe that the ACE is capable of either designing, building or maintaining a man built water system that will go over or under 5 different water sheds in a 36 mile man made route around a metro area.
You are going to eliminate the entire community of Hickson, Oxbow, and the Bakke Addition in North Dakota. Plus you are going to eliminate many, many farmsteads that have been in families for more than a century. What about the cemeteries you are going to flood? You are going to flood 53,000 (?) acres of the best farm land in the world. That doesn’t take into account how many more acres are going to be left unfarmable on the fringes … We, as farmers, can’t get crop insurance on those acres that are flooded because of a man made dam. We have productive farm families that have lived here for over 100 years and you’re going to flood them to protect people in Fargo who have built in flood prone areas. Fargo has not been a good neighbor in this fight. They are only looking out for themselves.
It has been 14 years since the flood of 1997 in which the city of Grand Forks was lost. Fargo, just this past month, has finally passed ‘set-back’ ordinances from building too close to the river. They also have issued building pelmits in areas since 1997 that have been in flood prone areas. They need to clean up their own building permit process, have some green space areas along the river, where they can store water and quit looking to those of us out in the country to store water for them.
You keep calling this the LPP – it is NOT the Locally Preferred Plan – it is FARGO’S PLAN!!! And theirs only.
There is a ‘watering hole’ in Hickson called the Knickerbocker Liquor Locker-their radio ads lately have ended with the statement “high and dry for 122 years”. You, to give Fargo the ability to develop more and more land, are going to flood people that have never flooded in a century and a half.
I am against this diversion and only hope that cooler heads prevail before this goes too far.
Dean and Paula Swenson
Walcott, ND 58077
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