Fargo Moorhead Diversion Authority Monitor | An Independent News Organization
The problem is not the water, it is the greed of developers and Fargo city officials that encouraged new neighborhoods near the river, or in flood prone low lying areas. I am serious when I ask “Just what are we thinking?” First of all our community has dealt with a number of floods in the past few years. We do know the high water mark. Finish the “buy outs” necessary, and learn from those mistakes.
Continue ReadingIn face to face meetings, the United States Army Corps of Engineers refuses to provide answers to valid questions from citizens and has attempted to procedure-ally sidestep FOIA – Freedom of Information Act requests. The taxpayers that are expected to shoulder the tax burden for the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Area Flood Risk Management plan need and deserve real answers.
Continue ReadingIn total, three North Dakota communities and hundreds of homes will be erased from the map. As we understand the plan, the diversion along with holding areas of water would inundate our property with 7 to 8 feet of water that we did not previously have to deal with. We, however, cannot support the current plan to use our home as the sacrificial lamb to increase the comfort level of the metro area without knowing where we stand relative to a potential buyout, land usage, and opportunities/costs related to whether or not we will be able to afford to continue the lifestyle we chose to live outside of the FM Metro Area in the 1st place.
Continue ReadingI oppose the above mentioned proposal for many reasons. Obviously, upstream communities were not asked to participate in the decision making process. I know alternatives do exist that address flooding basin wide. These have not been studied or addressed by the Corp nor have areas affected by the issue been included in the planning stages. Although the Corp acknowledges that there will be impacts outside the 33,390 acre staging area, these issues have not been assessed and these costs are not included in the project.
Continue ReadingMinot flooded and Fargo took that ball and ran. Saying look what could happen. Fargo hasn’t had a 100 year flood yet but now they want to be protected to 500 year, do they even know what number a 500 year flood is. Moorhead has been doing a good job of protecting themselves. Fargo is working on it and maybe have most done before this project can even get started. I hope they weren’t just looking at it as a stimulus project to create a lot of jobs to help the economy.
Continue ReadingResidents and farmers south of Fargo Moorhead should not have to be punished for the mistakes of those who chose to build in a flood plain in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Consider options of widening, straightening, dredging the river, erecting permanent flood walls, or erecting a ring dike around the city. We have a small family cemetery high on the riverbank of our property from my great-grandfather’s days. With the diversion, this would be flooded. And if the Eagle Valley cemetery is affected, the adjacent newly built Eagle Valley Evangelical Free Church along the Red River two miles east of Christine, ND would also be affected by the diversion.
Continue ReadingFargo, Cass County and the USACE may have overplayed their misinform, divide and conquer hand. The USACE, Cass County and Fargo will need to come to the table with previously excluded opponents and provide answers to defiencies and impacts evident in the current FEIS. A tough pill to swallow for those that have routinely marginalized opponents with denigrating disregard: “They had no place there. Why would diversion supporters who are trying to get the project funded invite project foes whose goal is to scuttle the project? They were not invited for good cause.”
Continue ReadingA small group of Fargo/Cass County individuals has been operating in a feedback loop with the St. Paul District U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to develop the Fargo Diversion. “… the ND alignment is a locally preferred alignment… to accommodate the city of Fargo’s current future plans of development…” This statement is a smoking gun that proves the Fargo Diversion, the Locally Preferred Plan, is all about development of the floodplain on the far south side of Fargo, which recently built a new south side high school in it in anticipation of future development. Although public hearings have been held, these have been strictly pro-forma, with no comments recorded. The general public has been blocked out of the decision making process.
Continue ReadingThere are a few THOUSAND people who live on farms and small communities south of Fargo Moorhead who are going to lose their homes and livelihoods or have them become unusable/inaccessible. The Fargo dam project as put forth by the Corp of Engineers has a moral problem in both environmental and human terms which will leave behind a legacy of acrimony. The DNR is not in favor of this project. A great, albeit unappreciated, resource will be destroyed.
Continue ReadingI witnessed the charade that was thrust upon the residents of Oxbow, Bakke Subdivision, Hickson, Christine, Comstock, etc., that what we thought even mattered. Good comments and proposals for alternative considerations were met with casual disregard, and it was readily apparent that nothing else was going to be considered because it would frustrate corps timelines for proposing their bizarre plan to Congress.
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