Fargo Moorhead Diversion Authority Monitor | An Independent News Organization
Benjamin Larson, candidate for the Minnesota House: Moorhead, Minn,“wake up and fight for the city’s future.” Moorhead is located on high ground, much higher than the flood plain south of Fargo, Moorhead is the natural choice for flood-free future development: both residential and commercial.
Continue ReadingFargo wants to take 40 square miles out of the flood plain immediately south of town – where the Wild Rice and Red Rivers meet – to provide future development room for Fargo. Should someone whisper that the emperor has no clothes?
Continue ReadingHow long will the Diversion Authority continue to push this illegal budget-busting boondoggle while people in need of reasonable flood protection remain at risk? The North Dakota Constitution was amended to provide that a public use or public purpose may not include: “… public benefits of economic development, including an increase in tax base, tax revenues, employment or general economic health.”
Continue ReadingFargo cannot expand south as the land south of Davies High School is a natural flood plain that collects water when we have even moderate flooding. Fargo’s solution: protect the extra 40-square miles for development by building dams on the Red and Wild Rice and back up the water that would normally and naturally spread out into the floodplain.
Continue ReadingMinnesota Flood Hazard Mitigation Grant funds were not intended to be Fargo development funds for flood- prone areas south of Fargo. There are better solutions that have been ignored, primarily because it may restrict Fargo expanding to the south. I would suggest 52 Street South in Fargo. In the past, that is where Fargo has successfully placed a temporary levee.
Continue ReadingAfter successful prodding by the Fargo Mayor, voters approved an extension of a half-cent sales tax in Fargo. That means Fargo residents will only have to pay 60 percent of additional financing for the dam and ditch. But that will not be enough money. The diversion finance committee is now saying – after the election – they need the Water Resource District to levy special assessments. Good timing.
Continue ReadingThe Minnesota DNR calls the proposed dam a “high hazard dam,” where failure is likely to cause loss of life. So, now the plan is to dig clay out of a diversion channel, and build a 15-foot-high dam from Comstock to Horace, and expect to provide protection for the metro area. But the problem is the clay under our black topsoil is expansive clay, which means it’s capable of absorbing large amounts of water. The more water it absorbs, the weaker it becomes. When it dries, it contracts and shrinks in size.
Continue ReadingThe lack of a reasonable plan for farmland impacts of a proposed diversion is troubling to say the least. Crop insurance will not cover a manmade disaster. If losses are caused by a dam and reservoir, no payments will be made.
Continue ReadingThe Fargo Moorhead Diversion Authority and its agent, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, continue to obscure the truth about the plan to dam our rivers and flood our farms and communities. They did this by discounting all the dry years prior to 1942 to inflate their average, then hired a few “experts” that agreed with them.
Continue ReadingThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) has been engaging in some highly questionable analysis in its definition of the 100-year flood plain in Fargo-Moorhead. As a result, the Corps’ Dam/Diversion is quickly losing its claim to being a cost-effective project.
Continue Reading