Will the flood finally lead to permanent flood control?

• Frost-covered homes

Frost-covered homes and trees are surrounded by Red River floodwater Saturday in Fargo. Associated Press
• Homes surrounded

Homes are surrounded by floating ice and floodwater Saturday in Fargo. When the river is at normal levels, the banks are defined by the twisting tree line. Ice seen surrounding the homes is floodwater.

Talk about it

WASHINGTON – Having avoided disaster during the flood of 1997, Fargo-Moorhead is a victim of its own success.

Fargo officials undertook some extra precautions since the flood of the previous century, but nothing as comprehensive as the $400 million flood protection system built in Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn., under the supervision of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Though flood projects require some matching local funds, there was never the same impetus for North Dakota or Minnesota’s congressional delegations to push for more.

Today, as floodwaters threaten to drown Fargo-Moorhead, the Grand Cities 80 miles to the north are relatively calm and not worried they will see the devastation they endured 12 years ago.

“In 1997 we won it, we beat the flood, in every community but Grand Forks,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D. “So, of course, there was a tremendous focus on building longer-term defenses for the city. Fargo won the flood fight, so naturally there was less pressure to deal with a more far-reaching, long-term solution.”

With his city facing a potential disaster, Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker said, “I hope that isn’t what it takes to get somebody to agree that, for us, that’s what’s needed.”

Some members of North Dakota’s congressional delegation now believe a more holistic approach to flood protection is needed in the notoriously flood-prone Red River Valley.

“These are inevitable threats to North Dakota’s most significant, most populous cities, and proper protections need to be built,” said Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D.

Pomeroy, Conrad and Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., have traveled to the flooded areas over the past several days. They met with President Barack Obama on Wednesday to talk about the flooding and are being briefed regularly by officials in the Homeland Security Department, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the White House, said a spokesman for Pomeroy.

Two lawmakers from neighboring Minnesota, Rep. Collin Peterson and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, both Democrats, also visited the Red River Valley last week and are pushing the White House for disaster relief.

The differences in flood protection in the Grand Cities and Fargo-Moorhead are stark.

Before being stopped by blizzardlike conditions, the Grand Forks area was able to send busloads of volunteers south to Fargo to help with sandbagging and flood preparation efforts, said Kevin Dean, a spokesman for Grand Forks.

Fargo officials, by contrast, have canceled school in part to increase the number of volunteers available to stop the floodwaters.

Aaron Snyder, the Army Corps of Engineers’ project manager for the Red River basin, said there is no technical reason for the difference in protection. He attributed it to impetus at the local level and in Congress.

In Grand Forks, Snyder said, there was a more pronounced need after the flood. Fargo-Moorhead’s metropolitan area has recently begun the process of a comprehensive review by the Corps, but it did not feel the same pressure after 1997.

“What you see a lot of times is there’s much more support following a catastrophe,” Snyder said. “You see a big push. Since Fargo’s been very successful in the past, there hasn’t been as big of a push.”

Snyder said Fargo had made an effort to improve its flood protections since 1997, but he said, “It’s just not of the magnitude of what was done in Grand Forks.”

Flooding is a constant threat for every city in the Red River Valley, where geography works against the population base. The river flows south to north along the flat countryside.

“Most Americans don’t understand it’s as flat as a table top. It’s not a channel of water. When it floods, it just spreads all over,” Dorgan said. “It’s unlike most flooding any American would ever see.” Conrad said Fargo’s newest struggles have convinced him that a broader view might be appropriate.

“As we go through this incident and review what’s occurred, it may well be that a determination will be made to have a much more extensive flood defense system than we previously thought was necessary,” he said.

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Readers can reach Forum reporter Tracy Frank at (701) 241-5526

Tags: spring flood 2009, north dakota, grand forks, flood protection, news, flood, pomeroy, conrad, dorgan