Local officials to meet with Dorgan, corps on diversion alternatives

Talk about it

Local officials will meet with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Sen. Byron Dorgan on Feb. 1 in Fargo to hear an updated analyses of Red River diversion alternatives to protect Fargo-Moorhead.

The meeting is at 11 a.m. in the Fargo Civic Center’s Centennial Hall, said Aaron Snyder, the corps project co-manager.

The corps’ Fargo and Moorhead officials will then host public meetings Feb. 2 and 3 to present revised engineering and cost-benefit analyses for the Minnesota and North Dakota alternatives.

The meetings will also take input on the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Feasibility Study.

“We should have a lot of new information for the public,” Snyder said. “Loss of life analyses and new economic numbers. We’ll have some good information.”

The corps is finalizing cost estimates for the diversion channels and still conducting the benefit analysis yet, Snyder said.

The study focus has been narrowed to two alignments, one each in Minnesota and North Dakota. There are four possible sizes in Minnesota and two in North Dakota, corps officials say.

The Feb. 2 meeting will be at Centennial Hall. The Feb 3 meeting will be at Hanson Theater in the Center for the Arts on the Minnesota State University Moorhead campus at 801 13th St. S.

Both meetings begin at 6 p.m. with an open house. A formal presentation follows at 7 p.m., with a question and answer period ending at 9 p.m.

Tags: diversion, red river, flood protection, army corps of engineers, communities, news, flood, fargo, moorhead, dorgan