Diversion foes say DNR report won’t affect lawsuit

FARGO – Though supporters of the flood diversion here see a recent report from the state of Minnesota as vindication of their position, an opponent of the project said it will not change his group’s lawsuit “one iota.”
Nathan Berseth, a spokesman for the Richland-Wilkin Joint Powers Authority, said he would be very surprised if the Department of Natural Resources ultimately approves the diversion project as designed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
His group is suing the corps and the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Board of Authority in part because they’ve begun construction without DNR approval.
Though the diversion channel would be in North Dakota, a dam to hold back water and reduce the impact of the channel on downstream communities would also be in Minnesota. The DNR says it must be allowed to weigh in because of the impact on Minnesota farmlands.
But the department recently released a draft report that would seem to favor the diversion.
The report looked at the large-scale storage of water on farmlands as the only alternative to the diversion and concluded storage alone would not provide protection the Fargo-Moorhead area needs.
Berseth said in theory, if the DNR approves the diversion as the corps designed it, his group would have to dismiss charges that involve the DNR. The more likely scenario, he said, is the DNR would agree a diversion is needed but it should be large enough just to protect currently developed areas, not as-yet vacant land.
The DNR is a key part of the lawsuit.
The Joint Powers Authority argues, among other things, that the corps has ignored federal environmental law by not taking into account the DNR’s input and that it is violating Minnesota state law by starting a project the DNR has not approved.
The DNR is also a party to the lawsuit as an amicus curiae, or interested group, because it says its regulatory powers are threatened. The Diversion Authority claims that the corps’ authority to build flood-control projects supersedes a state agency’s authority, which the DNR disagrees with.
Berseth said his group stays in close contact with the DNR, but has no influence over the state agency.
Both the Joint Powers Authority and the agency believe the diversion project as designed by the corps is larger, more expensive and potentially more economically damaging than is needed to protect existing Fargo-Moorhead properties. In other words, they say the project will also protect vacant land so metro-area developers can build more houses.
“The Project would flood thousands of acres of Minnesota farmland in order to expand development opportunities in the Fargo-Moorhead Metropolitan Area,” the DNR said in a filing.
The department is expected to release its draft findings on the diversion project in May or June.
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Tu-Uyen Tran at (701) 241-5417