ARGUSVILLE, N.D. (KFGO) – On a stage sitting in the middle of what will soon be the start of a 30-foot-wide, 30-mile long diversion channel which promises to provide 100 years of flood protection to 235,000 people in the Fargo-Moorhead region, U.S. Senators, North Dakota’s and Minnesota’s governors, the mayors of Fargo, West Fargo, and Moorhead, and other leaders from around the region celebrated the groundbreaking of a project 25 years in the making.
Governor Doug Burgum says the F-M region’s flood protection project will also protect $25 billion worth of property and, on the North Dakota side, cities and towns that represent 20% of the state’s sales tax collections.
“What are we protecting with this? We’re not just protecting memories and personal homes. We’re protecting an economic engine – that includes an entire research university, one-third of the K-12 students in North Dakota, not to mention tens of thousands of jobs,” Burgum said.
The total cost of the project has been estimated at $3.2 billion but Army Corps of Engineers Col. Eric Swenson says the cost in today’s dollars will be less than the cost of the damages of the 1997 flood.
“The communities of Fargo and Moorhead and the Army Corps of Engineers have a long history dating back to the early 1950s working side-by-side to manage flood events. Today we are taking a small step, or scoop of dirt, which symbolizes the earthwork that will soon define a large step forward – a step that will shift our efforts from flood fighting to flood prevention,” Swenson said.
Senators Amy Klobuchar and John Hoeven were on hand – both were instrumental in securing the federal dollars necessary to secure the project, which took 16 Acts of Congress to pass.
“Every year they say it’s the worst flood ever – I know we’ve all heard that – and then Mother Nature says ‘hold my beer,’ and we see another one. What we are doing with this project is thinking ahead and not just accepting things as they are one year where it seems okay and then just crossing our fingers and hoping it’s going to be okay the next year, because we know that isn’t the case,” Klobuchar said.
Hoeven says the project it the first of its kind and a model for public-private partnerships.
“For large multi-billion dollar, multi-state projects, this will be the paradigm – you wait and see,” Hoeven said.
The channel will stretch from Horace to Argusville. It is scheduled to be completed in 2027.
So I’m a little confused. If we’re breaking ground now, what the heck they been working on up to this point? Or is this just the channel they’re working on now?