THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH

THE RED RIVER OF THE NORTH

There should be serious consideration given to a flood control project in the Red River Valley aimed at improving the management of one of America’s premier waterways and its environs. A similar project in Canada, undertaken to prevent a recurrence of the flood which damaged Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1950, which has now grown into a metropolitan area of about 700,000 people, has saved the Canadian government an estimated $10 billion in damage repairs just since 1969, when it was completed. The 1997 flood alone caused approximately $3.5 billion in damage on both sides of the border, including widespread devastation in Grand Forks, North Dakota, a city with a metro population of approximately 100,000 people. To give you some idea of the potential for devastation, residents in the Wahpeton-Breckenridge and the Fargo-Moorhead metro areas, along with thousands of volunteers and the National Guard are expecting river levels to surpass the record of 40 feet over flood stage, on Monday, March 23, 2009, while Grand Forks is preparing for levels above 52 feet. Forecasts of rain and snow are expected to further complicate sandbagging efforts surpassing one million bags, with calls for an additional second million or more bags as volunteers and responses increase to protect the lives and property of the Fargo-Moorhead area, a metro region of approximately 200,000 people. The states of Minnesota, North and South Dakota and Manitoba, Canada, which contain the Red River of the North have managed to survive numerous floods in the past through diligence, persistence and often massive relief efforts and capital expenditures. Thoughtful regional cooperation amongst the various states and Canada should develop a flood-control plan aimed at the protection of the lives and valuable agricultural lands and infrastructure which surround the Red River from its origin in Big Stone Lake in South Dakota along the shared boundary line of North Dakota and Minnesota and to its terminus in Lake Winnipeg in Canada. Various governmental entities, including the Army Corp of Engineers and environmental agencies, as well as the equivalent Canadian representatives should undertake a fact-finding study to determine environmental impact and the changes in infrastructure which are necessary to adequately address the needs of the various entities impacted by the Red River of the North and its environs. A proactive discovery team must consider the issues of safety, agriculture, transportation, parks and recreational use which are affected by a project of this magnitude. A proactive approach should consider the greater and lasting human and economic benefits of a venture that has the ability to transform the region by providing jobs and business related to the building of levees, dikes, catch-basins, dams, pipes, pumps, overflow and irrigation waterways, various connecting roadways and parkways and their maintenance and support networks. A prompt and inclusive strategy which focuses on areas of immediate need as well as future development is certainly long past due and necessary to safeguard and minimize future catastrophic flooding in the region. (Writer’s Note: Having grown up in the region, attended college at Concordia Moorhead and worked in the area, I know that due to the stoic nature of Midwesterners generally, and particularly those who live in this region, it is unlikely that the rest of the country and world would hear of this ongoing need for infrastructural change, were it not for the welcome, but intermittent reporting from news agencies.) For this reason, the rest of us need to be made aware of a situation that will not improve on its own with time alone. And because the best time to repair a leaking roof is before it begins to rain again, I recommend that we quickly employ much-needed stimulus dollars in a region which knows well how to stretch dollars, make the most out of gainful employment and has one of the best records of volunteer relief effort in the nation. Executive and bipartisan stimulus support for those improvements which create dollar-for-dollar savings in the long run and which will make up for the investment many times over in years to come are dollars well-spent, as we can clearly see from the example of our forward-thinking Canadian neighbors to the north, whose investments in infrastructure have been repaid many times over in real savings of human and financial capital.

Mark Overt Skilbred