City of Devils Lake drops appeal of Tolna Coulee structure
October 13, 2011 at 4:21 am in Grand Forks Herald
The Devils Lake City Commission’s unanimous vote reverses the city’s opposition to a control structure, which city leaders have called a dam that would provide relief to people downstream but would further exacerbate flooding problems in the Upper Devils Lake Basin. Continue Reading
As the saying in the movie “Field of Dreams” …… “If you build it they will come”. Well the saying in Devils Lake should be… if you build this new outlet then let the water come. I believe what happened in Minot this last summer will happen to downstream interests, eventually too. This is just a political battle. It does not matter who gets hurt as long as we are all politically correct. Devils Lake is prepared to the best of our ability. The downstream communities seem to have fought a good fight against not preparing for what is coming… so let the water come and we will see what the Army Corp comes up with next to protect them against a losing battle.
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what people do not seem to understand is that with this plan the release for Devils Lake will be uncontrolled. It will not blow out the tolna coule but it will not allow water to be held once the lake reaches 1458. So the most likely time for this to happen in in the spring when flooding occures adding to the problem down stream. Now you can raise the lake above 1458 but you most certainly can have a system to release water later in the summer and into the winter to lower the level to 1450. Then in the spring during the flood season the lake will have some storage capacity to hold water until down stream flooding have subsided. That will NOT happen with the current plan. Once the lake reaches 1458 we will no longer have control over when and how much water runs out…… nature will.
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The people in the lake region fully understand that. Downstream interests spent the past 15 years fighting an outlet of any sort, to the detriment of the people in the lake region. And now, when the natural overflow is imminant, as the people in the lake region have warned about for years, the state is going to allow the lake to go above 1458. Now that sounds reasonable to say that it will most likely only be above 1458 in the spring, so they don’t over flow the river. But what if you have been told for years that the lake won’t go higher than 1458 because of the natural outlet and your house is at 1459 or 1460. No more natural outlet, it is a dam now. You are another casualty of the lake. Too bad.
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I just don’t get it. For 15 years, the state has not allowed the residents of the lake region to do anything but raise roads, build dikes and wring their hands. The down stream people consistantly cried that they dont want that water. We have watched that lake eat up so many peoples lives and all along, we have told the downstream interests that if they allow an outlet, that they will avoid an uncontrolled overflow. I don’t know if they never believed that time would come, but it is very near. So all of the lake region people are thinking, “finally, it will run over naturally, it will not get any higher” They thought they could start to actually plan something. But NO, now the state says they are going to build a dam. Unbelievable. I just don’t get it.
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Years ago the water from DL moved into the Sheyenne and it was all part of the same watershed. The people of DL have suffered long enough and if the state had done something years ago we wouldn’t have had to spend the millions of dollars today. This isn’t about protecting downstream interests, it should be about protecting the people of DL.
It was a sad day to see the city commission end their fight. They should have been way more pro-active IMHO.
I just wonder how many more homes will be lost next spring…..
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By next spring when the thaw starts, it’s not going to matter. The water will start flowing naturally before they break ground for their control system.
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