For the record, I was born in Devils Lake, North Dakota. Both my parents were reared in the Devils Lake basin, in Ramsey County. My uncle and aunt and cousin still farm the home place just southwest of Edmore. So I am declaring a conflict of interest on the subject I will address today. What the heck.
I walked Grandpa Pete and Grandma Sophie’s farmstead a couple weeks ago. The crops don’t look so good. Ground is much too wet this year. My cousin says it is the worst crop year of his life, and he’s been farming about 30 years.
In past years, it was not uncommon to see a Ramsey County farmer standing beside his tractor on a section line road, a pump hooked up to his power takeoff, draining a field into the slough across the road. Not this year. No place to drain.
In past years, if you drove west of Devils Lake on Highway 19, you drove through the town of Minnewaukan before you turned west toward Esmond. Not this year. The new road skirts the north side of Minnewaukan, because part of the old road is now under Devils Lake.
But I remember years way long past, too, when much of Devils Lake was a dry cattail slough, where we hunted ducks when I was a young boy. 50 years ago, or so, the lake started its long, slow rise, with a few setbacks along the way, like in the drought years of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. A hundred years ago, and 50 years ago, and indeed during the 1980’s and 1990’s, people built homes and towns and farmsteads, some of them where they shouldn't have, that are now gone, or threatened, by that long, inexorable rise.
Some of it is natural. Some is exacerbated by those drainers. But it is important to remember that the lake was there first. Just 125 years ago, the steamboat Minnie H ran regular shuttles between the towns of Devils Lake and Minnewaukan. Historians say the lake started to drop in the mid-1880’s, ending those daily dockings in Minnewaukan, and remained low for about a hundred years. Now, the Minnie H could dock in Minnewaukan once again. You'd think we might have expected this.
I asked my cousin a couple weeks ago what could be done to help farmers like himself, or the people in the towns. He just shook his head, and said quietly that maybe we shouldn’t be spending all that government money trying to stop the lake.
This is all on my mind today because of a story I read in the paper this morning. The city of Fargo, which wants to build a Red River diversion channel around itself, to send what are becoming the annual spring floodwaters downstream to bother some other towns, is now nervous about water escaping from Devils Lake into the Sheyenne River (which flows into the Red River, Fargo’s current water supply source) because it may contain sulfates.
Sulfates. That’s the problem. Here’s a line from the AP story this morning:
“Water high in sulfates, including salts, can taste bitter and act as a laxative.”
Aha! Now we got a problem. Water that gives you the runs. According to the AP, Fargo Mayor Dennis Walaker called the situation “very traumatic.” Well, I guess so. At least for some people. On the other hand, I’ve got a lot of friends in Fargo. A lot of them are my age. They might just welcome this development. Might just help them get their mornings off to a better start. Skip that early-morning walk, and throw away the Ex-Lax, Kevin, and Lee, and Jim, and Duane, and all the rest of you sixty-somethings, and just have a glass of water. Problem solved.
Well, Fargo and West Fargo officials have a solution. About $90 million in federal funds will treat that water and get rid of the problem, the AP story says they said at a meeting with Senator Kent Conrad Monday.
Oooohhh, I can just see the headlines in the national media now. “$90 Million Treatment Plant Plugs North Dakota Problem.” I can see the Ex Lax and drug store lobbyists getting behind that kind of appropriation—they have a lot of business at stake here.
Walaker, in today’s AP story: “Devils Lake is a real significant problem, and we sit here and argue about sulfates (read: laxatives). But the reality is that the city of Fargo would like some assistance.”
West Fargo Mayor Rich Mattern: “Today, as a city, we do have some concerns (like a huge strain on the city’s sanitary sewer system, maybe, Rich?) . . . These concerns are not insurmountable by any means.”
I’m sorry, Rich and Dennis, but I’m having a hard time keeping a straight face here. You’re both good guys, but $90 million will buy a lot of Kaopectate. Good luck with this one. Dorgan and Conrad are good guys, and they’re really good at getting federal money to solve North Dakota problems, but this one might just be more than they’re willing to tackle.
No comments:
Post a Comment