Dammed (or is it Damned?) by Fargo (an update)

Buyouts planned for the Oxbow community. The Powers-that-be of Fargo are moving slowly and quietly. Sure, it's been announced--but what the heck is OxBow anyway, and who has ever heard of Hickson? The June 18th editorial: "PRAIRIE ROSES To committees of the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Authority (keyword "authority") for moving ahead with hardship buyouts of properties in the path of the flood control project." I could be wrong, but I suspect those buyouts are in the Oxbow area (which have nothing to do with the diversion, but rather with Fargo's "growth" plans. More about that later.) Some time ago some Oxbow and Hickson people appeared in the paper, and, as I recall, they weren't too happy, but evidently felt they had no choice. To me it looks like more misleading and plain dirty politics. And where is the money coming for those buyouts? Federal money, from China? Or property taxes? (See Stark's slimy cartoon, also June 18.)
As I said, I could be wrong about some details: I don't keep every article and try to stitch them together.
Fargo, North Dakota, and North Dakota itself, is desperate to grow and grow and grow, and Fargo wants to grow south (again, more on that later.)
Why is North Dakota and so many of her people so desperate? Some of the people living here are desperate because they think the rest of the country (maybe even the world) is laughing at us. (When I was in the Navy, visiting Australia, one merry folk asked me, "In what part of Texas is North Dakota?"--and he wasn't kidding!) Take the very popular movie "Fargo" of a few years ago. Many in this rural-desperately-wanting-to-be-urban state refused to even watch the movie because they had heard it "makes us look stupid." Well glory be! The movie producers make the people of Indiana and Ohio and Georgia and even Arizona and Montana look stupid too. North Dakota has no monopoly on looking "stupid," just being really offended by it. (We should be proud and happy that our state IS still rural, and blue and green!) (Why on earth do we want to change that with GROWTH?) There's a billboard on I-29 facing drivers heading toward Fargo: "North Dakota's Morning Commute" and it shows a wide open and empty highway. What a lie that is! Sure, that's true for many parts of North Dakota, but get anywhere near Fargo during the morning and evening commute, and see for yourself. As for that movie, not one iota was filmed in Fargo, but the name "Fargo" has made it around the country for a number of other reasons so it made a good title for what really happened next door in Minnesota.
To get back to Fargo wanting to grow south:
First, Fargo is located in the valley of the Red River of the North, one of the few rivers that flow north, clear to Lake Winnipeg in Canada, and that's where much of the problem arises. When the snow is melting, and all that water is entering the Red River drainage basin, unfortunately, the river and lake up north is still frozen, therefore, blocking the water and causing flooding. The Red River Valley was once covered by a glacier. As the glacier melted it created what we call the ancient Lake Agassiz, what several local businesses have been named after.
Back to Fargo wanting to grow south:
It's all flood plain, and ByTheWay that very natural flooding on the flood plain created some of the richest soil not only in North Dakota but the world, and Fargo wants to grow south and pave it over.
To do that they want to create holding ponds, in other words they want to force the people of communities south of Fargo (Oxbow, Hickson, others) to move and make way for all that water. Fargo will build a wall or dike on a line as far south as they want to grow and be able to "control" the flooding north of that "dike" and build, build, build. Strangely enough, that line, or "dike" happens to fall right where the Fargo school district ends. They want the rest of the nation to stand up and respect Fargo. They want growth at any cost. By "they" I mean the Powers-that-be, those wanting to "invest in your valley." Everybody else be dammed...or is it damned? Sometimes hard to decide which word to use.
About the cost for that diversion, does anyone realize how far in debt the nation is? Does anyone realize much of that money will come from China? And then what? We won't be able to ever pay China back in this lifetime, so what then? Maybe Chinese buyers will come and take over the land. Well, of course we wouldn't allow that...or would we? I've read (cannot document) that the Chinese are already buying land and businesses--does Fargo REALLY want to GROW that BAD?
Right now in western North Dakota, the communities of Dickinson, Williston, Minot (no empty-road commute in those cities,) and others, are finding out what growth can bring: Trucker bombs and rents heading for the stratosphere, among other things, but that's for another story.
This big "dike" they want to build has been erroneously (see Oxbow, etc., above) linked to the gazillion dollar diversion they want to build to channel the floodwater around Fargo, a gigantic ditch that will send it north more quickly to flood other communities. With the wall of water heading north I wouldn't even guarantee the safety of Grand Forks. Fargo and the Army Corps of Engineers, via the main regional newspaper, The Forum, have been flagrantly misleading us: Plain and simple Dirty Politics. Another questionable statement "Nineteen million dollars will be saved"

“Metrowide certification means
thousands of Fargo-Moorhead residents
will no longer be required to buy flood insurance.”

It's true that Fargo does need a break from fighting floods, but they shouldn't trample the rights of other people. In the meantime the Powers-that-be refuse to even consider the actual CAUSE of flooding. Gazillions of acres of farmland have wide-open drainage ditches that send every drop of meltwater flowing into the basin at the same time. (The land is so efficiently-drained that one small rainstorm can sometimes raise the river overnight!) Those drainage ditches could be closed, culverts with traps installed, and the floodwaters held back, temporarily. A satellite installed over the Red River Drainage Basin could tell us what water to release and when. Some farmers could even be paid to hold back water indefinitely (the "waffle" effect.) Some marshes that should never have been drained could be re-flooded. It's possible "tiling" could help. If so then every farm acre could be "tiled." (Get rid of that water early, before it becomes a problem!) All hugely more sensible and less-distructive solutions then that monstrous drainage ditch (the diversion) that would disrupt so many, many, lives, and lands.
Some like to bring up the fact that way back in the 1800's there was another huge flood in the Red River Valley, and back then there were NO farmland drainage ditches. That's true. So the water just spilled out of every pond and slough and roared to the Red River by any natural conduit possible. That's how a flood-plain works, BTW. Today we have hundreds/thousands of ditches, the means to control every DROP of floodwater, but the Powers-that-be are determined to build a diversion that will help ONLY Fargo.

The Powers-that-be evidently do not want to actually PREVENT flooding, they just want to spend gazillions of dollars (temporary job creations?) to fix Fargo's problem and be damned anybody else...or is it dammed? Again, hard to tell which word to use sometimes.
Why do I care? I live way up out of the Red River Valley. I care because I don't like seeing people who have lived somewhere all their lives have to leave their home. Some families go clear back to homesteader days; they should not be forced out of their homes so the great city of Fargo can grow...south, that is.
And there's another reason I care. Rumors of reinstating the Kindred Dam are alive and well again. From a map a friend sent me it looks like a so-called "dry dam" would be built close to the Barrie Church's cemetery, where my parents and many other deceased friends are buried. But of course graves and churches can be moved. I say so-called "dry dam" because how long before it would become permanent so that Fargo could have a nearby lake to build cottages and not have to always go to Minnesota. Looking at the past three years of local flooding the water would be permanently right down the hill from my house. I'd have an automatic "built-in" lake cottage.
Well, I can live just fine without a lake cottage.
At the end, I likely will be accused, by some, as being anti-growth, maybe even anti-North Dakota. Well, I definitely am anti-growth. Growth begets more people and more services requiring more taxes and then more growth and people to pay those taxes, requiring still more growth and more...well, you can see where I'm going. (Look at Greece; look at Europe: Too much growth but not enough jobs to keep--too many people--working.) Sure, North Dakota has great unemployment status right now. (Key words: "right now.") North Dakota--and especially Fargo--needs to slow down, take a breath, and march in place for a bit.
This is my opinion. Thanks for reading, folks.
James W. Nelson, Walcott, North Dakota
(I'll be sending this piece to The Forum and other newspapers too. Will it be published? Good question.)
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