Water Commission Spends Millions in Area - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Yesterday, the North Dakota State Water Commission approved spending nearly two million dollars for engineering work on Phase Two and Phase Three of the Mouse River Enhanced Flood Protection Project.
But that Wednesday meeting was packed with other decisions by board members to spend tens of millions of dollars on flood protection issues around the state, including others in the Minot area.
Jim Olson has a look at all of the State Water Commission spending approved yesterday on projects in our area.

 From Devils Lake outlet issues, to an upgrade to Fargo's water treatment plant, to NAWS, to the Mouse River Flood Plan, the State Water Commission on Wednesday OK'd spending some 30 million dollars on various water projects around the state.  Phase Two of engineering for the Mouse River Enhanced Flood Protection Project was approved after some questions were raised about the commission paying the entire 1-point-8 million dollar bill for engineering on rural areas along the river.

Commissioner Harley Swenson wondered if they were spending money on a project that would never be financially feasible.

But Tim Fay of the Water Commission staff said the information gathered in this second round of engineering will be critical in whatever kind or size of project is ultimately built along the Mouse.

In the end, the commissioners agreed to pay the full 1.8 million dollars for the new engineering - and agreed to pay 50% of what Fay called Phase Three - the costs associated with answering questions for local governments and helping them make decisions about the project.  The commissioners also voted on several other items in our region.  They said yes to Ward County's request to make offers on 27 more properties - although they waited to appropriate the nearly nine million dollars needed until later since the first batch of buyout money has yet to be tapped.  They approved 120 thousand dollars to shore up a Mouse River bank near Towner and promised to look for other funding sources to pay the other 120-thousand dollars the project will cost.  They said yes to paying 2.8 million of the total 6.3 million dollar cost of a pipeline to drain water from Rice Lake. They approved 184 thousand dollars to help in the purchase of two properties in Sawyer that are in the path of the flood control plan. And they approved more than 5 and a half million dollars in funding for the current state budget period for work on the Northwest Area Water Supply project including 57 thousand dollars for water treatment plant at Rugby.

Jim Olson, KX News.

Water Commission engineer Tim Fay said it will be 2013 before the engineering on the rural areas of the Mouse River is completed.