Rice Lake Emergency Drain - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Rice Lake Emergency Drain

Flooded residents at Rice Lake are starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel.

High water that moved in early last year has inundated as many as ten homes and is threatening crawl spaces or basements of about three dozen more.
Last month, the State Water Commission awarded 2-point-8 million dollars to help build a pipeline from Rice Lake south to the Missouri River.
That's considered a permanent solution to the problem, but it won't be ready for at least a year.
Meanwhile, the Ward County Commission today approved a permit allowing the Rice Lake Recreation District to pump water from the lake onto county property, and to use a dike on county property to keep that water from running back into the lake.

(Steve Zaun, Rice Lake Recreation Service District) "The initial pumping this spring and summer will stop any further damage and hopefully bring it down so people can begin to repair their properties or at least being to clean up and assess what they've got to do.  The permanent solution will hopefully get it back within its banks and we'll be able to control that and keep it from doing this again."

Zaun says a meeting will be held next week to finalize plans for the permanent pumping and pipeline system to move Rice Lake water to the Missouri River.