Flood Control Money - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Flood Control Money

Wednesday Governor Jack Dalrymple laid out his proposed spending plan to a joint session of the legislation.

In that record 12.8 billion dollar spending plan, 180 million was earmarked for flood repairs and protection for the Red River, Devils Lake and Minot areas.

The legislature will ultimately decide how much money gets spent and where it is allocated to.

State Water Engineer Todd Sando said Thursday that the state's financial focus for Minot right now is preparing the valley for the future flood control project that was outlined earlier this year.

(Todd Sando, State Water Engineer) "We're going to continue forward funding more acquisitions and be able to acquire properties so at some point when we're ready to build a flood control project we'll have them homes out of the way that would be inside the new levees or underneath the new levees so a big chunk of that money is for acquiring more properties."

To this point the city has been able to acquire more than 80 properties in the valley.

The estimated cost for home and property acquisition for the flood control project is estimated at 154 million dollars.

There has been no timetable or funding source identified yet to pay for the full project which was projected to cost 820 million dollars.