Water Projects Voted On - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Water Projects Voted On

Ward County will be getting millions more in state money to complete property buyouts along the Mouse River.

The North Dakota State Water Commission voted today to approve funding of phases two and three of the county's acquisition plan that calls for buying several more homes to make room for potential future flood protection projects.

County Engineer Dana Larsen told commission members the hope is to have nearly all of the acquisitions completed by the end of this year.

Governor Jack Dalrymple is the chairman of the Water Commission and said the reason the process of buying out homes has been so slow can be found in Washington DC.

<<(Gov. Jack Dalrymple, -R- ND) "It is really a matter of the bureaucracy of the federal programs and the federal cost-share that's involved. Two different federal agencies, each requires a separate environmental assessment of each and every house that's being acquired. Not one, but two. And the process of getting those assessments done and all the paperwork associated with that is painfully, painfully slow.">>

The State Water Commission also voted today to spend 109-thousand dollars to help pay the cost of cleaning out the Mouse River channel between Burlington and Minot in the Talbott's Nursery and King's Court areas.