ISRB Puts River Under Flood Management - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

ISRB Puts River Under Flood Management

Water is pouring out of Lake Darling at a much higher rate today than a few days ago..

Water managers pumped up the releases from the dam to 450 cubic feet per second as of today.

The move was made in response to a decision yesterday by the International Souris River Board to enter flood operations for the river.

The ISRB had met last month and declined to declare this a so-called "one in ten" year - where management of the river in the US changes over to the Army Corps of Engineers.

But now, the group kicked-in the flood operations and started making some more space in Lake Darling.

Todd Sando, co-chairman of the ISRB, says the flood operations trigger was only minimally met - and stressed that it's not an indicator for a major flood as of now.

(Todd Sando, ISRB Co-Chairman) "So it's not like it's a major flood that we're looking at right now, it's just triggering flood operations. As you know there's a lot of snow in North Dakota and the lower part of Saskatchewan so that's the reason to get the Corps involved in operations based on international agreements."

Tom Pabian at Upper Souris National Wildlife Refuge - where Lake Darling Dam is located - says he will be meeting with Corps of Engineers officials over the next couple of days to make decisions on the immediate operations of the dam to prepare for the snow melt.