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GRAFTON, N.D. -- Once again, people in the Red River Valley who
have built their lives in a watery place are groping for a way to
deal with flooding.
After seven or so wet years in a row, what has emerged so far
here is a tentative -- and controversial -- buyout plan that would
give the land back to the water.
If the Red River Corridor Flood Mitigation Plan moves forward,
about 50 farmers in the eastern portions of Pulaski, Walshville,
Acton and St. Andrews townships could participate in a voluntary
buyout removing their farmsteads and buildings from the land, and
removing 23,000 or so acres of the state's finest cropland from
production.
Through other federal programs such as Federal Emergency
Management Agency buyouts and easements bought by the Emergency
Wetland Program, more than 15 farmsteads have been bought out and
about 3,300 flood-prone acres taken out of production.
Organizers in favor of the new buyout plan say more needs to be
done and that about 90 percent of the residents in the affected
areas support the buyout.
Ins and outs For every point in favor of the buyout, opponents
can list points against it.
What to do with the land once it's bought out is a key that may
determine the buyout's fate, critics and proponents say.
Cyril Stoltman likes the potential to store as much as 50,000
acre-feet of water on the 23,000 acres.
Stoltman lives on and farms land between the Marais and Red
rivers a few miles south of the Marais' inlet to the Red in an area
known humorously by locals as West Oslo, since Oslo, Minn., is right
across the river.
There's been a flood most of the last 10 years on some or all of
his land, he said, pointing out that his farmstead becomes an island
when that happens.
Stoltman is near retirement age and said he'll retire if he's
bought out. He has signed the buyout petition and is one of its
proponents. He points out that using the bought-out land for water
storage during floods is smart business. He compares the 50,000
acre-feet stored at the buyout's estimated cost of about $30 million
with a $6 million dam being built on the Park River near Edinburg,
N.D., that will store only about 3,400 acre-feet.
"It would be best to use the bought-out land as a
reservoir," he said. "We do it now and don't get paid for
it."
Others have suggested the land be planted to grassland as an
attraction for hunters, bird-watchers and naturalists. Some say it
could be rented out to anyone who wants to farm it, but that no crop
insurance should be made available, meaning growers would be farming
completely at their own risk. Land rent then could be funneled back
to the agencies that lost tax and business revenue from the buyout.
Not so fast But Wayne Grinde believes there are too many
downsides to a buyout.
Grinde, chairman of the Walsh County Commission and perhaps the
buyout's most public and vocal opponent, can produce a long list of
problems.
Prime among them is the loss of tax revenue, which would hurt
area schools, townships and county government. And utility companies
have investments in the affected areas that would take a hit.
Grinde doesn't trust that the federal government would honor
payments in lieu of taxes. He also points out that if the buyout is
voluntary, some will not take it, and wonders who will care for
roads in the buyout area after townships no longer have that
responsibility.
"When it's not flooded, this land is some of the most
productive in Walsh County," he added. "I don't think the
buyout is a good thing for the county."
Grinde also sees a fairness issue. Some farmers in western Walsh
County have been flooded out, he said. And some others have made
crops just good enough so they don't qualify for insurance payments,
but with yields so low that the farmers have less money to spend
than those in the buyout areas who get insurance payments from
flooding.
At the government level, Grinde may be largely alone. Grinde
asked for a motion to halt the buyout during a recent commission
meeting, but no one made a motion.
Grinde -- who is retiring from public life and won't run for
re-election in November -- said most of the buyout proponents are
retirement-age farmers who see a good deal.
"I've heard from several people who don't want the
buyout," he said, "and it's the younger farmers who are
speaking that way."
The will to go on Kevin Kirkeby is one of those young farmers.
Kirkeby, 24, farms about 2,200 acres east of Grafton, rented
acres and those of his grandparents. The farmhouse is on the west
bank of the Red River, and while the farmhouse has stayed dry --
except for 1997 -- the land around it often floods.
Kirkeby says some of his neighbors are against the buyout, and
some of those who are for it likely would pull out if they don't get
enough money for the land -- land that has lost value in recent
years because of flooding.
The buyout plan is a patch job that is too little, too late, and
smart watershed management in the valley is years overdue, he
believes.
"I'd really like to see them start regulating a lot of the
water coming into the Red," he said. "(In Minnesota),
they're draining ditches right into the Red, and you can't send a
30-mile straight shot of water into a river that wide."
Dennis Markusen, engineer and county superintendent of highways,
says today's need for action is 60 years of federal funding for
drainage coming home to roost.
Markusen pointed out that Walsh County has 16 flood control dams
and another on the way, which shows the county can't control water
coming from upstream on the Red.
"Counties have to operate along county lines," he said,
"but water does not follow county lines.
Piece of a puzzle The possibilities in Walsh County have some
outside the county excited.
Brad Crabtree, project director for the Consensus Council
(formerly the North Dakota Consensus Council), calls Walsh County's
proposal "dramatic" and "the most significant local
manifestation of the whole (watershed) problem up and down the Red
River Valley."
The council and the International Flood Mitigation Initiative
have developed a Greenway proposal that would take land out of
production along both sides of the Red from its source at Lake
Traverse, S.D., to Lake Winnipeg.
Crabtree said that at every public meeting held about the
Greenway, residents in North Dakota, Minnesota and Canada talked
about turning rivers from threats into opportunities for recreation
and tourism.
Crabtree said the council isn't there to tell jurisdictions what
to do, but to facilitate things once decided.
"If (Walsh County) chooses to go forward with the buyout or
a similar mechanism, there may be larger opportunities in the basin
under development that they could fit into," he said.
"They could be a model (for other counties and jurisdictions)
if they do."
Markusen has served as the County Commission's fact-finder on
water issues, including the buyout plan. He said the county wants to
explore the possibility of becoming that model.
Adopting the buyout as policy could be a long way off.
Commissioner Allen Ruzicka said leaders have formed a committee to
work on the buyout. He said a recommendation from the committee
might be acted on within a couple months.
Such a move would still be considered an early step, since
buyouts generally are administered and funded by the federal
government.
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