The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has asked a federal judge to allow the agency to join a lawsuit seeking to delay action on a flood diversion project on the Red River.

The project as proposed would redirect flows through the Fargo, N.D.-Moorhead, Minn., metropolitan area via a dam and diversion channel system. The $2.2 billion diversion project calls for a 36-mile-long, 1,500-foot-wide diversion channel with 32,500 acres of upstream staging. Minnesota was asked to kick in $43 million.

The DNR is seeking intervenor status to join a lawsuit filed by the Richland-Wilkin Joint Powers Authority (the JPA) in 2013. The plaintiffs initially sued the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Board of Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to halt any construction prior to completion of Minnesota’s Environmental Impact Statement.

In a continuation of the original case, the JPA is now seeking to bar construction unless the DNR issues the necessary dam-safety and work-in-public-waters permits for the project.

The JPA’s suit alleges that the proposed project will damage farmland upstream of Fargo-Moorhead, violate Minnesota environmental laws and doesn’t consider alternative plans to protect the region from flooding.

After completing an Environmental Impact Statement on the proposed project, the DNR denied the diversion authority’s permit application. The proposed project would need both a dam-safety and work-in-public-waters approval from Minnesota in order to proceed.

Despite the DNR’s permit denial, the Corps recently awarded a construction contract for the inlet control structure portion of the proposed project, with work possibly beginning as early as this month. In addition, the diversion authority recently issued a request for proposals for the diversion channel portion of the project.

Tom Landwehr, a DNR commissioner, says his agency has empathy for people who experience flooding and agrees that enhanced flood protection is warranted for some places in the project area.

“We want to find a mutually agreeable solution that speaks to the shared responsibility we have to protect Minnesotans and North Dakotans living in this flood plain,” he says. “Minnesota has invested more the $230 million on flood control and protection efforts in Moorhead and the greater Red River Valley over the past eight years alone. But the proposed project is not the right way to achieve that enhanced protection for the region.”

In October, the DNR denied the diversion Authority’s permit applications for three reasons: the project does not meet the requirement to be reasonable and practical and to protect public safety and promote public welfare; is not consistent with some state and local land use and water management plans in the project area; and the project’s mitigation plan and demonstrated fiscal capacity to implement that plan do not meet the requirements in Minnesota law.

The JPA lawsuit is currently pending before U.S. District Judge John Tunheim. By seeking intervenor status, the DNR is asking to become a party to the lawsuit. Minnesota will ask the court to prohibit construction of the dam and diversion channel because Minnesota has not issued the necessary permits.

Sources: DNR, the FM Diversion Project