Terry Guttormson: The Crazy Otto Medley

To the Editor:

The United States Army Corp of Engineers (USACE) just recently said in the Fargo Forum, they would not extend the open comment time for communities that just recently learned that their communities will be affected by as much as 25-29 inches of additional flood water north of Halstad. They went on to say they were not going to extend the time period for those folks because they should have known there would be more water coming their way with a diversion. 

Earlier, they said there would be “little effect ” downstream because the further north you get, the less effect there will be. Isn’t an additional 25-29 inches on top of their already higher levels because of the new hydrology used to denote a one hundred year flood, significant? 

Their own rules say that they cannot affect down stream areas more than nine inches from their proposed project. Now, they seem to ignore that. Why? Maybe because it will constitute a “taking” of all property in the way of the diversion and that “taking” would triple the cost of the already stupidly exorbitant way to manage excess flood water. 

Craig Evans of the Corps in an earlier story said that the “taking” is going to be a subjective call by the Corps. 

This is particularly troublesome for all downstream interests as it has been proven time and time again, the Corps is taking its walking orders from the FM Metro diversion team. This was exemplified when at a recent FM Metro team meeting, the Downstream Impact Work Group asked for more time to be added to the dead line of the open comment period and the corp actually asked the FM Metro team for their recommendation. 

At which time Nancy Otto, Moorhead Alderman and member of the FM Metro Team, made a motion to not extend the time frame, the motion was seconded and passed unanimously not to extend the time frame. This is the same FM Metro team and the same Nancy Otto that spoke at the USACE meeting in Hendrum not much more than a month ago and asked us to trust them, they have our best interest at hand. Makes me wonder what they do with those hands.

This diversion is, as admitted by the corp, a rushed project to the rate never before attempted by the USACE. They are missing a lot of important information that should be part of the study, some of it seems by design so as not to slow or jeopardize the project.

A rushed project will yield a poor product and in this case, the wrong project.  It will spell devastation downstream. All prior flood mitigation measures will be less effective downstream after the Fargo Diversion. Does that make any sense? 

Why not spend the time, money and resources on flood measures that protect the entire basin and cumulatively add to flood protection downstream including the towns of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks? 

The FM Metro team seems to think they are not part of the basin and therefore will not benefit by retention and flow reduction. With the arrogance in the way they treat downstream requests, maybe they are right.

-Terry Guttormson
Hendrum, Minn.