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Back to Communications Opposing State of North Dakota Devils Lake Outlet Plan

Information characterized as “Data Gaps” and “very poor coverage…” -regarding the literature search for information that would indicate the existence of organisms in Devils Lake waters that would affect the Sheyenne/Red River/Hudson Bay waters.

·         Executive Summary, page vi; "...Data Gaps: Perhaps the most important finding of this study was the revelation of just how poorly the biota of the Devils Lake basin and (to a somewhat lesser extent) the Red River basin is known. ...The deficiencies in the available data could be summarized as problems of poor comparability of studies from each basin, and gaps in coverage."...

·         Page vii, "...Coverage gaps found in the existing data included: (1) very poor coverage of the wide range of aquatic habitats found in each basin, (2) poor coverage of temporal changes that occur seasonally in aquatic communities, and (3) inconsistent coverage of biota groups. this last type of data gap was particularly obvious in the complete lack of data on Devils Lake basin fish pathogens, the poor coverage of fish parasites, the lack of vascular plant studies, and the near lack of studies on non-planktonic invertebrates in all waters of the basins in question, except Lake Ashtabula and Lake Winnipeg."...

The State of North Dakota’s project, while separate from the Corps outlet project, claims to not need to comply with a 404 Clean Water Act permit or need to follow NEPA or Environmental Impact Policy standards or reviews.  However, the State’s outlet project proposes to pump more directly untreated and more saline waters than the Corps outlet project.  The Corp abandoned the outlet project that has now been adopted by the State of North Dakota. 

The State Water Commission (SWC) is the agency charged with oversight of this project, and the SWC for the State of North Dakota and the Garrison Diversion Conservancy District have paid an annual salary of $45,000 for a part time proponent of their outlet project.  Needless to say, the State Water Commission is not an objective agency and has taken the position of promoting their outlet project, regardless of the fact that the precipitation pattern has changed to near drought conditions for the past two years.