Back to Draft Comments Page
May 7, 2002
District Engineer
St. Paul District, Corps of Engineers
ATTN: Dave Loss, PM-A
190 Fifth Street East
St. Paul, Minnesota 55101-1638
RE: Devils Lake Outlet Project
Draft Integrated Planning Report and Environmental Impact
Statement (DEIS)
Dear Mr. Loss:
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has reviewed
the above-referenced document and we offer the following comments
for your consideration and response in preparing a final
environmental review document. Our comments are divided into a
general comment letter containing conclusions from our review and
an attachment with detailed comments on the document content.
General Conclusions
1) The stochastic model methodology of forecasting likely future
conditions and flood damages indicates that the preliminarily
selected outlet project, the Pelican Lake 300 cfs outlet, is not
economically feasible (i.e., 0.37:1 benefit-cost ratio). We agree
with this finding and recommend that you look no further in
attempting to find an economic justification for an outlet
alternative.
2) The DEIS, in discussing the findings of the stochastic model,
states that the Pelican Lake 300 cfs outlet reduces the
probability of a natural overflow from 9.4 percent to 4.1
percent. (p. 1-S-10.) The 90.6 percent of future conditions that
do not result in an overflow would make the project unnecessary
and under 4.1 percent of possible future conditions the outlet
would be ineffective. Therefore, there are only 5.3 percent of
the 10,000 possible future conditions, which have only a 1 in
1,000 chance of occurring in any year, under which the Pelican
Lake 300 outlet would prevent a lake overflow. Aside from the
likely shortcomings of the model in predicting actual conditions,
we believe that this is an extremely small potential target of
future conditions on which to base expenditures of public funds
and to cause the deliberate degradation of downstream
environmental conditions.
3) The analysis of alternatives in the DEIS is biased toward the
selection of an outlet alternative rather than the most
environmentally and economically sound alternative. While the
preliminarily selected outlet alternative, the Pelican Lake 300
cfs project, is the least environmentally damaging outlet
project, it is not the most environmentally and economically
sound alternative. We noted the following problems with the
feasibility of the Pelican Lake outlet:
substantial legal issues related to Minnesota water quality
standards and the Boundary Waters Treaty with Canada
certain adverse downstream impacts to alleviate only remotely
possible future flood damages
possible export of economically costly exotic species from an
ecologically volatile, newly enlarged lake that is visited by
large numbers of recreationists from distant areas
potential cessation of the outlet operation, either by the COE or
legal action, if species such as the zebra mussel appear in the
lake, making the project financially risky
certain ecological damage to the Sheyenne River, including
substantial channel erosion, sedimentation, and long-term
instability
further impairment of Red River water quality and phosphorus
loading to Lake Winnipeg
additional costs for water treatment for Red River mainstream
communities.
4) The “Wet Scenario” must not be used as a basis for
making a final project recommendation. The “Wet
Scenario,” as an artificially derived and extremely unlikely
scenario of hydrologic events, is not comparable to the
statistically derived stochastic projections. Our attached
detailed comments on the climatological assumptions in the model
explain statistical improbability of the wet scenario. It is our
understanding that the COE developed this scenario after the
North Dakota Congressional delegation expanded the Purpose and
Need statement when preliminary results indicated that an outlet
was not economically justified for flood protection, and that it
was designed to result in a natural runout of the lake. We
acknowledge that development of such a scenario is appropriate
for use as a tool to identify the environmental effects of one
type of natural overflow event. However, it does not have the
statistical validity to serve as a basis for establishing a
benefit-cost ratio that might be used to justify a major
commitment of public funds and deliberate impairment of
downstream resources.
5) The economic analysis of alternatives under the wet scenario
assumes that a rising lake is always detrimental and it either
ignores economic benefits from expanded fish and wildlife
resources or holds them constant. The positive economic analysis
of the Wet Scenario (2.63 benefit-cost) is based on analyzing
flooding damages that are incrementally avoided or delayed
because of an outlet. However, this analysis disregards the fact
that as the lake rises, the economic value of its fish and
wildlife resources increases substantially because of increasing
shoreline complexity and a favorable deep water to littoral zone
ratio. At its runout elevation, Devils Lake would be vying with
Minnesota’s Upper and Lower Red Lakes combined in being the
second largest lake in the Red River basin after Lake Winnipeg.
At this size, with extensive waterfowl hunting, and sport
fishing, the lake will serve as a base for a very high value
regional economy. Such values are maximized by letting the lake
rise without providing an artificial outlet. As noted in the
DEIS, if the lake level continues to rise up to the outlet
elevation, flood damage reduction measures are assumed to be
implemented as needed in all scenarios—it is just a matter
of when. At a minimum, the economic analysis needs to do a better
job of assessing and including the economic benefits accruing
from the ecological richness of a rising lake. Beyond that, the
EIS should answer the question: is it economically beneficial to
let the lake rise without a constructed outlet in order to reap
the ecological benefits while constructing the necessary flood
damage protection?
6) It seems reasonable to conclude that a natural overflow of the
Devils Lake basin through the Tolna Coulee will not result in
severe downcutting or erosion of the outlet. Geologic indications
at the Stump Lake run-out point (i.e., neither a ravine nor
evidence of previous downcutting) indicate that outflow during
any previous wet period was not substantial enough to cause
erosive downcutting of the outlet. Estimates of outflow events
range from 6 to 9 times in the last 10,000 years. Therefore, the
preponderance of evidence is that catastrophic flow effects of a
natural outflow could almost certainly be prevented by
construction of the sort of weir and emergency spillway that is
described in the Economic Analysis, Appendix B, Vol. 2.
7) The DEIS does not adequately identify key environmental
impacts in sufficient detail to fully enumerate the magnitude of
downstream impacts from an outlet. For example, it contains
conclusions downplaying important adverse impacts from exotic
species and downstream water quality impacts (e.g., pages
5-92-94) that are not supported by the sections of the DEIS
analyzing these topics in detail. Furthermore, pages 1-S-12 and
5-93 of the DEIS state that details of these impacts will be left
to supplemental EIS or determined by “extensive resource
monitoring...to quantify specific impacts and identify acceptable
mitigation measures.” We believe that deferring such
important analyses and decisions until after the Final EIS is
issued does not comply with NEPA and its regulations.
8) The most cost effective solution remains the incremental
approach of building protection as necessary and warranted,
allowing each decision to add protection to be weighed against
the existing and reasonably foreseeable past and future. Due to
the nature of closed basin flooding this is a reasonable approach
since the flood is “slow creep” as opposed to a dynamic
flow like river flooding.
Thank you for your consideration of these comments. Please refer
to the detailed comments in the attachment. Contact Don Buckhout
of my staff at (651) 296-8212 or Don.Buckhout@dnr.state.mn.us if
you have questions about these comments.
Sincerely,
Steven J. Morse
Deputy Commissioner
c: Craig Johnson- Governor’s Office
Karen Studders- MPCA
Ron Harnack- BWSR