Faust Dam in Summer / Winter - popular fishing, canoeing, picnic area.
******Four planned Devils Lake and Tolna Coulee outlets- Summary pdf document. Dec. 2011.
August 4, 2009 (updated Jan 2011)
PEOPLE TO SAVE THE SHEYENNE
TO
BARNES COUNTY COMMUNITIES and INDIVIDUALS in the SHEYENNE RIVER VALLEY
OUTLET IMPACTS TO CONSIDER:
By increasing the sulfate levels in the Sheyenne River from 450 mg/L to 750 mg/L, the North Dakota DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH (DH) recently changed the rules within which the Devils Lake Temporary Emergency Outlet will be operated. In addition, the ND State Water Commission (SWC) plans to increase flows in the Sheyenne from 100 cubic feet per second (cfs) to 250 cfs.
People to Save the Sheyenne believes that continued pumping of West Bay water into the Sheyenne River will result in destroying the river as we know it, making the water virtually useless for human consumption and destroying the ecology of the river, including fish and mussel species.
In the first place, the DH claimed that flooding on Devils Lake produced “an imminent peril [that] threatens public health, safety and welfare” [Glatt to Hoeven 7-15-09] “in the Devils Lake region.” Since Devils Lake began its present rise in 1993, “imminent peril” is exaggeration...
Using spring runoff into Devils Lake as justification for voiding the NDDH permit to drain is arbitrary and capricious. Increasing outlet pumping will be no help in reducing Devils Lake while adding much higher quantities of degraded West Bay water will pose a grave danger to the Sheyenne River.
1. THE OUTLET WON’T HELP REDUCE DEVILS LAKE
Increasing pumping volume will not reduce the level of Devils Lake significantly. Pumping at 100 cfs will remove about 198 acre/feet of water from Devils Lake each day. Times thirty days = 6,000 ac/ft per month. Times 3 ½ months till freeze-up = about 21,000 ac/ft. removed from the lake. Divide 21,000 by 160,000 acres, the size of Devils Lake, and you get .13 of a foot of water, about an inch and a half of water removed.
Evaporation will remove almost five inches each summer month, thirty inches or more per year, every year.
2. DEVILS LAKE WATER WILL DESTROY THE SHEYENNE RIVER
By contrast, the same amount of water in the Sheyenne River will destroy the river as we have known it. The flows from Devils Lake will be 100 cfs every day. On average the Sheyenne flows at less than 25 cfs from now till November. So by the end of the year the river will be 80 percent Devils Lake water. Livestock along the river from Devils Lake to below Baldhill Dam will suffer.
Lake Ashtabula holds about 60,000 ac/ft of water. Twenty thousand acre/feet of Devils Lake water will make up a third of the lake this year. After next year’s pumping that will rise to two-thirds Devils Lake water, and if the SWC pumps 250 cfs, Lake Ashtabula will be filled with Devils Lake water almost twice each year.
The river will no longer host over fifty species of fish, eight species of mussels. Bank erosion and flooding will increase significantly. Water quality will make lake water almost useless.
Devils Lake does not drink Devils Lake water. They have a new $16 million well and water line to the Spiritwood Aquifer and a $6 million treatment plant is next.
EPA advises a 250 mg/L maximum sulfate level in drinking water. The World Health Organization has set a 500 mg/L maximum limit and the European Union 250 mg/L. Most of these organizations have set a 400 mg/L sulfate limit on water used for baby formula.
Sulfates are not the worst part of the poor water in Devils Lake. The Sheyenne River will be altered by adding more dissolved solids, chlorides, copper, lead, arsenic, selenium, boron, ammonia, phosphorous, nitrates, mercury and others. Lake Ashtabula will become a nutrient trap for these contaminants. Sulfate levels in West Bay are now over 600 mg/L, while readings below Baldhill Dam are slightly over 100 mg/L. Other contaminants are much higher in Devils Lake water than in the Sheyenne River.
ND state antidegradation rules state: “Proposed activities that would lower the ambient quality in a water body of any parameter by more than 15 percent . . . or increase permitted pollutant loadings to a water body by more than 15 percent will be deemed to have significant effects.” [Appendix IV]
For these reasons People to Save the Sheyenne request the Barnes County Commission announce its opposition to the Health Department changes and the State Water Commission pumping in violation of the original permit.
Signed,
William “Archie” Moore, President Richard Betting, Secretary
Avoid such HEADLINES as these:
Flushing the Sheyenne River
Lake Ashtabula Property Worth Less or The High Cost of Bailing out Devils Lake
Lake Ashtabula: More Algae and Pondweed, Less fishing, & Swimming
More contaminants: Fewer fish and mussels in river
Sold Down the River: Sulfate is Good For You