S. HRG. 111–734 

FIELD HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

June 1, 2010-THE ENERGY INDUSTRY’S IMPACT ON HOUSING IN 

NORTH DAKOTA 

June 1, 2010-INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG THE US 85 CORRIDOR 

July 8, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING 

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG THE ND 23 

July 8, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: HOW SHOULD THE 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPOND? 

July 9, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING 

ECONOMIC GROWTH ALONG THE US 52 AND US 281 CORRIDORS 

July 9, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: A DOWNSTREAM 

PERSPECTIVE 

August 16, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: A RED RIVER 

VALLEY PERSPECTIVE 

August 17, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: HOW SHOULD 

DOWNSTREAM IMPACTS BE ADDRESSED? 

August 18, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE’S ROLE IN 

ECONOMIC GROWTH: ND-13 

August 27, 2010-STUMP LAKE FLOODING ISSUES 

October 11, 2010-THE NEXT FARM BILL 

( 

Printed for the use of the Senate Budget Committee 

FIELD HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2011 

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

58–154pdf 2010

S. HRG. 111–734 

FIELD HEARINGS FISCAL YEAR 2011 

HEARINGS 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

UNITED STATES SENATE 

ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

June 1, 2010-THE ENERGY INDUSTRY’S IMPACT ON HOUSING IN 

NORTH DAKOTA 

June 1, 2010-INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG THE US 85 CORRIDOR 

July 8, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING 

ECONOMIC GROWTH AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG THE ND 23 

July 8, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: HOW SHOULD THE 

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT RESPOND? 

July 9, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING 

ECONOMIC GROWTH ALONG THE US 52 AND US 281 CORRIDORS 

July 9, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: A DOWNSTREAM 

PERSPECTIVE 

August 16, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: A RED RIVER 

VALLEY PERSPECTIVE 

August 17, 2010-DEVILS LAKE FLOODING DISASTER: HOW SHOULD 

DOWNSTREAM IMPACTS BE ADDRESSED? 

August 18, 2010-TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE’S ROLE IN 

ECONOMIC GROWTH: ND-13 

August 27, 2010-STUMP LAKE FLOODING ISSUES 

October 11, 2010-THE NEXT FARM BILL 

( 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET 

KENT CONRAD, NORTH DAKOTA, CHAIRMAN 

PATTY MURRAY, WASHINGTON 

RON WYDEN, OREGON 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, WISCONSIN 

BILL NELSON, FLORIDA 

DEBBIE STABENOW, MICHIGAN 

BENJAMIN CARDIN, MARYLAND 

BERNARD SANDERS, VERMONT 

SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, RHODE ISLAND 

MARK WARNER, VIRGINIA 

JEFF MERKLEY, OREGON 

MARK BEGICH, ALASKA 

CARTE GOODWIN, WEST VIRGINIA 

JUDD GREGG, NEW HAMPSHIRE 

CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, IOWA 

MICHAEL ENZI, WYOMING 

JEFF SESSIONS, ALABAMA 

JIM BUNNING, KENTUCKY 

MIKE CRAPO, IDAHO 

JOHN ENSIGN, NEVEDA 

JOHN CORNYN, TEXAS 

LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, SOUTH CAROLINA 

LAMAR ALEXANDER, TENNESSEE 

MARY ANN NAYLOR, Majority Staff Director 

CHERYL JANAS REIDY, Minority Staff Director 

(II) 

iii 

C O N T E N T S 

HEARINGS 

Page 

June 1, 2010-The Energy Industry’s Impact on Housing in North Dakota ........ 1 

June 1, 2010-Infrastructure Investments: Promoting Economic Growth and 

Improving Safety Along the US 85 Corridor ..................................................... 57 

July 8, 2010-Transportation Investments: Promoting Economic Growth and 

Improving Safety Along North Dakota 23 ......................................................... 119 

July 8, 2010-Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: How Should the Federal Government Respond? ..................................................................................................... 201 

July 9, 2010-Transportation Investments: Promoting Economic Growth Along 

the US 52 and US 281 Corridors ........................................................................ 265 

July 9, 2010-Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: A Downstream Perspective .......... 311 

August 16, 2010-Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: A Red River Valley Perspective ......................................................................................................................... 423 

August 17, 2010-Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: How Should Downstream 

Impacts Be Addressed? ........................................................................................ 477 

August 18, 2010-Transportation Infrastructure’s Role in Economic Growth: 

North Dakota 13 .................................................................................................. 523 

August 24, 2010-Transportation Infrastructure’s Role in Economic Growth: 

US 12 and US 85 .................................................................................................. 557 

August 27, 2010-Stump Lake Flooding Issues ...................................................... 591 

October 11, 2010-Writing the Next Farm Bill ....................................................... 639 

STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS 

Chairman Conrad............................. 1, 57, 119, 201, 265, 311, 423, 477, 523, 557, 639 

WITNESSES 

Scott Backes, North Dakota Farmer, Glenburn, ND ........................................ 542, 544 

Joe Belford, Commissioner, Ramsey County ..................................................... 651, 652 

Richard Betting, Secretary, People to Save the Sheyenne ............................... 347, 350 

Ryon Boen, Insurance Agent, Western Agency, Minot, North Dakota ............... 687 

John Boyd, Operations Manager, EOG Resources ................................................ 37, 39 

Becky Braaten, Insurance Agent, Farm Credit Farm Services of North Dakota, Westhope, North Dakota ............................................................................ 686 

Steve Burian, Chief Executive Officer, Advanced Engineering and Environmental Service, Inc. AE2S ............................................................................... 458, 463 

Robert Carlson, President, North Dakota Farmers Union, Jamestown, North 

Dakota ............................................................................................................... 646, 649 

Ross Cole, Mayor, City of Lisbon........................................................ 342, 343, 495, 498 

Rich Davis, Acting Deputy Administration for Single-family Housing, USDA 

Rural Development............................................................................................... 10, 13 

Steve Edwardson, Executive Administrator, North Dakota Barley Council, 

Fargo, North Dakota ........................................................................................ 653, 656 

Bruce Erickson, Operations Manager, Rugged West Trucking, North Dakota .. 114 

Odell Flaagen, Chairman, Nelson County Water Resource District................ 615, 617 

Jeff Frith, Board Manager, Devils Lake Basin Joint Water Resource Board .... 256 

Don Frye, Mayor, City of Carrington ................................................................. 291, 293 

Del Gates, Director, US Durum Growers Association, and Director, North 

Dakota Crop Improvement and Seed Association, Mohall, North Dakota ...... 683 

J.R. Gibbons, Board of Directors, Towner County Economic Development Corporation ............................................................................................................. 297, 299 

Page

iv 

L. David Glatt, Chief, Environmental Health Section, North Dakota Department of Health.................................................................................. 327, 330, 433, 435 

John Hoeven, Governor, State of North Dakota ............................... 205, 321, 429, 483 

Mark Hovland, General Manager, Fressenden COOP Association.................. 294, 296 

Mike Hynek, Mayor Stanley, North Dakota .......................................................... 20, 23 

Dave Irmen, North American Bison Cooperative.............................................. 299, 302 

Lyn James, Mayor of Bowman, North Dakota...................................... 25, 28, 574, 576 

Richard Johnson, Mayor, City of Minnewaukan ............................................... 242, 245 

Steve Kelly, President, Trustland Oilfield Services .......................................... 170, 176 

Cal Klewin, Executive Director, Theodore Roosevelt Expressway Association..................................................................................................................... 578, 582 

Ward Koeser, Mayor of Williston, North Dakota .................................................. 15, 18 

Marcus Levings, Chairman, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation...................... 144, 148 

Rich Mattern, Mayor, City of West Fargo ............................................................. 436 

Trish McQuoid, Mayor, City of Minnewauken .................................................. 249, 251 

Matt Miles, Principal, Leadership Circle, LLP...................................................... 41, 42 

Larry Neubauer, President, US Durum Growers Association, Bottineau, 

North Dakota .................................................................................................... 661, 664 

Jeff Oberholtzer, Director, National Sunflower Association, Mohall, North 

Dakota ............................................................................................................... 667, 670 

David O’Connell, North Dakota Senator, Lansford, North Dakota ..................... 682 

Neil Olerud, Chairman, Ransom County Commission ......................................... 509 

Kenton Onstad, District 4 Representative, North Dakota House of Representatives ................................................................................................................. 164, 167

Myra Pearson, Chairwoman, Spirit Lake Nation ................................................. 247 

Ryan Pederson, President, Northern Canola Growers Association, Vice President, US Canola Association, Rolette, North Dakota.................................... 672, 675 

Kent Pelton, Mayor, City of Watford, North Dakota ............................................ 87, 90 

Pat Pithey, Merchant Manager, Cargill............................................................. 547, 548 

Earl Pomeroy, US Representative from North Dakota .................. 5, 65, 125, 272, 319 

Todd Sando, Acting State Engineer, State Water Commission ...... 208, 217, 324, 486, 

493, 600, 607 

Morrie Saxerud, Former Mayor, City of Lisbon ................................................ 512, 514 

Cynthia Schwehr, Commissioner, Barnes County............................................. 344, 346 

Jim Sturdevant, Mayor, City of Wahpeton ........................................................ 539, 541 

Dan Sullivan, Director of Policy for Multi-family Development, US Department of Housing and Urban Development ............................................................. 7, 9 

James Thernes, Mayor of the City of Ransom................................................... 500, 505 

Jessica Thomasson, Director of LSS Housing, Inc., Luther Social Services 

of North Dakota.................................................................................................... 43, 47 

Daniel Uran, Mayor, City of New Town............................................................. 152, 155 

Darrell Vanyo, Chairman Cass County Commission ........................................ 450, 453 

Ben Varnson, Chairman, Nelson County Water Resource District ................. 618, 620 

Gene Veeder, Executive Director, McKenzie County Job Development Authority, North Dakota ............................................................................................... 97, 101 

Dennis Walaker, Mayor, City of Fargo............................................................... 438, 441 

Bob Werkhoven, Mayor, City of Valley City ...................................................... 331, 334 

Sharon Young, Emergency Manager, Nelson County ....................................... 626, 629 

Francis Ziegler, P.E., Director, North Dakota Department of Transportation.................................... 67, 72, 127, 133, 228, 231, 274, 281, 529, 534, 562, 568 

(1) 

FIELD HEARING: THE ENERGY INDUSTRY’S 

IMPACT ON HOUSING IN NORTH DAKOTA 

TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Williston, North Dakota 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 12:53 p.m., Williston 

Community Library, 1302 Davidson Drive, Williston, North Dakota 

58801, Hon. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KENT CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Senate Budget 

Committee. This is an official hearing of the committee, so we will 

be operating under the rules of the U.S. Senate, and an official 

record of this hearing is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is ‘‘The Energy’s—Energy Industry’s Impact on Housing in North Dakota.’’ Perhaps a better title would be 

‘‘The Energy Industry’s Need for Housing in North Dakota.’’ That 

might better suit what we’re actually faced with here. 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. 

We will have three panels. Our first panel will include two Federal 

officials: Dan Sullivan, the director of policy for multifamily development at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development; and Rich Davis, the acting deputy administrator for single 

family housing at USDA Rural Development. 

Welcome to North Dakota. Delighted that you’re here. 

After providing their introductory remarks, Director Sullivan and 

Administrator Davis will stay with us throughout the hearing so 

they can learn more about the challenge of housing that is confronting us, and so that we can continue our discussion of possible 

solutions in areas where our Federal partners can be of assistance. 

Our second panel will include our mayors: Williston Mayor Ward 

Koeser, Stanley Mayor Mike Hynek, and Bowman Mayor Lyn 

James. 

We’re delighted that the three of you are with us, as well. 

Our Federal officials tell us they’ve been able to visit a number 

of communities on the way here, and I think they’ll have more to 

say about that momentarily. 

2 

The mayors are going to provide us with their assessment of 

housing needs in their communities. 

And our third panel will include Jessica Thomasson, the director 

of Lutheran Social Services Housing in North Dakota. I see that 

Jessica’s here. We’re delighted. Ms. Thomasson will give her perspective on the challenges of developing low- and moderate-income 

housing in this part of the State. John Boyd, the operations manager of EOG Resources. Mr. Boyd will describe EOG’s efforts to 

provide housing for its workers in western North Dakota. And Matt 

Miles, a principal at Leadership Circle, LLC. Mr. Miles will explain 

the challenges that Leadership Circle is facing as one of the area’s 

largest private real estate developers. 

And I think we all understand that the private sector has to 

have a key role in any housing solution for this area. We want to 

make certain that is emphasized at this hearing, as well, that—our 

private-sector partners are absolutely key to providing the housing 

opportunities that are needed in these communities. 

I look forward to hearing from all of you, as witnesses. 

Especially pleased that Congressman Pomeroy has been able to 

join us, as well. Congressman Pomeroy sits on the very powerful 

House Ways and Means Committee, and he is in a position to play 

a key role in energy development opportunities for our State. And 

I very much thank him for taking time from his busy schedule to 

be here to hear firsthand the challenges and opportunities in the 

Williston Basin. 

Our State has been blessed with abundant natural resources. 

The oil boom in the area brings enormous benefits to businesses 

and our families, but it also poses some significant challenges. One 

of the biggest that we face right now is a lack of housing for new 

workers that have been coming in. We have plenty of jobs, but not 

enough housing for the people who hold them. And I’ve certainly 

heard a lot from communities, in the entire northwest quadrant of 

our State, saying to me, ‘‘Please come out and put a focus on this 

issue and help us address ways of meeting these challenges.’’ 

If we fail to address this challenge, it could stifle future growth. 

And the influx of people is also increasing demands on local infrastructure and resources, and perhaps driving up the cost of housing 

for others. We have certainly heard that from people on a fixed income. Our more senior citizens have been telling us they’re increasingly concerned about whether or not they’ll be afford—be able to 

afford housing in the future. 

The problem we’re facing has been widely reported. Here is the 

Bismarck Tribune headline that ran last month, ‘‘Not Jobless, Just 

Homeless: Temporary housing dots the landscapes of oil towns. 

Scenes like the one pictured here, with campers parked on school 

lots, can be found around the area.’’ 

3 

Let me go to the next one. 

The oil boom in the Bakken Formation has dramatically increased oil production in the State. This chart shows that North 

Dakota oil production was up to 8.6 million barrels a month, as of 

March of this year. And we are delighted by that. It is important 

to our country, as well as to our State. This is helping reduce our 

dependence on foreign oil, so it is very welcome, to have this new 

production come online. 

With further production in the Bakken and, of course, the discovery of the Three Forks Formation, we can expect production to 

continue to climb. That’s certainly our hope. We also know there’s 

considerable potential for future growth in North Dakota’s oil industry. 


58154.218 58154.219
4 

There are currently 118 rigs operating in the State. We expect 

that to grow to 150 by the end of the year. In total, we now have 

over 180 companies involved in oil operations in our State. And 

there are an estimated 2.6 million barrels—billion barrels of oil in 

the Bakken Formation that are recoverable, and perhaps as much 

as another 1.9 billion barrels in the Three Forks Formation. We 

need to be prepared to handle that possible growth. 

We’ve already seen significant spikes in the area’s population. 

Although we don’t have exact numbers, because we don’t have 

the latest census, the Williston population has increased, we’re told 

by local officials, by as much as 20 percent; the Bowman population, by perhaps 25 percent; and the Stanley population, we’re 

told, by as much as 100 percent. But, we’ll have a chance to hear 

directly from the mayors, on those questions. 

But, what are the key challenges that we face? 


58154.220 58154.221
5 

Generally, we have a lack of sufficient housing that will require 

financing, will require private developers, will require additional 

contractors and construction workers. All of that is good news, because that will all improve business activity in these communities. 

We’ve increased demands on emergency and essential services, 

and we’ve got increased strains on infrastructure. That’s why, later 

today, I will be holding a hearing on—in Watford City—on what 

needs to be done with Highway 85. We’ve already held hearings in 

Williston and Dickinson on that matter, but we felt it was important to go to Watford City to hear from that community, as well. 

And I committed to that earlier this year, and we’re fulfilling that 

commitment later today. 

So, again, our State has benefited, and will continue to benefit 

greatly, from the oil boom here. But, we need to ensure that we 

provide adequate housing for the influx of needed workers. And we 

need to make ensure our local communities are not adversely affected. 

Again, I welcome Congressman Pomeroy, am delighted he is 

here, and ask him to make any additional statement he’d want to 

make. And then we’ll go to our first panel. 

Congressman POMEROY. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EARL POMEROY, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Well, Senator Conrad, thank you very much for 

having this hearing. Thank you for allowing me to participate, 

making it a bit of a bicameral affair today. 

I was going to have meetings, both on transportation and housing, later in the week. It worked perfectly to simply do this at one 

shot. We are respectful to the fact that, especially, our local leaders 

are so busy we don’t want to take them away from the task at 

hand for any more time than necessary. 

I think about the meetings we’ve had in this room over the years, 

Senator, where we’ve looked at drought, we’ve looked at bust, we’ve 

looked at any number of deep problems facing the efforts to continue economic activity at an adequate level in northwestern North 

Dakota. I look at leaders in this room, starting with Mayor Koeser 

and so many others, that have at times been seemingly handed the 

assignment, ‘‘Make something out of nothing,’’ because there wasn’t 

a lot going on. And then I consider that day that we are now in, 


58154.222
6 

a day that—times like we’ve never seen before. And we are not entirely sure how this is going to play out, but we know one thing: 

This region and North Dakota will be forever changed by the oil 

play underway, and it’s basically up to us to steward this thing in 

ways that make the outcome as positive, in all respects, near term 

and long term, as can possibly be achieved, knowing, again, that 

the leadership in the room is tried, tested, seasoned leaders. And 

looking at friends in the builders community, knowing—just trying 

to imagine how impossibly busy you must be, I want to thank you 

so much for participating in this discussion. 

Trying to keep up with the new reality—115,000 barrels of oil a 

day in 1907; 240—240,000 by 1909; 261,000, April—we know that 

figure’s higher now—daily production levels—a doubling of production levels within 2 years, driven by—now I’ve got 4,665 wells. But, 

look at these rig counts: 81 in January, 93 in February, 102 in 

March, 107 in April, 118 and –19 today—each rig, 40 direct jobs; 

potentially as many as 80 indirect jobs. So, there’s no mystery, in 

terms of where this housing shortage came from. We’ve got unprecedented level of activity, and we’ve got an extraordinary impact resulting from that activity. 

So, the only way you really can deal with a new dimension of activity of this character is ‘‘all hands on deck.’’ That means Federal 

Government. So, I’m very please about our—right out of the Washington headquarters, with two agencies represented today, as well 

as your State leadership. Thank you very much for the efforts 

you’ve made to be here. State—very—see Lance Gaebe here, somewhere, the land commissioner. Obviously, State’s going to play an 

important role. 

I got that right. Right? 

Voice: Soon. 

Mr. POMEROY. Soon. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY. Soon to be announced land commissioner—don’t 

tell anyone. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY. And city and county leadership, as well as nonprofits. It’s going to take all of us, working together, to get this one 

seen through. So, let’s get on with the fact-gathering, Senator. 

Thank everyone and—for being here. And thanks, again, for including me in the hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And we will go right to our Federal witnesses. 

And I want to emphasize that the Federal Government has a role 

to play here. But, in housing issues, the Federal Government is not 

the lead. Housing is a local matter, primarily. It is a private development matter, primarily. But, we’ve got to make certain that the 

role that the Federal Government does play is constructive and 

positive, and that they’re not getting in the way, and, to the extent 

they can, that they are helping. And that’s the reason we have 

asked these Federal officials to be with us, as they have a chance 

to, then, hear firsthand, themselves, from our local officials and our 

private development community and the faith community and others, the needs of these communities. 

7 

With that, Dan Sullivan the director of policy for multifamily development at U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Welcome, and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF DAN SULLIVAN, DIRECTOR OF POLICY FOR 

MULTIFAMILY DEVELOPMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Thank you, Chairman Conrad and also Congressman Conroy, for your welcome today, to have us here to speak and 

to hear. And mostly, we’re here to listen. 

I did want to make some comments, though, about HUD’s involvement—FHA’s involvement in North Dakota. I appreciated the 

opportunity to visit with—, who’s director of our local HUD office 

in Fargo, North Dakota, the State office there, and toured around 

Minot last night, and then, today, through the northwestern part 

of the State, got to visit Stanley. And if you haven’t had a chance 

to—for breakfast in Stanley, you’re missing something. So, we got 

to see Tioga, and then toured around in Williston, as well, looking 

at various housing properties. 

In the last 2 years, for 2008 and 2009, HUD’s involvement 

throughout North Dakota involved various programs, in the 

amount of $375 million, of Federal presence here. For example, 

HUD provides approximately $15 million a year for housing—affordable housing choice vouchers throughout North Dakota, as well 

as for operating subsidies for public housing developments. 

HUD, through various block grant programs, provided, over the last 2 years, $60 million to local authorities and Native American 

tribes in North Dakota for—through block grants. As well, HUD 

provides, directly, $43 million per year to low-income housing families living in project-based rental-subsidized properties throughout 

the State. There are 150 such properties. 

And then, finally, our involvement through the Federal Housing 

Administration. It’s an indirect involvement, in that we insure 

mortgages and loans for about $225 million of insurance—throughout the State of North Dakota. A large majority of that is singlefamily mortgage insurance, but we also—there are 17 FHA multifamily insured properties throughout North Dakota, and 10 properties that HUD directly funded for elderly and disabled low-income housing units, as Congress has appropriated funds for the 

section 202 and 811 programs. 

We recognize that the strength in the energy sector has created 

a significant demand for additional housing in North Dakota and 

similar areas throughout the high plain States, as they’ve been impacted by the oil boom and energy sector. HUD’s—FHA’s mortgage 

insurance programs work with local real estate developers and 

FHA-approved lenders to provide, for instance, financing for new 

construction and substantial rehab of multifamily housing stock. 

By way of example, in Williston—here in Williston, HUD recently invited an application from the developer and a lender to use 

FHA multifamily mortgage insurance to provide new construction 

financing for 43 additional units. It’s not clear whether that particular job will go forward or not. But, in our analysis and due diligence and investigation of the market, it became apparent to HUD 

that the occupancy levels are at incredibly high levels; between 98 

8 

to 100 percent occupied in Williston. That is to say, there are basically no vacant units at all. And rents have reflected that. Our preliminary review of the market suggested that market-rate new construction rents for one-, two-, and three-bedroom new properties 

were between 850 and 1,000 and, for three bedrooms units, over 

$1200 per unit per month, which is dramatically higher than they 

were before—HUD. 

That, of course, has a secondary influence on affordable housing. 

It puts pressure on low-income housing and low-income families, as 

well as the usability of our voucher program. So, we’re very concerned about that. 

And I look forward to hearing from other panelists and participants about ways HUD can continue to partner with State and 

local government and officials from the private sector. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sullivan follows:] 

9 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And again, thanks for traveling to 

North Dakota. And we’re glad that you’ve had a little tour of this 

part of the State. I think it’s very helpful to see, firsthand, what’s 

happening. You know, it’s moving so fast, you really have to come 

here repeatedly to see the developments that are occurring. You 

know, I’ve come here for many, many years. For 30 years, I’ve been 

coming to Williston as a public official. And, just in the last 18 

months, I can see dramatic changes. Just the traffic is remarkable. 

Next, we’ll turn to Rich Davis, the acting deputy administrator 

for single-family housing at USDA Rural Development. 


58154.007
10 

And we’re also delighted that Jasper Schneider, the administrator for rural development in North Dakota, is with us. Good to 

have you with us, Jasper. Welcome. 

Mr. DAVIS. OK, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RICH DAVIS, ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR FOR SINGLE-FAMILY HOUSING, USDA RURAL DEVELOPMENT 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Chairman Conrad. And thank you for the 

opportunity—and Congressman Pomeroy—to be here today to 

speak to you about some of the USDA rural development housing 

programs. 

There may be some of you here who do not know that the Rural 

Development Commission area of USDA has the authority to make 

and insure single-family housing direct and guaranteed loans. The 

authority is provided to us by the Housing Act of 1949. It allows 

us to provide financial assistance to purchase or build homes. 

Now there are some conditions, however, in exercising that authority. I’ll mention a few of these. First, the homes must be modest in size, design, and cost. The homes must be located in a rural 

area, which in most cases are areas that are less than 20,000 in 

population. Now, I know Williston meets that requirement today, 

but at the rate at which it’s growing, I’m not sure how much longer 

that’s going to last. 

A few other requirements are that the applicants must meet certain income requirements, and I’ll touch on those in a minute. And 

the applicants must be unable to secure credit elsewhere on reasonable terms and conditions. 

The single-family housing direct loans are limited to applicants 

whose household income is no more than 80 percent of the area 

median income. And we use the guidelines established by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Now, we call these 

loans—we call these ‘‘direct loans,’’ because they are made directly 

by the Federal Government. 

I mentioned that we also guarantee loans. These loans are made 

by approved lenders for the purchase of a home. We call these 

‘‘guaranteed loans,’’ because if the lender suffers a loss from making this loan, the government will cover most, if not all, of the lender’s loss, and we guarantee it. These guaranteed loans—the income 

of the individuals or families receiving these loans must be less 

than 115 percent of the area median income. 

A key feature of both the direct and the guaranteed loan programs is that the loans can be for up to 100 percent of the cost or 

the value of the property being financed. 

Next, I’ll give you an idea of what these incomes and loan 

amounts look like in North Dakota. In fiscal year 2009, in North 

Dakota, the average income of the households served through the 

single-family housing direct program was about $30,000. The average amount of the loan was about $99,000. Now, in the guaranteed 

program, the average income for the Single-Family Housing Guarantee Program was quite a bit higher. It was around 46,000. And 

the average loan amount was right around 100,000. 

11 

At this point, I’d like to provide a little more background on the 

Single-Family Guarantee Program. It is designed to assist low- and 

moderate-income households to buy or build homes in rural areas. 

On a nationwide basis during the last fiscal year, the Guarantee 

Program provided over $16 billion. Some of the key features of this 

program are: first, as I mentioned, there is no downpayment required; we will provide 100 percent financing. The loan period is 

30 years. The interest rate is set by the lender, and it must be 

fixed; we do not allow adjustable-rate mortgages. The homes must 

be modest, decent, safe, and sanitary. 

Now our delinquency and our foreclosure rates, despite the fact 

that we’re giving—providing 100 percent financing, compare extremely well, and are less than the industry rates. These loans, 

again, are made by private-sector lenders—approved lenders, and 

are guaranteed by the Federal Government. 

In the last 3 years, Rural Development’s single-family housing 

programs have been quite active in North Dakota. Our total involvement for all of our single-family housing programs is approximately $104 billion. I’ll briefly mention some of those activities. We averaged over $130,000 a year in home repair loans for single-family homes in North Dakota. And this was through the Home 

Repair Loan Program. We also made grants, and those averaged 

about $285,000 a year for the single-family homes. And it’s through 

that same Home Repair Loan Program. 

And I talked earlier about the single-family direct loans. In our activity in that area, we provided—we averaged about $8 million 

a year, for the last 3 years. So, we totaled, in the last 3 years, 

around $24 million. But, in the Guarantee Program, we averaged 

about $27 million a year. So, the total there was nearly $80 million. 

I’d like to briefly mention our multifamily housing program. It 

provides financing for new construction as well as the rehabilitation of existing housing. In the past year, Rural Development’s involvement in North Dakota, through the various multifamily housing programs, was as follows: In our Multifamily Direct Loan Program, we provided about $2 million for new construction last year. 

We financed about 32 apartments for very-low and low-income individuals. 

In our Guaranteed Rural Rental Housing Program, we also provided approximately $2 million for new construction and for the repair of existing multifamily housing. 

I just learned that we’ve got two projects underway in the 

Williston area—one is at the—50 units, and the other one’s at 41 

units, and about to break ground soon, I believe. And the other’s 

about to get started. So, excited to hear that. 

We also have another program—a Rental Assistance Program, in 

which we provide rental assistance to very-low and low-income tenants. And last year, we provided about $4 and a half million in assistance there. And that served over 1200 individuals and families 

in North Dakota. 

We also recognize that the boom in the oil industry in this region 

has created a housing crisis for North Dakota. Rural Development’s 

housing programs and offices are ready to work with you and local 

realtors, real estate developers, and lenders, approved lenders, to 

12 

finance new construction and/or the rehabilitation of single-family 

housing. 

Now, for some, ownership of housing may not be an option. In 

those cases, we recommend our Multifamily Housing Program, 

which can provide financing and loan guarantees to increase our 

housing portfolio for individuals and families with moderate incomes or less. 

That concludes my remarks. I look forward to your questions and 

comments regarding ways that USDA Rural Development can partner with—. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Davis follows:] 

13 


58154.014
14 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Rich. Thank you very much for that. 


58154.015 58154.016
15 

We’re going to handle this hearing a little bit differently than we 

typically do. We’re not going to go to questions of the first panel, 

because they’re going to stay with us through the whole hearing. 

And so, what—our intention is to go to the second panel immediately. Then we’ll call up the third panel. We’ll go to them. And 

then we’ll have time for questions that would involve any of the 

participants. So, that’s what we intend to do today. 

And we’ll go to our second panel immediately, with our three 

mayors. And we’ll start with Mayor Ward Koeser, the mayor of 

Williston. We’ve asked each of the mayors to give us an assessment 

of what the housing needs are in their communities, what’s being 

done to address it, and what we might do, with our Federal partners, to improve the situation. 

Mayor Koeser, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. WARD KOESER, MAYOR OF WILLISTON, 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. KOESER. Thank you, Senator Conrad, for holding this hearing on housing issues in Williston today. 

And thank you, Representative Pomeroy, for being here, as well. 

We sure appreciate that. 

I believe that providing adequate and affordable housing is the 

most critical issue facing our community at this time. And I believe 

that the only way we will be able to successfully address the challenge is by partnering with the State and Federal Government. 

The Williston region has been impacted by oil—by oil development since the 1950’s. An oil boom then, followed by bust, was followed by an oil boom and bust in the 1980’s, and now the oil boom 

we are presently experiencing. During each boom experience, a 

shortage of housing for oilfield workers has put tremendous stress 

on the city of Williston. 

Oil booms are very difficult to plan for, and their impacts can 

create lasting scars on the community. The oil boom and bust of 

the 1980’s left the city of Williston with over 20 million in special 

assessment deficiency debt, largely created when developers 

walked away from infrastructure projects financed by special assessment bonds. 

Williston’s population is now estimated to be between 14- and 

15,000 people. The impact of this boom has seen thousands of 

workers from around the country travel to Williston, looking for 

work. With the nationwide recession America is now experiencing, 

workers come here looking to begin a new life and a new career. 

Most of them are good people—many times, down on their luck— 

simply wanting a chance to start over. Their challenge, once they 

arrive here, is finding affordable housing. 

For the past several years, the city of—the City Commission of 

Williston has been diligently working to facilitate and provide incentives for affordable housing of all types. Tax breaks, low- and 

no-interest loans, and sales of city-owned property at reduced 

prices have all played a role in encouraging developers and builders to invest in our community. 

Although we have been successful, with 160 housing units permitted already in 2010 alone, the demand has greatly outpaced the 

16 

supply. The demand for affordable housing increases monthly as 

people come here looking for work. 

One major concern of ours is that, after 2010, we will need additional lots developed with infrastructure. That is, water, sewer, 

streets. Experts believe that a community should have about 2 

years of inventory of lots ready to build on, where we presently 

have less than 50 lots available. This has caused us to intensify efforts to attract developers who can purchase raw land, develop the 

infrastructure, and have lots available for sale. This has been a 

challenge, as the cost of developing infrastructure has doubled in 

the past 4 years, from roughly 20,000 per lot to roughly 40,000 per 

lot. At the same time, credit has tightened dramatically, making it 

difficult for developers to secure loans. 

The city approached the Governor of North Dakota, requesting 

assistance, and is presently working out details of a plan whereby 

the State would share in some of the risk in developing raw property. This pilot program requires a developer to purchase the land 

and install the underground infrastructure—about half the cost of 

the development. And then the city special-assesses the installation 

of the aboveground infrastructure, with the State sharing 50 percent of that risk. This amounts to the developer assuming about 50 

percent of the total risk, the city assuming about 25 percent of the 

risk, and the State assuming 25 percent of the risk. We believe 

that this plan will be helpful in attracting developers to invest in 

our community, and will help keep the price of lots affordable. 

Now for the role of the Federal Government. The greatest challenge we face when it comes to housing is to provide affordable 

housing for the workers. If the Federal Government could provide 

additional community-development block-grant dollars that could 

assist with the installation of major infrastructure, I believe that 

the cost of the lots could be reduced, thereby making the housing 

more affordable. The low- to moderate-income requirements of 

CDBG program may also need to be adjusted to accommodate oilfield incomes in our community. 

As we are providing jobs for many displaced workers from 

around the country, I believe that his proposal may provide unemployed workers a chance to begin a new career. 

The other area that we need assistance with is financing of home 

purchases. Since the meltdown of the banking industry in 2008, it 

has become substantially more difficult for home buyers to finance 

new homes. I am uncertain as to what could correct this problem, 

but a review of banking regulations might find some rules that 

could be adjusted to loosen up the credit situation. Also, if HUD 

provided a good home loan guaranty program, easily accessed by 

home buyers, more people moving to Williston would be able to 

purchase a home. 

A unique idea would be for the Labor Department, which tends 

to focus on unemployment numbers, to develop a program whereby 

unemployed people in other parts of the country could receive assistance with moving costs to come to North Dakota, where there’s 

an excess of jobs waiting to be filled. 

In January of this year, Job Service estimated that the Williston 

service area had about 475 job openings. Now, less than 5 months 

later, they estimate that there are 1100 job openings. And keep in 

17 

mind that many job openings in the oilfield are not listed with Job 

Service. During that same period, hundreds of workers became employed in our community. 

The oil industry is a very volatile industry, with great fluctuations in work force demands. For a community to adjust to these 

fluctuations requires a great deal of planning and support from the 

State and Federal Government. 

Thank you, Senator Conrad, for listening to our concerns and the 

support you have given Williston as we work together to supply energy for all of America. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Koeser follows:] 

18 


58154.001
19 


58154.002
20 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mayor Koeser. 

And we’ll go to Mayor Hynek, of Stanley. And then we’ll conclude 

with Mayor James. And at that point, I think it would be useful 

to open it up for questioning, and also to have involvement of our 

Federal officials, in terms of talking about specific needs in these 

communities and programs that are available that might address 

them, as they listen to what we hear. 

Mayor, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE HYNEK, MAYOR OF STANLEY, 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. HYNEK. All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for this opportunity of being here. I thank Senator Conrad, Congressman 

Pomeroy for this opportunity. 

I’m the mayor of Stanley, North Dakota. I’ve spent my entire life 

in the Stanley area, with the exception of my college education. I’ve 

been mayor for 4 years, and am currently seeking reelection. Prior 

to being the mayor, I served on the city council. 

Stanley is a small community in northwest North Dakota. It is 

located in the area which is being intensively developed for crude 

oil and natural gas. Both the Bakken and Three Forks formations 

are proving to be great producers in the Stanley area. The chart 

that Senator Conrad had up had North Dakota producing 8.6 million barrels, in the month of March. Over a third of that—over— 

slightly over 3 million barrels of that came from Mountrail County. 

Prior to the oil development, our population was 1,279, based 

upon the 2000 Census. Some estimates now have our population 

nearing 1800. Those estimates are based on residential water users 

at the last Census, and the number of 2.2-residents-per-water use, 

while at our critical shortage of housing, it is highly possible that 


58154.003
21 

we’re closer to 3 per-water use. So, that would put us a 2400 and 

some. These estimates do not include workers’ camps and trailers 

park—and trailer parks located in the—not in the city limits, but 

to which the city still provides services. These outlying locations 

would include an additional 600 to 700 people. 

Mr. POMEROY. Mayor, what was the starting figure you used? 

Mr. HYNEK. Twelve hundred and seventy-nine was the population in 2000. 

Mr. POMEROY. So, that’d be a—it is entirely possible you’ve got 

a 100-percent increase. 

Mr. HYNEK. Totally. If you—without a doubt, if you included the 

outlying workers—— 

Mr. POMEROY. Yeah. 

Mr. HYNEK [continuing]. That we provide some services to. 

At this time, there’s no available housing in Stanley. Some 

houses, and two additional apartment buildings, are currently 

being constructed. Current rental rates for a two-bedroom apartment in Stanley are $1300 per month. This not only—this also puts 

a stress on school districts, cities trying to hire police officers, 

schools trying to hire teachers. They come because the pay scale 

has increased. But, when they find the cost of living, they move on; 

they just can’t afford those types of rents. 

Mr. POMEROY. Could you—how many units in those two apartment buildings? 

Mr. HYNEK. That are going to be built? I believe there are 15 in 

one, and 16 in the other. 

We are limited in expansion by our existing infrastructure, also. 

Due to State law, section 15 of Article 10 of the North Dakota Century Code, Stanley is at its limit in regards to debt. This basically 

keeps us from improving and expanding our infrastructure. Over 

the last 3 years, Stanley has, approximately, added $8 million 

worth of infrastructure to our city. 

The exploration part of oil production will go on for several more 

years in our area. The workers for this part of the industry are, 

and will be, housed in workers’ camps and trailer parks. The production part of the oil industry is estimated to last an additional 

50 years. These are the jobs where families will actually move to 

Stanley and need homes. These jobs are starting to be filled, and 

housing is becoming critical for these families. 

There are two ways in which Stanley is seeking assistance. First 

is infrastructure. We need an additional cell for our sewage lagoon, 

which is designed for 1500 people. And we also need sewer and 

water mains, along with streets, curb, and gutter. Because of financial restrictions, these cannot be completed by the city. 

Second is housing. I would ask that the banking regulations 

which have been enacted be revisited. Currently, because of 

these—new regulation, it has become nearly impossible for our 

local community banks to loan money for housing. I visited with 

two local community banks and the Bank of North Dakota, all of 

whom said loaning money on a house in Stanley is very difficult. 

And if the house were be—to—located outside of the city, the local 

community banks would not even accept an application for a loan. 

Some of the specific problems are: education and training costs 

for staff to maintain compliance; regulatory penalties for nonVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00027 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
22 

compliance; software investment and continuous updates; regulatory guidelines for terms that do not fit with lending plans that 

are in-house; appraisals which require segregation of duties so additional staffing may be required; and also, mandatory escrows. 

And I do apologize if some of these have been addressed; it’s highly 

possible. 

So, whatever assistance that is available, it would be greatly appreciated. Stanley is a very bright spot in a dim economic time. 

With some assistance and guidance, we will overcome our challenges. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hynek follows:] 

23 


58154.004
24 


58154.005
25 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Excellent testimony, as well. 

Mayor James, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. LYN JAMES, MAYOR OF BOWMAN, 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Ms. JAMES. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Why don’t you proceed with your testimony, 

and—— 

Ms. JAMES. Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. Davis, thank you. Good afternoon. 

It’s a privilege to be here and be part of this historical time in 

North Dakota. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to you. 

You know, although the exploration has slowed in Bowman 

County, oil production is still going strong. And it is projected that 

it will continue for more than 20 years. And until very recently, 

Bowman country was the highest-producing oil county in North Dakota. I think Mountrail knocked us off the map, but—anyway, 

we’re still going strong down there. And, hopefully, with the Three 

Forks development, it looks like we will be back in the exploration 

phase again, when they get to that. 

Production brings long-term jobs to a community, which, in turn, 

creates a need for permanent single-family housing, as well as multifamily units. As we look back over the past 20 to 30 years, and 

as we look forward to the new development of our communities, we 

are well aware that many local taxpayers have less than enthusiastic support for municipal development of the infrastructure needed to foster new housing, such as streets, curb and gutter, water 

and sewer mains, et cetera. And I’m sure Ward can speak very familiarly to that. 


58154.006
26 

The city of Bowman and other cities in western North Dakota 

have been, and are now, struggling with the need for expanding 

that infrastructure in order to accommodate new development. 

Oil is not the only energy industry driving the demand for housing, either. Bowman country is also seeing activity in wind energy, 

pipeline projects, and proposed uranium and coal development, as 

are many of the other counties over here in western North Dakota. 

The city of Bowman offers a real estate tax exemption of up 

$150,000 per year for 2 years to individuals who build new housing. And this exemption was passed by the North Dakota legislative body in 2009. And we resolved to follow that pattern. 

Presently, there’s nothing in place for the developer who steps up 

and takes on risk in all his development costs. And also, the inflated prices on housing that the oilfield has supported over the 

years has skewed our values to the point where we are now forced 

to have a countywide reassessment. And we have older residents 

on fixed incomes, who are very concerned about what is—what 

that’s going to bring them. You know, in theory, it should be OK 

for them, but they’re very concerned. And so, as a leader, so am 

I. 

After visiting with some local developers and also our economic 

development director in Bowman, I found that one of the topics 

brought up on each occasion was a public-private partnership. The 

local government entities have their hands full, as Mike stated, 

taking care of the day-to-day needs of communities who serve the 

energy industry. 

There are terrific burdens on the existing infrastructure in the 

impacted areas, and insufficient funding available to keep up with 

those burdens. The State of North Dakota worked with oil-impacted counties, during the last legislative session, to help bring 

more funding back to the areas affected by oil exploration and production. Although the adjustments to gross production tax paid 

back to counties and cities was appreciated, it was not enough, and 

more work will need to be done during the next session. 

We would like to see the Federal Government make an investment in oil country by offering loan guarantees to private developers, if at all possible. It would seem to be a safe investment in 

growing the local, State, and national economy by minimizing the 

risk to the developers and local governments. 

We are well aware that there are many housing programs available through USDA, North Dakota Housing, finance, et cetera. Unfortunately, they’re geared toward low- to moderate-income housing. That does not apply to the oilfield. So, we’re kind of caught in 

a little bit of a trap there. There does not seem to be any programs 

available, to speak of, for market-rate housing. 

It would be helpful if there were some sort of program available 

to developers that could buy down interest on their speculative 

homes, or something that could assist them. 

It would also be extremely helpful to the municipalities if there 

were some sort of assistance to us for the infrastructure projects. 

As I stated previously, local government budgets are stretched to 

the limit, and the taxpayers are not receptive to sharing the burden of new development. 

27 

I visited with one of our local—our city engineer, and he said, 

‘‘Minimal cost per lot, to develop water, sewer, curb and gutter, and 

the pavement to finish it off, would be $30- to $40,000 in Bowman. 

And I’m sure here it’s higher, as Ward indicated. 

I believe that the developers would step forward, after visiting 

with them, to build the needed housing in our communities if there 

were programs to assist them, as well as the infrastructure being 

in place. 

The Bowman City Commission looks forward to working with 

Federal, State, and other local governments in order to partner to 

find solutions to these housing problems and challenges in western 

North Dakota. 

Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. James follows:] 

28 


58154.008
29 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Really excellent testimony. I’m delighted that the three of you could be with us today. 

Maybe we need to start on what happened the last boom, because I know it very much affects thinking, still today. I was tax 

commissioner at the time. It’s riveted in my mind what happened 

here. I remember very well, in about 1986 or 1987, Williston, as 

I recall, had about $27 million of debt. And you are dedicating 34 

to 38 percent of your property taxes in this community to paying 


58154.009
30 

down that debt. And that went on for 7 years. That was a tremendous burden on this community. And I understand, absolutely, why 

local officials who have seen that experience have been reluctant 

to step forward again. 

And Mayor James, Mayor Koeser, you both talked about the de- velopment cost per lot. I think one of the figures was $20- to 

$40,000. I think, Mayor James, you used the figure of $30- to 

$40,000. That’s really what we see, with respect to single-family 

homes. And that is—you know, there is a risk associated with it. 

And then you talk about curb and gutter, you talk about sewer and 

water; you’re talking about significant risk for these communities. 

And, of course, the question in everybody’s mind, Is this time different? Is this time different? We’ve got lots of reason to believe 

this is going to be a longer-lasting boom, one that really has legs. 

But, you know, that’s what we thought the last time. And so, none 

of us can be absolutely certain. You know, maybe there’s going to 

be some new technological breakthrough in some other form of energy. Hard for me to see how that’s going to happen in any nearterm sense. And so, our reliance on petroleum, it seems to me, is 

going to continue, and it’s going to grow. 

And especially if we want to reduce our dependence on foreign 

oil, which has to be a very high priority for our country. 

So, that gives—leaves us with the question of, What do we do 

about infrastructure? It’s been raised by Mayor Hynek. What do we 

do about housing? And both of these, historically, have been a local 

matter and private development matter. 

Because this energy play is so important to our national security 

and our national economic situation, there really is, in this case, 

some national responsibility. We’ve got to make certain that this 

development goes forward, that we’re not losing out on developing 

this resource locally because there’s insufficient housing for the 

workers that are needed for that production to come online. That’s 

why there is a national interest. 

So, I think, Mayor James, you talked about the need for publicprivate partnership. And that’s what some of these programs are 

that are in place. Rich, I think you talked about assistance with 

the development of two fairly large apartment units here; 31 units 

or—I can’t remember—40 units; 31 units in another. How did that 

come about, with the fact that so many of these programs are designed for low- and moderate-income people? Do you know the— 

how those were able to be met? 

Mr. DAVIS. I briefly learned about that just before arriving today. 

I know that they were funded through our Guaranteed Low-Rental 

Housing Program. And those programs are for the low- and moderate-income. So—projects—are guaranteed. The tenants must not 

exceed moderate income levels. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. And, as I recall, you said, in this community, $46,000? Thirty thousand under one—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Program, 46,000—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Those aren’t—those are averages. We took—just took 

a little bit of the data to see what the typical borrower was in both 

of our programs. In our direct program, it’s about 30,000, in our 

Guarantee Program it’s about 36,000. I don’t have the—— 

31 

The CHAIRMAN. And it’s the Guarantee Program that’s being 

used for these apartment units. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, no. They’re actually—that’s the Single-Family 

Guarantee Program that I was speaking of at that point. For that 

program, that was the average income. For—so, that’s 115 percent 

of area median income, which would be comparable to our tenants 

in the apartment building. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can you tell us, in your experience—I’m interested in the mayors’—boy, it sounded to me, Ward—is you’ve got 

the need for hundreds of units, here. What is your current assessment of how many units—additional units you need, here? 

Mr. KOESER. It’s a difficult question to answer. I think a lot of 

it goes back to the number of jobs that are available. And where— 

Job Services, they have 1100 openings now in the Williston service 

area. There are probably, some believe, up to 2,000 job openings, 

because a lot of companies don’t list with them. So, obviously, you 

have need for that number of workers. 

Now, many of the workers coming here are young people who 

don’t have credit or don’t have good credit, or they are individuals 

moving here from—and I’ll pick on Michigan, as an example, where 

they’re down on their luck, they may have lost their home, and so, 

their credit is no longer good. And so, most of the people moving 

here really need to be in the rental situation. They’re not—they 

aren’t qualified. They don’t have the credit to buy a new home. So, 

we see a huge demand in that area. 

Interesting to comment on Rich’s projects that—one of them is a 

51-unit project, and one’s a—I think, a 41-unit project. And they’ll 

deal with the lower- and moderate-income people. 

Now, we have a number of those. You know, the oilfield pays 

great wages, and they have good benefits. But, when—you have 

your whole service industry—people who are working in the motels, 

the restaurants, the retail sectors—who don’t make that kind of 

money. And so, they’re really being stressed right now, as to, How 

do they afford a place to live? And so, we’re—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And our senior citizens, too—— 

Mr. KOESER. Oh, man. Let’s—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Is what I’m hearing from, in the 

Williston community. Seniors who are, some of them, just petrified 

that they’re going to get priced out of the market, here. 

Mr. KOESER. Yeah. The—I received a call last week from a senior 

citizen who had been paying—I think it was a two-bedroom apartment—$450 a month. And they were doing fine. And they just had 

received notice that next—in 1st of June, it was going to go up 100; 

1st of July, it was going to go up 100; 1st of August, up 50. So, 

they were going to go from 450 to 700. And she was very, very concerned. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. KOESER. And so, projects like this are something, of course, 

we direct them to. And we’re very anxious for them to be completed. Because we really think there’s that whole sector that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That will take some of the pressure off. 

Mr. KOESER. That will take some of the pressure. But, you know, 

to know how many houses we need—it’s very, very difficult. But, 

it’s certainly in the multihundreds, if not—you know, if we had 

32 

1,000 housing units available right now—whether that be apartments—and mostly apartments—and affordable houses, I believe 

that they would be full in a matter of maybe a month. It’s just— 

affordable housing is kind of a gray area, what’s affordable. But, 

it seems, in this area, if you can build a house or have a house 

available under 200,000, it will sell in a day, maybe 2 days. If you 

get over 200,000, it takes longer. But, tremendous demand—tremendous demand for it there. And, as you know, when you have 

that great demand, it drives up the prices of all things; rents and 

everything go up and really challenges people. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, there was this housing needs assessment that was done by Minot State University in 2006. And they 

were projecting a need for an additional 2,000 housing units in 

Williston and Williams County between 2010 and 2015. Now, that 

was from—— 

Mr. KOESER. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. —2006. So, do you think that that’s probably out 

of date? 

Mr. KOESER. It’s out of date. And things, you know, have changes 

dramatically, you know, since that particular time. 

I—sometimes people get frustrated that we’ve not been able to 

react as quickly as we would actually like to, to the housing demand. But, if you even look back to what Job Service said there 

was for openings in January versus now—— 

The CHAIRMAN. A dramatic change. 

Mr. KOESER [continuing]. You know, you’ve had probably 1,000 

or 1500 job openings happen, and there’s no way you can build 

apartments or houses or anything in 4 months’ period of time, especially in the wintertime, to accommodate that. So, it’s just—it’s 

a huge challenge. I mean, it’s—there’s some great opportunities 

with it. And I like to kind of piggyback what Mike said; these are 

some real opportunities for us to grow and become a better community and have the goods and services and the retail that people 

want. 

But, it’s taking everybody, working together. It’s taking everybody, working long hours. And we’re ready to do that, and willing 

to do that. 

And any help that we can get from the State—we really appreciate the initiative of the Governor. That, I think, is going to help 

us in the area of getting some raw land developed. And anything 

that we can do as we meet more with you and talk to you more 

on the Federal level. 

But, this—the credit situation, I have often said, is where we are 

feeling the recession the most in North Dakota—in western North 

Dakota. We don’t—you know, we don’t know the people unemployed and all the other issues, but we feel it in the credit side of 

things. Credit is very, very tight. Realtors will tell you that, developers will tell you that. And that certainly is complicating finding 

a solution. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, it is, because what’s happened is, you 

know, when the economic downturn—the balance sheets of banks 

were impaired. 

Mr. KOESER. Yeah. 

33 

The CHAIRMAN. And so, the regulators come in and say, ‘‘Hey, 

you’ve got to restore your balance sheet.’’ That’s what’s leading to 

these regulations that Mike referenced, is—we can’t allow a repeat 

of just what happened. And part of what just happened was caused 

by overly loose credit. So, they were making loans to people, with 

nothing down. You know, we—I know there are people who will 

urge me to support loans, with nothing down. Look, we cannot do 

that. We cannot do that. We can’t afford another crash. And part 

of the reason we had a crash is because lending institutions were 

making loans that you could almost assure yourself they were 

going to be a high default rate. And, in fact, that’s what we got, 

was a high default rate. So, we’ve got to have some standards here. 

We’ve got to have some regulation to prevent that from happening. 

On the other hand, it can’t be so severe that we restrict the flow 

of credit to places that desperately need it and can use it and not 

abuse it. 

Mike, let me ask you, how many units do you think you need? 

Mr. HYNEK. As far as—well, what we’re looking at is a little bit 

of a different situation. We’ve got the EOG resources, and we’ve 

got—with their wonderful apartment—or their office building and 

their infrastructure, and Whiting is putting up a big office building 

on Highway 8; and those folks are looking, really, more at family 

housing. What we need for numbers there? It’s seems just ridiculous to say this, but I think if we had 100 homes available, they 

would sell, in a matter of months, when these people start coming 

in to fill these positions that they’re offering. 

The CHAIRMAN. And at what price point would they sell? 

Mr. HYNEK. Well, from the folks I’ve visited with on that, they 

think in the $125- to $150,000 homes—would be their range of 

where their—it would be very affordable for these folks. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Lyn, if I can ask you—how many units do 

you need? What’s your assessment of how many units you’d need 

in your community? 

Ms. JAMES. I would say—of course, we’re in a little bit of a different situation in Bowman, without the exploration side right now. 

But, I would say we safely could use 50. And—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And that would—— 

Ms. JAMES. Right now. And then—with planning for more as this 

exploration widens its path, because we will see more. I know we 

will. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Let me go to Congressman Pomeroy for his questions. 

Mr. POMEROY. I know we want to get, Mr. Chairman, to the local 

builders, too. So, I will be very quick. 

Mayor James, you said there was an 1909 law passed in the legislature. Did—is there a State program that’s relevant, in addition 

to the Governor’s initiative on sharing the risk? 

Ms. JAMES. You know, I have a copy of that here I can share 

with you, if you’d like. 

Previously—prior to 2009, it was $75,000 exemption that was 

supported by the State for 2 years. And then they raised it to 150. 

Now, each individual community has the choice of doing nothing or 

doing the maximum. We believe that it would be beneficial to us 

34 

to forgive that amount for 2 years and then get a higher dollar 

back on the tax roll later. So—— 

Mr. POMEROY. Right. That’s a—— 

Ms. JAMES. But, I do have a copy— 

Mr. POMEROY [continuing]. Tax exemption—— 

Ms. JAMES [continuing]. Of that—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. On new home construction. 

Ms. JAMES. Right. And that’s the burden to us, as a municipality. 

There’s no reimbursement from the State. It’s just that we will see 

a greater return later. 

Mr. POMEROY. Yeah. 

Ms. JAMES. And one of the other things I’d like to mention regarding real estate tax, and then also development, is that, without 

infrastructure in place for new development within the city limits, 

we are seeing these little neighborhoods pop up that are outside of 

the city limits. They want city services; in fact, they demand them. 

But, we don’t reap any benefit back from them. And for us to—as 

a city, to step out there and invest in the infrastructure, the return 

is so slow that it—you know, it’s really a difficult risk to take, you 

know, for a small community—or a large community. I mean, it’s 

all economy of scale, I guess. But—— 

Mr. POMEROY. The Economic Recovery Act was passed to try and 

jump start a lot of activity across the country. Actually, that was 

responding to economies that were dead, not economies white hot. 

But, nonetheless, funds have been available, to an extraordinary 

dimension. I’d like to ask our Federal representatives, both Dan 

and Rich, if you—have the Federal Recovery Act dollars spent out 

to your agencies—are there opportunities, relative to Recover Act 

dollars, relative to the need, up in this area? 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, I can speak to the housing side—single family 

housing. We received $10 billion—the Recovery Act, and have practically fully obligated all of those funds. In fact,—January. We’ve 

had some—obligations, so there’s still a little more remaining on 

the guarantee side. 

Voice: We’ll take it. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. DAVIS. But, on the direct side, that program is very much 

alive and well. We have plenty of funding there. But, as I mentioned, it is for the very-low- and for the low-income. But, we’re 

working very hard. And we’re optimistic we’ll be able to obligate all 

those funds. We do have plenty of funding in the direct program. 

Ms. JAMES. If I might, Congressman, regarding the Recovery Act, 

we went line by line through that—through all of the programs. 

And because of our numbers, our population, we did not qualify 

for—— 

Mr. POMEROY. On the low- to moderate-income—— 

Ms. JAMES [continuing]. On—— 

Mr. POMEROY. Basis, or what? I mean—— 

Ms. JAMES [continuing]. On—basically, on any of the programs 

where there were funds available, whether it was infrastructure 

funds or anything. I mean, because of our—size of our community. 

Mike, did you find that? 

Mr. HYNEK. We didn’t go through—. That’s what we were basically advised—— 

35 

Ms. JAMES. Yeah, yeah. It was very frustrating. We actually had 

Senator Dorgan on the phone while we were going through that. 

And there just really—for small communities, we really fell 

through the cracks. 

Mr. POMEROY. I’d like both of you to respond to that. What have 

you got for places like this? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I apologize. I don’t have the data on the funds, the 

dollar amounts, but I do know that—was obligated for our community fund—. I do think that there is a problem in rural States like 

North Dakota, where, you know, the entitlement areas get a portion, and the rest of the State—. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, we know that, in our funding—we got $180 

million, in North Dakota, for roads and bridges. And that money 

was distributed over a 2-year period. So, that benefited areas all 

across the State. In fact, that’s part of the funding stream. It’s hard 

to differentiate which dollars go where. But, North Dakota got $180 

million right there. In the energy area, we got tens of millions of 

dollars. We got—you know, Basin Electric, alone, got $100 million. 

So, North Dakota had substantial benefits from ARRA funding. 

Whether the specific programs that would be of use to a community 

of your size, other than highway or energy—retrofitting homes— 

that kind of thing, which flowed across the State—that’s something 

we should go back and assess. 

We’ve got—you’ve got other—— 

Mr. POMEROY. The final would be this low/moderate-income 

issue. The—we’ve encountered that with some of the flood reconstruction, back in the late 1990’s, I remember. The—well, I guess 

I’ve got to see what the mayors—are you seeing eligibility criteria 

for Federal programs requiring low- and moderate-income levels to 

access the funds being a substantial bar to your ability to use them 

in the rural communities? 

Mr. HYNEK. I think some of that will—right now, it hasn’t been, 

on some of the programs, you know, still based upon the old Census numbers. I think what’s going to happen is, the new Census 

numbers come out and the new dollars of income come out, I think 

we’re going to real—bump hard against that. 

Mr. POMEROY. OK. 

Mr. HYNEK. That’s my feeling. 

Mr. KOESER. And I would say that’s going to be true in Williston. 

I mean, up to this point, we have kind of chased down different 

trails, trying to find dollars. The incomes are good. I mean, we’re 

blessed. The people make a lot of money here—not—but not everybody. But, it’s been difficult to make that happen. We continue to 

look—and, you know, we’ll certainly continue to see if things 

change. But, we—the State shows Williston has having the highest 

per-capita salary in the State right now. That’s good, and yet, it 

doesn’t help you get funded on special programs. 

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. It’s really the case. I think that’s the thing 

that’s been knocking us out on some of these. Clearly, road and 

bridge funding is not allocated on that basis—on an income basis. 

A lot of the energy funding is not allocated on that basis. The 

money for energy projects are not allocated on that basis. But, 

when you go to housing—just the description, Dan, that you and 

36 

Rich gave here—it is really targeted low- and middle-income people. And some of our people qualify. So, for example, we see 

projects underway here that will help low- and middle-income people. 

But, we’ve got kind of an unusual thing going on here. You know, 

in this economy, there aren’t many boom places. This is a place 

that’s booming, and yet there is a Federal—some Federal responsibility—not complete, because housing is typically local and private. 

But, because this is a national priority—we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. 

So, we clearly have an obligation to help on roads, bridges, and, 

I would argue, infrastructure. Because, otherwise, it’s very hard to 

see how it can happen in a timely way, given the high capital costs 

and given the risk that we have seen in the past. I mean, isn’t that 

kind of the truth? 

I mean, money follows money. We all know that. When you’ve 

got high-income people, that means higher local revenue, that 

means more construction, that means more jobs, more economic activity, more ability to provide education, housing, and all the rest. 

But, the problem is timing. That’s where we’ve got a big gap 

here. And it’s made very clear to me by the testimony of the three 

of you. We appreciate it very much. 

Mr. POMEROY. I would just say, I’m very much struck by the 

number of homes you’re saying you could move immediately—available in each of the three communities. That, perhaps, left as big 

as impression of any of the other testimony. 

I’d also like to introduce, for everyone in the audience, the North 

Dakota face of these Federal agencies that have played such an important role in housing. Joel Masgee with HUD—can you stand up, 

please?—and Jasper Schneider, with Rural Development at U.S. 

Department of Agriculture. You’ve got troubles, call these guys. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY. You call Conrad and me, we’ll refer you to these 

guys. 

So, we’re really pleased to have such competent, focused, local 

leadership for the Federal programs that—these are a couple North 

Dakotans that we know are really very much focused on this aspect 

of need. And we’ll be working with you to make sure these Federal 

programs can work. 

The CHAIRMAN. And thank you, thanks to this panel. 

And we’ll call the next panel: Jessica Thomasson, director of Lutheran Social Services Housing, LSS Housing, Incorporated; John 

Boyd, operations manager of EOG Resources—large international 

oil and natural gas company. And I know they have tried to alleviate the housing shortage by erecting a man camp of temporary 

housing in Stanley. And Mr. Boyd is a native of Stanley, I believe. 

Mr. BOYD. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And Matt Miles, who is a principal in Leadership 

Circle, LLC, a large, experienced real estate developer that’s had 

a part in developing the Timbers residences, here in Williston. 

Welcome, to all of you. Thank you so much for being here. 

John, why don’t we start with you, and we’ll go right down the 

line. We’ll start John Boyd, then Matt Miles, and then Jessica 

Thomasson. 

37 

Again, John, thank you so much for taking your time to be here 

today. 

STATEMENT OF JOHN BOYD, OPERATIONS MANAGER, EOG 

RESOURCES 

Mr. BOYD. Thank you. 

Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, Federal representatives, 

distinguished guests, and citizens of North Dakota, thank you for 

convening this field hearing regarding housing needs related to oil 

and gas operations. 

EOG Resources agrees that housing issues in western North Dakota need to be addressed in a proactive and efficient manner. I am 

EOG’s North Dakota operations manager, responsible for all aspects of our operations in the State. I was born and raised in Stanley, and am excited to see the positive economic impact oil and natural gas development is having in the State. I have 30 years of experience in the industry in the U.S., including initiating and developing field crew housing facilities both onshore and offshore. I refer 

you to my biography for my professional experience. 

Currently, EOG employs 100 people in North Dakota, and is the 

largest crude oil producer in the State. As our operations began to 

ramp up in 2008, EOG recognized a shortage of housing for our 

employees and service contractors in Mountrail County. 

Many of our contractor personnel are spending considerable time 

outside of normal business hours, commuting daily from Minot, 

Williston, and other towns in the area. In order to minimize the 

commuting and travel obligations for these workers, and to minimize traffic on the North Dakota roads, we initiated development 

of a 400- person field crew housing facility, located near Stanley, 

to support drilling and completion operations and other support 

contractors. This has worked well for EOG in the past, in operations in other States. 

In developing our field crew housing facility, our biggest challenges involve providing infrastructure services, such as water, 

power, communications, and sewage. Early on, during our activity 

in Mountrail County, we discovered that the power infrastructure 

had not been updated for 40 to 50 years. The system, at that time, 

was operating at maximum capacity, and the area was experiencing blackouts. EOG and other oil and gas companies worked 

with the local electric cooperative to secure funding to upgrade the 

power grid in the county. This upgrade was very important for our 

continued operations in the area. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know how much that upgrade cost, John? 

Mr. BOYD. Approximately $15 million. 

The CHAIRMAN. And was that federally funded? 

Mr. BOYD. No, it was funded from the oil companies. 

The CHAIRMAN. The oil companies put up the money for that 

themselves. 

Mr. BOYD. Yes, through interest-free, nonrecourse loans. 

The CHAIRMAN. Interest-free nonrecourse loans. 

Mr. BOYD. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. BOYD. And that’s with Mountrail Williams Electric, here in 

Williston. 

38 

The CHAIRMAN. So, you pre-fund—in effect, pre-funded that. 

Mr. BOYD. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it could be put up. 

Mr. BOYD. Yes. And then we get repaid through new hookup 

charges—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. BOYD [continuing]. Which most of the new hookup charges 

are us, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. BOYD [continuing]. We’re repaying ourself—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. BOYD [continuing]. Is what’s going on. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. BOYD. Originally, power for the field crew housing was provided by diesel generators. Because of this power upgrade, we now 

have the power grid connected to the man camp. 

Potable water at our field crew housing facility is trucked in 

daily and stored onsite. We are currently working on bringing city 

water to the facility from the city of Stanley. 

Sewage from the field crew housing facility is also trucked daily 

from the facility to the city of Stanley sewage treatment lagoons. 

The operating capacity of the sewage lagoons is being stretched, 

and the city is working on upgrading the system. This upgrade will 

be very costly for the city. I believe Mayor Hynek referred to the 

issue of their sewage lagoons earlier. 

Overall, the modular housing concept has worked very efficiently 

for our drilling and completion operations. However, for our production operations, another type of housing that needs to be developed is permanent single-family homes or condominiums for operational personnel and their families who will work in our offices in 

Stanley. Most of the wells currently being drilled in North Dakota 

will be producing for 30 to 40 years, and will require ongoing maintenance, which, hence, creates permanent jobs. We anticipate that 

EOG’s total number of employees also will increase as we hire additional staff to meet our operational needs; and as we continue to 

develop additional resources, we think that more families will be 

moving into Mountrail County. 

Permanent housing is difficult to develop, because of the cost— 

the capital cost of installing infrastructure and its maintenance expense become the responsibility each city. Due to the recent rapid 

expansion of operations in the State, most of the local communities 

are struggling to secure the capital necessary to properly expand 

the infrastructure. In addition, the existing local infrastructure is 

being stressed, due to the sheer number of people that it now must 

support. 

EOG has been working with the mayor, the city council, 

Mountrail County commissioners, to find additional land that can 

be developed for permanent housing. However, such areas do not 

have infrastructure to support that development. And I understand 

the city of Stanley and the county do not have sufficient funds to 

upgrade the infrastructure. Herein lies a challenge. 

In conclusion, EOG and our North Dakota employees consider 

ourselves to be an important long-term member of the local comVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00044 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
39 

munity of Stanley and Mountrail County. We support the efforts by 

the Federal Government to help the cities and counties in upgrading the local infrastructures. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boyd follows:] 


58154.012
40 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you, John. That’s very important testimony. 

Matt, welcome, why don’t you give us the private developer’s perspective and what you’ve encountered. 


58154.013
41 

STATEMENT OF MATT MILES, PRINCIPAL, LEADERSHIP 

CIRCLE, LLP 

Mr. MILES. Thank you, Chairman Conrad and Congressman 

Pomeroy. 

I’ve spent 2 years looking at the Williston, North Dakota, housing market. Currently, my company is underway with a 130-unit 

single-family housing subdivision inside the city limits. 

I appreciate you giving me the opportunity to express my 

thoughts on the current issues facing housing availability. 

I believe housing shortages, in general, should be solved by the 

private sector. Demand, followed by supply, is the best way to build 

a healthy market for all involved. Subsidized housing, in most 

cases I have observed, is just a way to keep businesses from paying 

their employees enough to afford to live. This said, there are always people on the margins that may need help. In these comments, I am addressing boomtown impacts specific to energy industry workers. 

Homeownership is the backbone of any community. If home ownership opportunities exist, the most important thing then is to assure people can finance the purchase of their homes. 

Due to changes in underwriting standards over the last 2 years, 

and a perception that there is an additional risk in lending in a 

local economy fueled by an energy boom, a program to assist buyers in obtaining mortgages for the purchase of permanent housing 

would be helpful. The Bank of North Dakota and the city of 

Williston have expressed interest in helping developers offset or 

defer some of their building costs. I think the effort would be better 

placed helping people purchase their homes. 

Also, it is currently very economical to own or build a home in 

Williston, because the city does not assess impact fees. As the area 

continues to grow, city infrastructure will be stressed. Making sure 

the city has funds for water, sewer, and major transportation 

routes for future growth would help to assure long-term affordability. 

To restate the specific things that are necessary to create home 

ownership opportunities, we need to promote home ownership and 

long-term community stability by providing some vehicle to offset 

risk to mortgage lenders in this boomtown environment and thus 

providing a long-term permanent work force base. Financially supporting infrastructure projects now to provide long-term affordable—to provide a long-term affordable building environment in 

the area would also be helpful. 

The helpful attitudes and actions of both Williston and the State 

of North Dakota create an inviting atmosphere for real estate developers, and is very much appreciated. Directly helping prospective homeowners—in the short term, with mortgages; and in the 

long term, with a sustainable low housing cost—seems to be the 

best plan. 

Thank you for your consideration. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Miles follows:] 

42 


58154.010
43 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

And we’ll go now to Jessica Thomasson. 

And then we’ll have a chance to go back to everybody and ask 

questions before we have to conclude. 

STATEMENT OF JESSICA THOMASSON, DIRECTOR OF LSS 

HOUSING, INC., LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF NORTH DAKOTA 

Ms. THOMASSON. Thank you, Chairman Conrad, Congressman 

Pomeroy. 

As a nonprofit private housing developer working across the 

State of North Dakota, it’s been my privilege to meet community 

leaders from across the State who are doing what they can to build 

their communities; not just for today, but for the future. And we 

met three such officials earlier. They really have a very difficult 

job, and rise to the task, I think, admirably. 

I’m going to try to skip through a lot of the written testimony 

that I have. You’ve heard really great testimony earlier today, and 

I wanted to get to some of the potential solutions that I’d like to 

ask you to consider for multifamily housing, in particular. 

But, I did want to spend a minute and talk about the reason 

why—With all of this activity, with all of the good things that are 

happening in the region, why don’t we see those housing numbers 

being achieved? Why don’t we see the need being met? If North DaVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00049 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.011
44 

kota is the envy of many States, with its economic fortunes and 

economic successes, do we need to talk about affordable housing? 

Do we need to talk about availability? Won’t the market just take 

care of it? And, I guess, from my perspective, unfortunately, the answer is, no. For a number of reasons that we’ve talked about earlier, the market just can’t address affordable housing in a meaningful way. 

And I want to talk about affordability not in a narrow sense, of 

being only affordable to, say, a low- or a moderate-income household, but ‘‘affordable’’ really is a relative term. And I think one of 

the mayors mentioned that in the panel. We need housing that’s 

affordable to a variety of people in the work force. 

This is an issue that I think particularly affects rural communities. If we have—and I’ll talk most about multifamily, because 

that’s the primary work that I’m involved in—but, if you have programs that require you to have a very targeted or specific tenant 

group that your serving—in a rural community, that’s a very limiting factor. I think you need the flexibility to be able to serve low- 

, moderate-, middle-, and other housing needs, as well, in the same 

project. So, that’s one of the unique challenges, I think, in working 

in small towns. 

So, a little bit on the ‘‘why.’’ Why do we have market issues that 

perhaps aren’t always being addressed? I think building housing in 

rural communities can sometimes be more costly than building in 

urbanized areas. It may be proximity to materials or labor, in some 

cases. It could be size of projects. In a lot of smaller towns—and, 

again, Williston is on that border of being a larger community— 

but, in some of the smaller towns, you really can’t build 100 units 

at a time. And so, you have some economy-of-scale issues to deal 

with. 

Financing housing projects in rural communities presents unique 

challenges. National secondary markets are seldom designed to 

really understand or appropriately value rural properties. And so, 

you run into the appraisal gap issues that we talked about. You 

run into challenges with community bankers being able to sell 

those loans on traditional secondary markets, and they present 

very real barriers to financing housing. 

You also run in, then, to lenders—community lenders who are 

very interested in lending on projects in their communities, but 

they run into loan-to-value challenges. It’s not loan-to-cost, it’s 

loan-to-value. And so, if that value is determined by an appraisal, 

sometimes it presents a challenge. 

In addition to these cost factors, rural markets sometimes are 

less attractive to many in the real estate industry; in part, because 

of the—in my opinion, the risk-reward ratio sometimes is greater 

in other places. So, there’s less risk for more reward if you’re building larger projects in perhaps more proven markets. And I think 

that’s just a common issue, when you looking at rural communities 

and unproven markets, that that’s a very natural economic decision 

that’s oftentimes made. 

Some of the programs that are available to assist with financing, 

particularly, affordable housing are complicated. I don’t think anybody tries to make them complicated, but they are. And there’s a 

lot of paperwork and regulations and things that you need to keep 

45 

track of. And if that’s not your business model, it’s difficult to enter 

into some of those programs. It’s also easier to take on all that paperwork for 72 units than it is for 12. It’s just, again, another practical matter of economies of scale. 

So, who needs affordable housing? And I’ll just—again, this is in 

the written testimony, so I’ll just give you the highlighted version. 

Housing units that had previously been affordable in a lot of rural 

communities perhaps are not affordable anymore. Maybe they were 

sold and repurposed for another housing need. So, that source of 

affordable housing is gone. If there’s no physical displacement— 

let’s say that a renter or a homeowner doesn’t have to move—it 

doesn’t apply to homeowners—but, let’s say a renter doesn’t have 

to move; there may be economic displacement, so perhaps their 

rents go up, as I think Mayor Koeser referenced in his testimony. 

And then housing demand has outstripped the supply. So, even if 

people have good employment and good jobs, a lot of times they 

have a difficult time finding housing. And I think you mentioned 

that, as well. Supply follows demand. And that is, in fact, very 

true. Sometimes there’s just that time lag that really causes true 

hardship for families. 

In markets like the one in western North Dakota, without housing that’s tied to affordability requirements for the long term, market pressures will eliminate any latent affordability that does happen to exist. Rental housing market dynamics will feel more like 

San Francisco than Stanley. And situations like the one that we’ve 

seen in Mountrail County recently will be more common. 

In Mountrail County, the county housing authority has had Section 8 vouchers go unused, not because families don’t need the rent 

assistance, but because they’ve really struggled to find units that 

they can afford. Where—in communities where fair market rents, 

published by HUD, used to seem like a high rent, those communities now can only see those in their rearview mirror. They’re really—the rent structure has changed very dramatically in a short period of time. 

So, what can the Federal Government do to help address the 

housing shortage in western North Dakota? There really is no silver-bullet, single-answer solution in a market that faces as much 

dynamism as this does. But, I think there are some things that can 

help facilitate public-private partnerships and help leverage private 

investment to create affordable housing in rural North Dakota. 

There are three general things that I wanted to mention. One is 

to continue programs that already work for rural housing. The second is make existing affordable housing tools work even better— 

for rural projects, in particular. And then the third is to help create 

new affordable housing. And I’ll highlight just a couple of things 

in each of those areas. 

Continuing programs that work for rural housing. The USDA 

Rural Development has a number of products that really are very 

well suited to housing in rural communities, as you’d expect. The 

USDA Section 538 Rental Housing Guarantee which has been mentioned, I think holds real promise to providing long-term fixed-rate 

relatively low-cost financing for rural projects. We run into some 

practical difficulties with not very many lenders being able to originate those loans, or having the capacity to originate them. The 

46 

State is working to help address that, but—there are always practical concerns, but it’s a great program. 

The same with what’s called the MPR Program, Multifamily 

Preservation and Revitalization. It’s a USDA program that’s in its 

fifth year as a pilot. So, it’s still not a permanent program, but I 

would argue that the preservation of existing affordable housing is 

absolutely essential—in these markets, in particular. Once that affordable unit is lost, it’s almost impossible to replace. And I’d say 

the units that HUD and the USDA have in these communities 

come with a rent subsidy, already. Once those units are taken out 

of the program, there is no replacement for that rent subsidy. We 

may be able to build new affordable units, but that rent subsidy 

is typically gone forever from those communities. So, I think preservation programs like MPR are really essential for rural affordable housing. 

The second is to make existing affordable housing tools work better for rural projects. And I’ll just mention two items there. And 

these relate to the tax credit program—the Low Income Housing 

Tax Credit Program. It—tax credits haven’t traditionally been a 

huge source of development capital in rural markets. But, I would 

argue that they could be a more major factor if there were a few 

changes made. And a couple of them are before Congress, actually, 

right now. I have a letter with me that I’d like to submit to you 

for the record that details those—the actual bill numbers and 

things. But, fairly simple, fairly revenue-neutral proposals that 

would really bring more investors into the tax credit program in 

rural markets. One is to allow people to carry back tax credits 5 

years. So, instead of having to predict out what a particular investor’s tax liability is 10 years forward, the proposal is that you actually let people look back 5 and forward 5, and it gives a little bit 

more certainty, and entices non-CRA investors to get involved in 

the tax credit program. So that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Matt, would that have any interest to you? 

Ms. THOMASSON [continuing]. Would expand it. 

Mr. MILES. No, sir. 

Ms. THOMASSON. It’s probably a different market. 

Mr. MILES. A different market. 

Ms. THOMASSON. Yeah. 

Mr. MILES. We’re single-family residential. 

Ms. THOMASSON. Yeah, there are very few applications, I think, 

of tax credit with single-family. It’s a possibility, but there aren’t 

very many. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Ms. THOMASSON. And then the second is actually just to allow S 

corporations to invest in tax credits. And it sounds, again, like a 

minor provision, but the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines 

estimates that about 60 percent of community banks across the 

Midwest are organized in this fashion. Under the current rule, they 

can’t invest in the tax credit program, even if they wanted to. So, 

allowing a greater number of people to invest and to leverage their 

capital could make a big difference. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Thomasson follows:] 

47 


58154.017
48 


58154.018
49 


58154.019
50 


58154.020
51 


58154.021
52 


58154.022
53 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all. 

Let me just go bing, bing, bing, down—right down the line, because we’re time-challenged, in terms of getting to Watford City for 

the next hearing there. 

John, in your—from your experience, what could or should the 

Federal Government do or not do that would be most important? 


58154.023
54 

Mr. BOYD. I think help communities with their infrastructure 

needs. 

The CHAIRMAN. Infrastructure for those communities that have 

a high energy impact, something like that? 

Mr. BOYD. By something, you know, where the population has 

probably doubled—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. BOYD [continuing]. In 3 years, maybe 4 years. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the infrastructure we’re talking about would 

be water and sewer. 

Mr. BOYD. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Matt, what’s your assessment? What should we do—not do? 

Mr. MILES. Well, I would parrot Mr. Boyd’s comments. I think 

that the Federal Government could assist in providing big-picture 

infrastructure—major sewer, major water, major road infrastructure—and then, you know, private developers, in the single-family 

world, will do the infill, the small streets, and whatnot. But, long 

term—as somebody brought up, a San Francisco-like atmosphere— 

long term, what we—what needs to be avoided is overtaxing or 

overstressing of existing systems, and then create some kind of situation where there has to be large impact fees in order to sustain. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

So, what I’m hearing from the first two is a focus on the infrastructure piece of this. 

What say you? 

Ms. THOMASSON. I would actually concur. I think, if you had to 

figure out something that would have a very immediate impact, it’s 

figuring out how to help get that infrastructure in place. Because 

if there is no land to develop, there is no development that can 

happen, regardless of what programs there are. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Well, think we’ve got pretty good agreement. 

Ms. THOMASSON. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Pomeroy. 

Mr. POMEROY. I found this to be a very, very helpful panel; an 

important component of making today’s hearing so informative, because Senator Conrad’s on the Finance Committee, and I’m on the 

Ways and Means Committee. You’ve come up with tax incentive to 

help move things along, that’s right in our wheelhouse, so I will be 

very interested in further information you have on those programs. 

And I hear you loud and clear on—it’s expensive to build out infrastructure, but before you have the infrastructure, you can’t have 

a lot of the housing that we need to get constructed. So, clearly, 

I think, at State and Federal levels, we’ve got to be attentive to 

that. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. If I could just ask—Mayor Hynek is still here. I 

don’t know if Mayor James is still here. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. You going to play the piano? 

Mayor James still here. And Ward’s still here. 

Let me just ask you quickly, for the record—we’ve heard from 

this panel, really strong consensus that Federal Government’s most 

55 

useful role would be in infrastructure. Would you agree with that? 

This is Mayor Hynek I’m addressing the question to. 

Mr. HYNEK. Yes, I would agree with that. We are—we’re up 

against it, on a couple of real important items in our city, and we 

just simply don’t have the funds available at this point in time 

to—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. And you’ve got that debt-limit issue. 

Mr. HYNEK. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right? 

OK. Mayor James? 

Ms. JAMES. Yes, we would strongly agree with that, too. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Mayor James agrees, for the record. 

Was our recorder able to get that? OK. OK, I want to make sure 

we capture this. 

Mayor Koeser? 

Mr. KOESER. Yes, definitely. That’s the big issue. If you have to 

try to put the cost of that major infrastructure—first of all, it goes 

into the price of the lots at some point, which makes them cost prohibitive, so then you get away from—we need affordable housing, 

and that is more difficult. We have to put in—and infrastructure 

is extremely expensive right now. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Thank you all. 

We’ve got to wrap this up, to get to the next hearing in time. 

I very much appreciate the contribution of all the witnesses. 

Thank you, to our Federal officials who’ve come. I’ve heard you— 

hope you’ve heard, loud and clear, what these witnesses have told 

us. 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, for the record—it’s a little off-topic, 

but an announcement—I just became aware of this in the course 

of our discussion—that Governor Art Link died this morning. And, 

clearly, there have been no finer example of statesmanship, common sense—prairie decency, Alexander, North Dakota, native, led 

our State through a period of extraordinary development pressures 

during his time in leadership. And ask that we remember Grace 

and the family in our payers. And keep Governor Link’s example 

in mind as we look at how to work our way through the challenges 

we’ve been talking about today. 

Thanks, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m glad you mentioned it. And I think now it’s 

public. So, missed—a very fine man, just turned 96 years of age on 

the 24th. So, he got to see his 96th year. And I know he was looking forward to being with his—— 

[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(57) 

FIELD HEARING ON INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING ECONOMIC 

GROWTH AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG 

THE U.S. 85 CORRIDOR 

TUESDAY, JUNE 1, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Watford City, North Dakota 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 3:28 p.m., 1st International Bank Building, 120 North Main Street, Watford City, 

North Dakota 58854, Hon. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ll bring the hearing to order. 

We’ve just received the sad news that Governor Link passed 

away this morning. And so, I’d ask that we observe a moment of 

silence in his memory. 

[A moment of silence was observed.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Governor Link—we are going to miss a great man, and our 

thoughts and prayers go to Grace and the family. We are told that 

a service may be on Saturday. And we await further news on that. 

But, we appreciate everybody’s showing their respect for, really, a 

remarkable man. 

Thank you all very much for being here today. This is actually 

the third hearing that I’ve held now, on Highway 85. I did two 

hearings last year—one in Williston and one in Dickenson. Gene 

was out to see me recently, and we talked about the benefit of 

doing a hearing in this location, as well, to try to rivet the point 

of the importance of upgrades to Highway 85. And that’s why we’re 

doing this hearing today. 

I want to welcome everyone to this hearing, especially welcome 

my good colleague Congressman Pomeroy, who has been able to 

join me here today. 

This is a hearing—official hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. And as a result, we will be operating under the rules of the 

U.S. Senate, and an official record of this hearing is being kept. 

58 

The title of this hearing is ‘‘Infrastructure Investments Promoting Economic Growth and Improving Safety Along the U.S. 85 

Corridor.’’ 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. 

We have two panels. 

Our first panel includes our distinguished and excellent director 

of North Dakota’s Department of Transportation, Francis Ziegler; 

and Watford City mayor, Kent Pelton. That’s a very good first 

name. And the last name is good, too. 

Our second panel will include McKenzie Country sheriff, Ron 

Rankin; and McKenzie County Job Development Authority executive director, Gene Veeder; and Rugged West Trucking operations 

manager, Bruce Erickson. 

I appreciate all of the witnesses being here today, and I look forward to hearing from you all. 

The timing of this hearing is especially important because this 

Friday I will be convening a Transportation Committee transportation summit in Bismarck with the Secretary of Transportation, 

Mr. Ray LaHood. The summit is part of the Secretary’s nationwide 

tour to solicit feedback from local communities as the administration puts together its highway bill. I want to make certain that we 

are able to share with him your concerns about what is happening 

in this corridor. 

I also want to be able to lay on the record, as best we can, the 

substantive case for improvements on Highway 85. I believe we 

have a very powerful case to make. We want to make certain we 

leave no stone unturned in our attempt to make that case persuasively. 

As I have indicated, this is really the third hearing I’ve done on 

the subject, and I very much appreciate the Secretary of Transportation, our North Dakota commissioner, for participating in those 

hearings, as well; and also appreciate their dedications of additional resources last year to address several stretches along Highway 85, improvements that will be made to make this a ‘‘super– 

2’’ highway, providing passing lanes and other enhancements between Williston and Watford City, as part of its 2010–2013 construction plan. I think all of us know that more needs to be done, 

that this is an area that is developing so rapidly that it’s really 

hard to keep up with what needs to be done. But, we need to put 

a focus on those needs and urge everyone at the Federal and State 

level to help us accomplish the improvements that we really desperately need in this corridor. 

This map shows why Highway 85 is so important to the energy 

production in our State. 

59 

We have major gas plants and oilfields scattered up and down 

this road. We need to ensure that Highway 85 has the capacity to 

handle the increased activity. 

The oil boom in the Bakken Formation has dramatically increased oil production in this part of the State. 


58154.347
60 

This chart, if we go to the next one, shows the really dramatic 

increase, as we’ve gone to production of 8.6 million barrels a 

month, as of March of this year. With further production in the 

Bakken and the discovery of the Three Forks Formation, we can 

expect additional production in this area. 

Let’s go to the next slide, if we can, Matt. 


58154.348
61 

Highway 85 represents a critical lifeline for this energy development. Specifically, 400,000 barrels a day are produced in the corridor, and a large percentage of it is hauled over Highway 85 to 

tank farms for transport via pipeline. And the 400,000 barrels a 

day I’m referencing here is not only production in North Dakota, 

but, obviously, in Montana, as well. 

The highway connects six major east-west highway systems that 

service these energy developments. And the highway serves as a 

major route for the transport of oil rigs, pipes, steel, and supplies. 

And all of us who have driven up and down Highway 85 have encountered those trucks. My grandfather used to say, ‘‘Hill, truck, 

curve—hill, truck, curve.’’ And we’ve all experienced that on Highway 85. 

We also have significant and growing manufacturing and agriculture businesses in this area that rely on Highway 85 to transport their products. 


58154.349
62 

The result is that Highway 85 has seen a huge spike in truck 

traffic. Truck traffic on 85 near Watford City increased 44 percent 

between 2005 and 2009. Unfortunately, the highway was not designed to handle these loads—the increasing number of heavy 

trucks, the oversized loads that travel on them. And as a result, 

the road needs improvements to foster continued growth, and to 

better serve the communities in the area, and to ensure a safe travel route. I want to emphasize, safety is of increasing concern. 

Let’s go to that next slide, if we can, Matt. 


58154.350
63 

With the growing traffic and wear and tear on the area roads, 

we have seen a disturbing increase in the number of crashes. In 

2000, there were 86 crashes on McKenzie County roads, with one 

fatality. Last year, there were 162 accidents, with eight fatalities. 

Several of those fatalities occurred on Highway 85. I’d like to hear 

from our witnesses what we can do to make Highway 85 safe. 

As I noted, now is an important time to focus on our transportation infrastructure, because the new highway bill is beginning to 

be developed. It’s worth remembering that North Dakota benefited 

greatly from the last bill. As a conferee on that bill, one of the neVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.351
64 

gotiators between the House and the Senate, I made certain that 

North Dakota received significant funding for our highways and 

transit. 

In that bill, we received $1.5 billion, a 31-percent increase over 

the previous bill. Annually, that averages out to $234 million for 

highways, with additional funding provided for transit. We did very 

well, in comparison to other States, receiving $2 for every dollar we 

send the Federal Government. That put us in about fourth place 

in the country, among the States, in terms of our return for dollars 

sent Washington. In other words, only three States did better than 

we did in getting dollars back from the Federal Government. And 

we think that’s fair, given the fact that we are a rural State, we’re 

a big State, and yet, we are a State that is critically important to 

the country. We’re important for our agricultural production, for 

our energy production, and for our national defense contributions 

made by our bases. 

I also fought hard to have Highway 85 designated a high-priority 

corridor. That designation means that Highway 85 is eligible for 

special corridor funding from the Federal Highway Administration. 

And we’re going to need to bring this to the attention of our friends 

from the Federal Highway Administration that will be here on Friday with the Secretary. 

In terms of the next highway bill, I will be focusing on these priorities: 


58154.352
65 

I believe the next bill must identify sufficient funding so that the 

infrastructure investments are secure and robust over the longer 

term. States and communities must be able to rely on them. In 

other words, we’ve got to have a stable and secure funding source. 

Next, any new highway bill must maintain recognition that rural 

transportation needs are vital to the Nation. 

And finally, I’ll fight to secure funding from long-term investments for our nationally important corridors, like Highway 85. 

So, I’m particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses 

today on the immediate investments that are needed in Highway 

85, and what future investments are required to support the 

growth in this area and the safety of those using this road. 

With that, I want to turn to my able colleague, Congressman 

Pomeroy, for his opening remarks. And then we’ll go to the first 

panel. 

Congressman Pomeroy, by the way, serves on the very powerful 

Ways and Means Committee, in the House, that plays such a significant role in funding any highway legislation, and so, will play 

a critically important role in the energy future of our State. 

Congressman POMEROY. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EARL POMEROY, U.S. REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Senator Conrad, thank you very much. I’m very 

pleased to join you on today’s hearing. 

As we looked at our respective recess work schedules, we were 

each going to be in the northwestern part of the State, we were 

each going to be focusing on infrastructure and housing, and it just 


58154.353
66 

made sense to combine the meetings. I’m very pleased you are adding a bicameral flair to this hearing by including a House guy. 

We understand that our local leaders, under the crush of development, are so busy. We didn’t want to take any more of your time 

than required. But, we absolutely need to have a vigorous backand-forth with you during this period of time so that we fully understand the rapidly changing circumstances that you’re dealing 

with and we identify the Federal areas that can play an important 

role in helping in this period of time. 

I thought Highway 85 made sense as a high-priority area long 

before I knew much about the Bakken play. I felt like the possibilities—major north-south area—the delegations that have come in to 

see me, including even representatives as far as Texas, along a 

route that could be hooked up in this fashion, made an awful lot 

of sense. 

But, what has become a rational, national highway artery strategy has now given way to a development impact that has presented 

urgent demand to build out this infrastructure and improve it to 

four-lane capacity, to the fullest extent we can. 

I’m very pleased Brad Bekkedahl, a city commissioner in 

Williston, able to come down Watford City for this meeting. He was 

a driving force for many, many years in pushing Highway 2 to 

move from two-lane to four-lane. Finally, with a very successful 

fight won in the highway bill, we were able to have the resources 

to make that move and summon the political will, as a State, to 

get it done. Brad—when it comes to making two-lane roads—fourlane roads, I’d start with Bekkedahl as a guy you want to confer 

with. 

So, I’m very please you’re here. 

The last thing I would mention relates to the remarks that Senator, and chairman, made, relative to our dear friend Art Link, now 

departed. I was at a public event with him 2 weeks ago. He summoned me to the table. He wasn’t as mobile as he once was, but 

just sharp as a tack. And he talked to me about highways up in 

this area, and specifically Highway 85, running through his old 

home territory. I promised him that I would come and see him— 

come to he and Grace’s apartment—and we were going to talk 

about the impact on Highway 85. 

So, I believe that, even as we internalize this news, that our Governor has left us, at the age of 96, we do honor to his memory in 

two ways today; one, by continuing the public work. If there’s one 

thing Art Link stood for, he was a public man and cared about the 

greater good. So, I think that every one of you who has spent the 

time and distance to travel here does honor to Governor Link, his 

memory, today. 

And then, specifically, because the last thing he wanted to talk 

to me about was Highway 85, and I—we had an exchange on the 

topic for a couple, 3 minutes at this event, looking forward to the 

longer conversation that will never happen. I believe, by specifically focusing on this issue, we will be doing precisely what Governor Art Link would want us to be doing this afternoon. 

So, thank you for including us, Senator. 

And on to business. 

67 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And that’s a special—gives special 

relevance to the hearing. 

I also, before we go further, want to recognize Lance Gaebe, who 

is here as deputy chief of staff of the Governor. 

Lance, thank you very, very much for joining us. And I think 

that sends a signal of the Governor’s interest in this subject, as 

well. So, thank you very much for taking your time to be here, as 

well. 

With that, we’ll turn to our first panel. And we’ll start with director of North Dakota’s Department of Transportation, Francis 

Ziegler. 

Let me just say, one of the things I am especially appreciative 

from Francis, of being here, is—Francis has a lot of credibility in 

Washington with my colleagues. And when we have a hearing and 

Francis is involved in it, it confers additional credibility on the case 

that we’re trying to make. So, I am especially appreciative that he’s 

here today. 

Director Ziegler. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, P.E., DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman, good afternoon. 

I’m Francis Ziegler, director of the North Dakota Department of 

Transportation. And I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today. And thanks for your interest in 

improving transportation in North Dakota. 

Today, I’d like to address a number of broad transportation 

issues that you’ve already touched on, and on Highway 85 Corridor, 

as well as some of the other roads in the immediate area that we’ve 

been working on. 

North Dakota has been working hard to improve transportation. 

Transportation infrastructure investment results in many benefits: 

creates jobs, strengthens the economy, improves safety, and improves mobility for citizens and businesses. 

The Department of Transportation recently held public input 

meetings across the State to discuss transportation. Preliminary 

input illustrates the following: Residents want more infrastructure, 

and that’s across the State. Residents are concerned about traffic 

increases, especially in western North Dakota, due to the energy 

industry. And public expectations are growing for load-carrying capacity and wider roads. 

The State of North Dakota increased its financial commitment to 

transportation infrastructure with a $1.35-billion transportation 

funding bill. This year, the Department of Transportation has the 

largest construction season in the history of the department, with 

approximately $423 million in projects on nearly 2,000 miles of 

roadway, statewide. Projects include regular Federal aid, stimulus, 

emergency relief, and State funding. 

Specific to the energy-area projects, in the energy area, there are 

many transportation investments to be completed between 2010 

and 2013. 

The first map that I have up here—it’s part of the attachment— 

shows the immediate area. You—and you can see that. It’s the map 

on your right, Senator. More than $60 million will be contracted for 

68 

improvements to the U.S. Highway 85 Corridor, which includes a 

super–2 concept between Watford City and Williston. 

We’re going to be adding safety improvements. We’re adding a 

three-lane section that includes intermediate left- and right-turning lanes from Highway 2 to the Missouri River, which is about 2— 

just a touch over 2 miles, just south of Williston, south of Highway 

2. Adding several turn lanes and numerous intersections between 

the Missouri River and Highway 200 East, which is south of 

Watford City. 

We’re regrading the section south of the Long X Bridge, located 

south of Watford City. And a climbing lane will be part of that new 

regraded section. 

On the Highway—in addition to that, we’re going to be doing a 

lot of other work on Highway 85. We’re doing microsurfacing, 

which is to get rid of any ruts that might have occurred, depressed 

cracks, and those types of things, that are, as you say, due to the 

heavy loads. So, we’ll be—also be doing that. 

But, in other areas, on Highway 23 we’ll—next year, we’ll start 

regrading and adding a new asphalt paving west of the Four Bears 

Bridge. Overlay and rumble stripes, will be added this year, east 

of New Town. And turn lanes will be added at a number of intersections east of New Town this year. And reconstruction is in the 

future for the city of New Town, within the city limits. 

On Highway 8, we’ll be widening and regrading north of Stanley. 

That road is breaking up badly now; and so, rather than just doing 

an overlay, we’re going ahead with regrading that portion, too. 

Other safety projects: We’re lowering speed limits on various 

highways in this area. We’re installing rumble stripes in the 

Williston district in 2010. And, on all two-lane highways, include 

shoulder and centerline throughout the entire State in the next 3, 

4 years, depending on how the funding comes in. 

Rumble stripes have been shown to be a real safety effort that 

many States have been using in the past, and have found it to be 

very successful. I’ve had a lot of comments on the rumble stripes 

that we already have in North Dakota, and that they’re working 

very well. 

DOT is also working in partnership with the Petroleum Council 

to create additional programs to promote safety on highways, especially in the western part of the State. 

While the State of North Dakota is doing more than ever, Federal investment in transportation is critically important. Federal 

aid accounts for 52 percent of the current biennial construction 

budget, and that’s without ARRA. It’s, therefore, critically important that legislation reauthorizing the Federal Highway Program 

serve the needs of rural States like North Dakota. 

And, Senator, we’re very pleased that the—Secretary of Transportation LaHood will be in Bismarck, as well as Victor Mendez, 

the Federal Highway Administrator, so that we can visit with them 

about some of the issues we’re facing as rural States. 

A strong—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Federal—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Stop you on—right there, Francis, 

just for the record? 

69 

Fifty-two percent is Federal aid, not counting the Recovery Act 

money. What is it with the Recovery Act figured in for the years 

that it’s available? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Senator, with the Recovery Act, it’s 57 percent. 

The benefits from transportation infrastructure investment: 

First, job creation. Jobs are created on projects. They’re created 

in supplier and support industry. They’re also a boost to the general economy from onsite and supplier jobs. 

As you can see from the second map, many projects are completed—and that’s this map right here, to my left—many projects 

are completed and planned with transportation investments covering the entire State. These projects create jobs, and positively affect economic development throughout North Dakota. And the way 

they affect economic development is by us being able to move loads. 

We have a strong ag economy, we have a strong energy economy. 

And those two are heavy users of our transportation system. So, 

it’s important that we keep pushing for the funding. 

Safety is another benefit. Preserving and improving roads in pursuit of smooth surfaces, appropriate roadway width, guardrail, 

signage, and pavement marking is essential in our mission of the 

DOT providing a transportation system that safely moves people 

and goods. These investments are also important to the economic 

competitiveness of North Dakota and the Nation. 

The needs are there to justify increased investment. Various 

commissions and reports have called for increased surface transportation infrastructure investment. Our AASHTO Association has 

recommended, for a 6-year period of 2010 to –15, proportional increases in highway and transit programs over the next 6 years, of 

$375 billion and $93 billion, respectively, for those programs. It’s 

essential that rural States like North Dakota participate at least 

proportionately in any growth of the Federal Highway and Transportation Program, both as to formula and other funds. 

The authorizing committee in the House of Representatives has 

outlined a partial legislation. This outline apparently calls for increases in Federal Highway program authorizations of about $110 

billion over the next 6 years, compared to the last 6 years. We’re 

concerned about proposals with programs for metro areas with a 

population of over 500,000 or more—large, nationally significant 

projects—highspeed rail and infrastructure banks. We prefer that 

increased funding be provided to highway formula programs. 

We recognize—and it’s important that I indicate this—we recognize that there are major needs in urban areas. However, we just 

don’t want rural States to be forgotten. 

In short, even though all details of this bill are not set, we’re 

very concerned that the House legislation would provide North Dakota with considerably reduced share of transportation program 

dollars, compared to the current law. 

The highway industry has been hit by inflation during the past 

decade. From 2001 to 2010, inflation has gone up about 87 percent. 

And so, we’ve lost some spending power there. 

Now I’d to say how the Nation benefits from Federal transportation investment in and across rural States. Reasons why are 

that, first of all, rural States serve as a bridge for truck and personal traffic. They enable ag exports and serve the Nation’s ethanol 

70 

production and energy extraction industries, are a lifeline for remotely located and economically challenged citizens, and enable 

people and business to traverse the vast tracks of sparsely populated land. In addition, the Federal aid system, extending beyond 

the NHS, enables ethanol—enhanced investment needed to address 

safety on rural roads. 

Moving beyond—— 

The CHAIRMAN. We can put a word in for ethanol, too. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Yeah. There you go. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That would be twice, now. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Essential service—on page 5—essential service to 

agriculture, natural resources, and energy. 

Governor Hoeven’s economic strategic plan has identified ag, energy, advanced manufacturing, technology-based businesses, and 

tourism as growth industries, because North Dakota holds a competitive advantage in these areas. These have been the focus of 

much of North Dakota’s investments in economic development. Ag 

is one sector of the economy where the United States has consistently run an international trade surplus and not a deficit. 

North Dakota is a major contributor of energy production in the 

State. Good roads throughout the State are important to our Nation becoming energy-independent and providing agricultural products to feed the world. 

Over the past three decades, and nationwide, railroad branch 

lines have been abandoned. Over 1500 miles were abandoned in 

North Dakota. The reduced reach of the rail network means many 

areas, particularly rural areas, must rely heavily on trucks to move 

the goods. With increased truck traffic, it’s a challenge for us to 

continue to move the products. The challenge is compounded by the 

necessity of imposing spring load restrictions. The underlying reason for imposing spring load restrictions is inadequate roadway 

thickness. Like congestion, load restrictions slow down commerce 

and add greatly to the cost of doing business. 

Funding and financing considerations: North Dakota faces a 

number of serious obstacles in preserving and improving the highway system within their borders. We’re very large, we’re very 

rural, we have low population densities, and have extensive highway networks. These factors make it very challenging for rural 

States to provide, maintain, and preserve a modern transportation 

system that connects to the rest of the Nation. 

We also ask your help to avoid increases in regulatory requirements. The next authorization bill should not make Federal Highway Program delivery more complicated. We do support the Federal Highway Administration’s initiative of ‘‘Every Day Counts’’ to 

streamline the project development process. Additional rules and 

regulations will add time to program and project delivery costs. 

Senator, the Every Day Counts is a brainchild of Victor Mendez, 

the Federal Highway Administration director, and we certainly do 

support that. 

One area where new regulation—concerns performance standards. I am on a task force of AASHTO regarding performance 

standards. And we use performance standards in North Dakota. 

71 

And we certainly support performance standards. But, what we believe is that each State should be allowed to establish its own specific targets for those performance measures. 

We’re a strong supporter of the approach to program delivery 

and current law, and that most funds are apportioned to the 

States. And we conduct public outreach and then prioritize project 

selection. We think rapid growth in discretionary Federal programs 

should be avoided. 

Transportation is a good investment. Many people have invested 

in new forms of communication in their home, spending more than 

ever before on items such as cell phones and Internet. Today an individual consumer will spend up to $500 a year on a cell phone bill 

compared to the national average of $109 for transportation. So, I 

say, transportation is a very good investment. 

In conclusion, it’s essential that Congress, through the reauthorization process, recognize that increased Federal investment in 

highways and surface transportation in rural States is, and will remain, important to the national interest. The citizens and businesses of our Nation’s more populated areas, not only residents of 

rural America, benefit from good transportation network in and 

across rural States like North Dakota. With such legislation, we’ll 

be better equipped to address transportation issues on the U.S. 85 

Corridor, as well as elsewhere in North Dakota. 

Senator that concludes my comments. And I will be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 

72 


58154.057
73 


58154.058
74 


58154.059
75 


58154.060
76 


58154.061
77 


58154.062
78 


58154.063
79 


58154.064
80 


58154.065
81 


58154.066
82 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Director Ziegler, for your always excellent testimony. 

Typically, we would go to Mayor Pelton next, but, for the purposes of this record, I hope, Mayor, that you’ll indulge us as we direct a series of questions to the Director, because I want to have 

this record, with respect to his testimony, all in one piece. And I— 

because I think that’s important for the purpose of our colleagues. 

First of all, Director Ziegler, do you have an estimate of how 

many jobs are created for every billion dollars that’s put into the 

transportation infrastructure? 


58154.067 58154.068
83 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Senator, yes I do. That number was 35,000 jobs for 

each billion dollars. And I believe, now, with some of the inflation 

factors, it’s in the neighborhood of 29,000 jobs per billion dollars invested. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, for every billion dollars we put into the national transportation infrastructure, the most recent, credible, objective estimates is that creates 29,000 jobs. Is that correct? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. And that’s 29,000 jobs that are created in America. Wouldn’t that be the case? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, when we look at places where Federal expenditure creates jobs, this is a good place to look. And I’m talking 

about American jobs. 

No. 2, when we look at a place that helps our competitive position in the world, this is also a good place to look. 

So, to me, this is a place where you get a double bang for the 

buck; you get American jobs and you get improved competitive position for American industry. And isn’t that what you have found, 

as well, Director Ziegler, that it is important to improving the competitive position of the United States that we improve the efficiency 

of our transportation system? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that’s very correct. In fact, at the 

Department of Transportation, we often say that you can’t have an 

economy without good transportation. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ve often wondered—you know, as we travel 

across North Dakota, and we see the delays on a highway like 85— 

you go to Washington—if you go out on, the highway system in 

Washington, D.C., after 4 o’clock in the afternoon: stopped dead. 

What is the cost to this Nation of the delays of moving goods and 

services because our transportation infrastructure has not kept up? 

I believe it would be in the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars that we’re losing in competitive position. 

Director Ziegler, do you know if AASHTO or any of your other 

related organizations have done a calculation on what the cost to 

the Nation is of not keeping up with our infrastructure? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, you’re correct, it’s in the billions, 

but I can’t recall that number right now. It’s in one of the AASHTO 

publications, and I would certainly get—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. That for you. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Provide that for the record, I think 

it’d be very useful. 

The CHAIRMAN. Third question I want to go to—and, again, it’s 

very important for the record, again, because we’re going to have 

the Secretary of Transportation in Bismarck on Friday—the recommendation that your organization is making nationally for the 

next transportation bill—could you repeat those numbers? How 

much money you believe is important to put into the next transportation bill? That’d be a 6-year bill. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, our association, AASHTO, American 

Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, has recommended a $375-billion investment in roads and bridges, and a 

$93-billion investment in transit. 

84 

The CHAIRMAN. So, the—and the $375 billion in the transportation part of the bill—that’s roads and bridges—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. That’s 6-year—that’s a 6-year total, 

is it not? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the $93 billion in transit is also a 6-year 

total, is it not? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. It is. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, that is $468 billion, the combined cost of 

those two programs, in terms of the recommendation that your organization is making to us. 

And can you tell us, over that period, how much the Highway 

Trust Fund will produce in revenue? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Currently, the Highway Trust Fund is producing 

$31 billion a year. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, correct me if my math is wrong, but that tells 

me: $186 billion. So, that’s a shortage of $282 billion, if we’re going 

to fully fund this legislation and pay for it so it doesn’t get added 

to the deficit or the debt. Is that correct? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, somewhere we’ve got to find—if we’re going 

to have a transportation bill that meets the needs of this country, 

we’re going to have to find an additional funding source of $282 billion over the next 6 years. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And it’s the position of your organization, 

AASHTO, the national organization, that this bill be paid for. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. That we not just put it on the charge card, we 

don’t just add it to the deficit, that we pay for it. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I—as the Budget Committee chairman, I 

strongly believe that is imperative. 

I wanted to get those elements of testimony on the record. 

Final point that I want to raise—and then we’ll turn it to Congressmen Pomeroy—is the question of Highway 85. You’ve given an 

excellent review of what is the plan, going forward, with the funds 

available. And that’s $60 million of projects that will enhance the 

efficiency of this road network and the safety of this road network. 

And—have I got the number correct? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And over what period is that $60 million? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That $60 million is between 2010 and 2013. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you had additional funding, in terms of what 

you see as the need in this corridor, how much additional funding 

would you require? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Currently—Mr. Chairman, currently the Department of Transportation, as well as the corridor group, is looking at 

a corridor study. And that corridor study is not complete. And we’re 

looking to get that completed very soon. 

When we took the action to go to the super–2, it was because I 

already had enough information to know that we need it. Traffic 

had increased to the point where we needed to do something 

85 

quicker than we could have if we’d have waited for the corridor 

study, and waited for some very lengthy environmental documents. 

But, we’ll be looking at that corridor study to give us an idea of 

where to move next. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have any idea of what that corridor study 

might tell us, in terms of the additional cost? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. In terms of additional cost, I—Senator, I don’t 

know exactly, but I can share this with you, that what we’re doing 

an environmental document on, and that which we are now designing, the passing lanes, the super–2 concept, is in excess of a million 

dollars a mile. 

The CHAIRMAN. A million dollars a mile. 

And from Williston to Watford City, what’s that mileage? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. It’s actually, in round numbers, 40 miles. But, 

when I say a million dollars a mile, it’s a million dollars per constructed mile. I looked at the designs this morning, and we’re doing 

six passing zones between here and Williston, and then six passing 

zones coming back again. So, they will be in excess of a mile long 

each. And I believe the latest estimate chief engineer Grant Levi 

gave me was, this total corridor cost will be about $66 million. Actually, the costs have gone up—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, how—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Because we’ve lengthened some of 

those transitions and added one more passing zone. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, how much is that? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Sixty-six million dollars—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Sixty-six million. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. That we’re actually going to be investing in. And he just got that number this morning. But, it’s all because of the passing lane, and the cost—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Sixty-six million. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Has gone up on some of those—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Could you—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Because we’ve added the transition 

and the length of each one, to make sure that you can get enough 

passing distance. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say, most of the people I talk to in 

this area believe very strongly we need four lanes here. I believe 

that. If we were to go to four lanes, what would that cost be? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. The latest numbers are unbelievable; they’re $2 

million for each mile of road. They’ve gone up that high. 

The CHAIRMAN. Wow. It just keeps moving up on us, doesn’t it, 

the cost of all these things? The inputs to—everything on highway 

construction is going up much faster than the underlying rate of 

inflation. 

All right. I—so, let’s just, for the—so we capture it on the 

record—if we were to four-lane 85 in this highest-traffic corridor, 

what would that total cost be? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. I believe it’s 186 miles. It’d be—times 2—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Three hundred and seventy-two million dollars. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Yes. And that’s—of course, those are today’s numbers. That—the inflation rate has subsided a little bit, between 

2009 and 1910. But, it’s still progressing at about an—8 to 9 perVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00091 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
86 

cent per year. And that’s typically because of fuel and asphalt 

costs. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, it’s—keeps going up 8 to 9 percent a year. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I’m very glad that we’ve got this on the 

record, because I want to bring this directly to the attention of the 

Secretary of Transportation. You’ll be there—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Yes, I will. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. On Friday. I think it is very important that we lay out to them what we’re looking at, in terms of the 

cost, if this were to be done. We’re not prejudging the corridor 

study. And you’ve got other priorities across the State. I certainly 

understand that; we all understand that. But, I think we can all 

see what’s happening here. I mean, every time I drive out here, I 

mean, it’s just—just keeps moving. This traffic count is off the 

charts. 

Congressman POMEROY. 

Mr. POMEROY. I’ll be brief, Mr. Chairman, so we can get to the 

local input, very important for this record. 

I think it mattered enormously that you were on the Conference 

Committee, representing the Budget Committee, but also looking 

after rural interests. And I’m anxious about a growing infatuation, 

in the House, with transit systems that might ultimately be placing, frankly, subways against highways. 

Director Ziegler, in your—within your association, how do you 

see that one breaking out? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Congressman, our association supports keeping the 

same proportion between highways and transit that we currently 

have, which is about a 25-percent transit. 

Mr. POMEROY. I think that’s very important, as well. I mean, 

we—the—we have an awful lot of infrastructure to maintain, and— 

some folks like to think about the next thing we’re going to build, 

but we’ve got a lot to maintain. If we don’t maintain it, it’s going 

to be far short of what serves the American public. But, as a national association, you have taken that position. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

Mr. POMEROY. The House proposal took a different route. Do you 

recall the statistics—the breakout? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Congressman, the House proposal is closer to onethird for transit, rather than the 25 percent. 

Mr. POMEROY. So, that, compounded with the donor- State/doneeState ratios will give us plenty to talk about as the new bill is constructed. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Congressman Pomeroy, I’m sure we’ll be talking a 

lot about the donor/donee relationship, as my colleagues in the 

other States are already bringing that up. 

Mr. POMEROY. I am surprised about the cost per mile. At $2 million per mile, that’s the highest cost I’ve heard. I’m not doubting 

the factual basis. I just want to know why. I might have thought, 

with the economy slowing up a little, that we’d have ten more of 

a buy. You hear about bid openings, where the public’s getting a 

buy. What in the world happened with roads? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. One of the things, Congressman, is the fact that, 

when you take a look at a $2-million investment, you have to look 

87 

at all the bridges that are between—you know, that are on this 

same roadway. Highway 2 cost us $125 million for about 99 miles; 

let’s—so, let’s just say $1.2 million a mile. And that was without 

the bridges. Highway 2 had very few bridges; box culverts and, I 

believe, one or two bridges. I was in project development at the 

time. I’m sorry I can’t recall all the bridges we had. But, Highway 

85 has a whole lot more bridges than that, and a whole lot more 

tougher terrain. The terrain that we go through here is significantly more difficult. 

Mr. POMEROY. OK. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my questions. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. And thank you, Director Ziegler. I 

wanted very much to have your testimony and the questions all 

tied together for the record so that we can excise that, give it to 

our Secretary when he’s here, give it to others, so that it’s all of 

a piece. And I thank you very much for it. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Next, we’re going to go to—— 

But, if you’d stay at the table, so that we—as we have local testimony that we could refer back to, Francis, for answers on questions 

that might come up. 

Mayor, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate very 

much your leadership, and appreciate your willingness to go on the 

record, with respect to the needs of the local community. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KENT PELTON, MAYOR, CITY OF 

WATFORD, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. PELTON. Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, congressional staff members, I want to thank you for bringing this congressional budget hearing to Watford City, and for giving me the 

opportunity to testify regarding the importance of transportation 

infrastructure to the communities along Highway 85 Corridor. 

In September of 2008, Senator Conrad spent the afternoon with 

us discussing the many concerns that we have in western North 

Dakota. The issue of highway funding was a major concern then, 

and is even more so today, with the additional traffic, especially 

with increased large tankers and semitrailers. 

Again, my name is Kent Pelton. I proudly serve as Mayor of 

Watford City. For 33 years, I was a vocational agriculture instructor at our high school. And, currently, I acquire surface-use agreements for well sites, pipelines, access roads here in the Williston 

Basin. I drive Highway 85 several times every week. 

It is interesting to note that today’s topic focuses on transportation of goods and services along a corridor that brought the first 

settlers to this community. The Long X Ranch, the largest and 

most famous cattle ranch McKenzie County, is synonymous with 

cattle drives in the era of open range in Dakota Territory. 

In their quest for grazing land, the Reynolds brothers drove their 

first herds from Texas north toward Montana in the spring of 1884. 

Hearing reports of stirrup-high grass, the brothers brought with 

them 4,000 longhorns into the Badlands of North Dakota. This is 

said to be the first herd of longhorns in the area. 

88 

The Reynolds established a ranch, in the mid-1880’s, southwest 

of here, near the North Unit to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. 

By 1888, the Reynolds were bringing three herds a year into the 

Dakota Territory. 

They named their ranch for their official brand, the Long X, 

which was one of the first two brands recorded in North Dakota. 

Much of the Long X Ranch is now part of the North Unit to Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And the name and history of the 

Long X lives on through the U.S. Highway 85 Bridge along the Little Missouri River. 

Highway 85 Corridor, which includes the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, connects many of the most notable names in U.S. history. Lewis and Clark, Theodore Roosevelt, Sitting Bull, George 

Armstrong Custer are synonymous with western North Dakota and 

South Dakota. This corridor brings tourism—tourists along the 

Theodore Roosevelt Expressway from Mount Rushmore, in the 

Black Hills, to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and to historic 

sites along the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, 

where Lewis and Clark left, in search of a passage to the ocean, 

and where Sitting Bull surrendered. 

Today, the home—the region is home to what the U.S. Geological 

Survey calls ‘‘the largest continuous oil accumulation it has ever 

assessed.’’ With 4.35 billion barrels of recoverable oil in place, the 

Bakken, as you said, is the huge play for domestic oil companies 

and individual investors. Geologists and oil industry officials are 

saying that we have a second Bakken that could literally double 

the Bakken’s already prolific output, the Three Forks Sanish Formation lying directly underneath that Bakken Formation. 

As we saw earlier in your testimony, daily production for Bakken 

wells in the Williston Basin exceeds 270,000 barrels of oil from 

4500 wells. The Basin has over 100 rigs today searching for oil. 

And the highway system supports of over 300 different service companies and crew transports in the Basin. 

Theodore Roosevelt Expressway provides a transportation corridor for oil rigs, for pipe, for steel, and for supplies from Edmonton, Calgary, Alberta to the north, and as far has Houston, Dallas, 

and Denver to the south. The highway allows the movement of oil 

and gas from wells to connection points and then on to processing 

facilities located either in-State or out-of-State. Exploration and extraction technologies use specialized equipment and services, many 

of which are not available in North Dakota, and must be purchased 

from out-of-State sources. 

While oil operators present a mix of small to large firms, a majority of the predominant oil operators in North Dakota also have 

operations in other States. They operate in Utah, Colorado, Texas. 

Theodore Roosevelt Expressway is a collector corridor for six major 

east-west highway systems that service major development areas. 

Production agriculture, which I was a part of for 33 years, serves 

as the third leg to the economy of our region. Trucks transporting 

spring wheat, durum, feeder cattle, and a host of other agricultural 

products to other States and countries make this region a primary 

exporter of agricultural foodstuff—foodstuffs. The Mondak region 

continues to diversify its agricultural production to ag processing 

and to shipping. 

89 

What does this mean for Highway 85 and for the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway? It means that existing highway—this existing 

highway system, that was built to support small farms, moving 

grain in single-axle trucks to market, and the station wagon taking 

the family on a daily outing, is being asked to support an industry 

using tankers and semitrailers with multiple wheels to transport 

goods. 

The Long X Bridge, south of Watford City has become a bottleneck to traffic, moving more over-height equipment to the oil fields. 

North Dakota officials issued over 26,000 over-weight or overheight permits on roadways in and along Highway 85 in 2009, compared to 10,700 in 2005. Currently, our 2010 permits could total 

over 60,000 permits. 

Tank—tanker trucks hauling crude and water up the steep 

grades in the Badlands are laboring in front of RVs and cyclists on 

the way to visit our national parks and tourism sites. Also, narrow 

shoulders and unstable weather, combined with heavy equipment 

and increased speeds, has placed the infrastructure in jeopardy, 

and have created safety issues for our citizens and workers. 

In closing, I want to thank you for the support that you’ve given 

on past highway projects in North Dakota. My favorite example, of 

course, is the Four Bears Bridge on the Missouri River, near New 

Town. What a difference this bridge made—has made, not only for 

the citizens of McKenzie County and Mountrail County, but for the 

hundreds of other people and industries that use it on a daily 

basis. 

On behalf of the City, I want to thank you again for including 

this congressional budget hearing in Watford City, and urge you to 

continue your support in upgrading Highway 85 and the Theodore 

Roosevelt Expressway. 

Thank you, Senator. Thank you—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Mr. PELTON. —Congressman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pelton follows:] 

90 


58154.024
91 


58154.025
92 


58154.026 58154.027
93 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for your kind words. And thank you 

for your excellent testimony. 

I’d like, at this moment, to ask the audience, by a show of hands, 

how many believe a part or all of Highway 85 ought to be fourlaned—if we could just see a show of hands. 

[A show of hands.] 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s about as unanimous as it can be. I think 

it would be unanimous, but our press representatives, by press ethics, are not allowed to vote at these things. 

[Laughter.] 

Voice: I voted. 

The CHAIRMAN. You voted? 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. You can vote. OK. Good for you. Well, I’m glad 

you did. 

And let the record show, if we can, that on that question, where 

the audience was asked, ‘‘How many believe Highway 85 ought to 

be four-laned, in part or all?’’ it was virtually unanimous. 

Mayor Pelton, if I can, for a moment, take us to the question of 

safety—because we’re going to have, on the next panel—the Sheriff 

is going to testify. I hope he will talk about that. But, from the perspective of the Mayor, are you concerned with the safety of this corridor? And what leads you to a conclusion, if that is your conclusion, that more needs to be done to make this roadway more safe? 

Mr. PELTON. The amount of traffic that we have on Highway 85, 

and some of the other highways that connect to Highway 85, of 

course, has just increased by leaps and bounds. And they’re bigger, 

heavier vehicles that can’t stop as easily. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask you to pause a moment. I’m told the 

court reporter has to change tape. 

Is that correct? 

We need to pause just for a moment. I apologize for this, but it’s 

a technical matter, to make certain that all of it is captured for the 

record. 

[Pause.] 

The CHAIRMAN. All right? 

Please resume. 

Mr. PELTON. OK. As I was saying, Highway 85, of course, is just 

a lot busier. We have a lot more traffic. There’s times when I pull 

up to a stop sign, leaving Williston, or on a truck bypass here at 

Watford City, where it may take several minutes before I have an 

opportunity to get on the highway because it’s backed up a block 

or two blocks—several blocks—with trucks. And we just have 

that—so much more traffic. 

I know you saw the figures on our fatalities in—Highway 85 and 

Highway 23 have become probably the bloodiest highways in North 

Dakota. And it’s simply because—not because our people don’t 

know how to drive, it’s because of the excess wear and tear on the 

highways, weather conditions, and excess traffic. And it is a—it’s 

a major concern to all of us here in Watford City. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mayor, one of the things I’m going to be asked, 

because part of the record here is—we had a vote of those in atVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00099 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
94 

tendance at this hearing—I don’t know the numbers of people, but 

most of the seats are full here—one of the things that will be said 

to me is, ‘‘Well, that’s not a representative sample of community 

opinion.’’ In your judgment, is the vote that was just taken on the 

question of four-laning Highway 85—is that representative of public opinion? 

Mr. PELTON. I would say public opinion is probably higher. A lot 

of—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. PELTON. A lot of—when you visit with people on the street, 

you know, when they don’t take into consideration the costs that 

we’ve heard and all of these different things that we’ve heard, they 

just say, ‘‘Why can’t we be a four-lane highway?’’ and, ‘‘Why can’t 

we have a southbound and a northbound lane, and not have multiple—u one lane like that?’’ And I would say it’s probably higher 

than what you saw here in the room. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Director Ziegler, I’d like to come back to you for a moment on the 

question of, Do we have—I assume we do—different traffic counts 

for different reaches of the road—that is, for different segments of 

the road? And would that traffic count tell us that there are substantial differences on that 186 miles of 85? And would that tell 

us—well, why don’t you answer that question and then we’ll go to 

the next question. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, yes, we do. The traffic counts, as 

best as I can remember them from the corridor study—from the 

South Dakota border to I–94, are in the neighborhood of 1200 to 

1500 vehicles a day. And north of I–94, they’re in the neighborhood 

of 2,000 to 2500. As you get closer to Watford City, the traffic 

counts are in the neighborhood of 20-—I believe it as 26- to 2800 

vehicles per day. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. And what is—is there a rule of thumb, Director Ziegler, with respect to what kind of traffic count justifies 

four-laning? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, there are several out there. Minnesota doesn’t even think about a four-lane until they hit 12,000 

vehicles per day. South Dakota’s at—is at 6,000. Those are the two 

that I’ve talked to, personally. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, we would not meet either of those tests. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, no, we wouldn’t. In fact, you know, 

we talked about some traffic in other areas. There’s more traffic between New Town and Highway 8 right now than there is anywhere 

on Highway 85 between the Four Bears Bridge and Highway 8, 

going north to Stanley. 

The CHAIRMAN. We’d better—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Do a hearing on that. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s about 5,000 vehicles a day right now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Five thousand. 

Now, there’s a difference, though, I assume, between what kind 

of vehicles we’re talking about. And is that captured in this data? 

That is, here we have a disproportionate share of heavy truck traffic. So, does a ‘‘traffic count’’ count—does it differentiate between 

heavy trucks and passenger vehicles, for example? 

95 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, yes, it does. Each count has both 

the total vehicles and the truck count. 

The CHAIRMAN. And how would our truck count relate to—so, 

these standards, when we’re talking about 12,000 and 6,000—Minnesota, South Dakota—do they have a sub limit for heavy trucks? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that I don’t know. But, you know, 

typically, in North Dakota, our truck proportion is 25—in round 

numbers—25 percent of the total traffic. Up in this area, we’re 

probably talking a little bit more. And I cannot recall those numbers, but I can get them for you as—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Part of this testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. I think that’d be very useful. 

The one thing I notice—I mean, it just—it appears to me—and 

I don’t have any scientific data to support it—but, it just appears 

to me that the proportion of heavy truck traffic is much higher here 

than I see other places. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, it is high; there’s no doubt about it. 

And as I shared in my testimony, we have a whole system that we 

have to address north of Jamestown, between Jamestown and 

Carrington—their average: 760 trucks a day. And I think I saw 

your number here being about 560. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. We’re seeing, in North Dakota—and 

we’ve done testimony to several of the transportation committees 

and in-term legislative committees where we’re talking about not 

only the oil movements, which is a major movement, but the ag 

product that we’re taking off the fields right now is substantial. 

And then adding to that the ethanol and some of the manufacturing that we’ve got, we’ve got traffic generators that are significant. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, your earlier reference to—that was Highway 52? Highway 52? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Highway—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Heavy truck—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Highway 281. 

The CHAIRMAN. 281. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. It’s 281 and 52, combined. 

The CHAIRMAN. 281 and 52, and we’ve done a hearing on that, 

that you—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Participated in. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Yes, we have, in Jamestown. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, we’ve done a special hearing on that road 

network? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And from what I hear you saying, we’d better 

think about doing 23. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. We’re looking—— 

The CHAIRMAN. The regional—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. At that. In fact—Grant Levi is in the 

audience here—we have—we’ve already flown that area to take a 

look at what it is we’re going to have to do. We’re doing a scoping 

document. 

96 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Like I said, we’re going to start regrading, next 

year, west of the Four Bears Bridge, of the new road that’s there 

now. And we need to look at what we need to do to the rest of the 

system. While we’re doing intersection improvements—there are no 

shoulders on that road at all—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. And it’s very narrow and concerning. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Well, that’s important for the record, as 

well. 

Let me just conclude this part of the discussion by saying, the 

other thing that has to be taken into account is topography, it 

would seem to me. In terms of safety issues, it’d be a combination 

of road capacity, traffic, topography—this is a pretty unforgiving 

area, in terms of what we’re dealing with, in terms of what my 

grandfather used to refer to as ‘‘hill, truck, curve.’’ So, that’s got 

to be taken into account, as well. 

In the interest of time, I think we’d better go to the second panel. 

Anything that you’d want to add, Congressman Pomeroy? 

Mr. POMEROY. One quick question—26,000 permits, 1909; maybe 

60,000 in 2010—how do you process all that volume? I mean, to 

me, that’s extraordinary. Every time down the road, you’ve got to 

get a permit. Do you have expedited ways of, basically, facilitating 

the essential paper flow so the traffic flow can move? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Congressman, the Highway Patrol actually gives 

out the permits, and we have—or they have, I should say—an—a 

electronic system, where truckers can get permits electronically—— 

Mr. POMEROY. Electonic. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. Unless they’re of such weight and size 

that they have to do the call-in. But, that’s just for the Department 

of Transportation and the State system. Each county system has 

their own permitting system. And I know there’s one—happens to 

be one here in Watford City, too, that—and they do have a multi 

county system that they’ve engaged in. 

And I don’t have the answers to all that, but maybe the Mayor 

does. 

Mr. POMEROY. The Mayor made an interesting point, also, on 

Four Bears Bridge. Senator Conrad led the fight to get Four Bears 

in. Basically, it was a promise unfulfilled, to the Reservation, from 

the Federal Government. Thank God we got that done. Can you 

imagine, with the oil traffic, on that horrifying—I used to get 

scared passing a little, you know, what—Chevy Nova. I mean—— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY [continuing]. You can imagine this oil traffic, what 

that would have done on that bridge; it would have been a completely dysfunctional, but essential, artery. Thank goodness that 

one got in, in time. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. If I could, Mr. Chairman and Congressman Pomeroy, I—I, as the director of the Department of Transportation, 

take this responsibility very—it’s a very serious responsibility. And 

I have the whole State. So, when I gave you the statistics, I don’t 

mean to slight Highway 85, but I do want to share with you— 

today, Walt Peterson and the district engineer, Grant Levi, Joel 

97 

Welt, the assistant, and I did a lot of driving. And we’re seeing lot 

of infrastructure needs out here. Highway 73, just east of Watford 

City, is in tough shape. And while we’ve got a contract coming, 

Walt is already saying, ‘‘I’m’’—with all the trucks we saw on it 

today, ‘‘I’m not sure the overlay that we’ve got planned for the 

summer is adequate.’’ 

So, we have a tremendous need for a highway bill. And I really 

appreciate anything and everything that you can do to make that 

happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I’ll tell you, Francis, the one thing there’s 

no question in my mind, you are absolutely responsible and professional in the conduct of your duties, as is Grant Levi and the rest 

of your team. I think you’re just first-rate. And we’re proud that 

you’re in the position, and the—proud of the team that you’ve assembled. I think they’re top-rate. And we don’t think anything you 

said here today wasn’t factual and exactly what we needed to have 

credible testimony to make the record. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. And we appreciate it very much. 

And, Mayor, we thank you for your leadership and your participation. 

We’ll call the second panel, McKenzie County sheriff, Ron 

Rankin; McKenzie County Job Development Authority executive director, Gene Veeder; and Rugged West trucking operations manager, Mr. Bruce Erickson. 

Welcome, all. We appreciate very much your willingness to participate in this hearing. 

And because we’re time-challenged, as we always seem to be at 

these, because we really have a need to get certain critical facts on 

the record, which I think we’re doing very well at here today—we’ll 

go right away to your testimony. 

Maybe we’ll just start, Gene, with you, and we’ll go right down 

the panel, give each of you a chance to testify, then open it up for 

your questions. 

Gene, it was really your idea that we hold this hearing; came out 

of our meeting just—I don’t know—— 

Mr. VEEDER. Month ago. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Weeks ago. Appreciate very much. 

STATEMENT OF GENE VEEDER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

McKENZIE COUNTY JOB DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY, NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Mr. VEEDER. We appreciate you and Congressman Pomeroy, always willing to meet with us and talk about the matters of importance. It’s good to see a friendly face when we go there, and you’re 

always willing to meet with us. We do appreciate that. 

My name is Gene Veeder, and I’m the executive director for 

McKenzie County Job Development Authority. I’d like to give you 

greetings from McKenzie County commissioners. They’re in session 

today, so they couldn’t be here, but they wanted to be. 

I’m proud to say I’m a third-generation rancher, the grandson of 

Norwegian immigrants. I’m operating the same ranch my father 

and my grandfather—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re Norwegian? 

98 

Mr. VEEDER. Norwegian, yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, Senator Dorgan and I were just in 

Norway, and met with the King. 

Mr. VEEDER. Well, he’s a relative, I’m sure. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just tell you, Gene, he did not remember 

that about either of us? 

Mr. VEEDER. He may be getting older; I’m not sure. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, it turns out the King of Norway is 

Danish. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s true. 

Mr. VEEDER. We have mixed blood in our family. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, mine, too. 

Mr. VEEDER. But, my—you know, I’m the third generation. My 

daughter, this week’s, moving back to the ranch, so we’ll have four 

generations on this ranch. And that’s why this economic development stuff is important to us, and it’s important to me. 

As Mayor Pelton stated, the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, it 

follows a route of historic significance to us here. And I’m a community member and the economic development director and the 

president of the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway Association. And 

so, my priorities are to develop and sustain this economy. We take 

it seriously here. 

I thought maybe I would try to tie this in to a larger picture, because you’ve talked to this—about it. You have to deal with other 

States. And the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway works with the 

Ports-to-Plains Corridor. And I’d like to talk about that a little bit. 

It’s not just about North Dakota, it’s about what moves between 

North Dakota. 

So, we want to acknowledge especially, though, your strong support over the years for U.S. Highway 85 and the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway. It’s part of a larger corridor known as the 

Ports-to-Plains Alliance Corridor. 

Now, you’ve been a champion of transportation investment in 

North Dakota and rural America, and we know that. You truly understand the importance of this investment and what it means, in 

terms of safety and economic development for America’s rural 

heartland, and we do thank you. 

And our message for the MAC group today is simple: keep up the 

good work. It’s your voice that helps us be heard in rural America. 

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the Federal transportation programs, we urge you to do everything you can to ensure that adequate resources are made available for rural transportation, in general, and for U.S. Highway 85 and the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway and the Ports-to-Plains Alliance Corridor, in 

particular. 

As I mentioned, the U.S. Highway 85 and Theodore Roosevelt 

Expressway are part of a larger corridor known as the Ports-toPlains Alliance Corridor. This larger corridor is made up of three 

congressionally designated high-priority corridors on the National 

Highway System. And as you can see from the map that we have 

99 

over here, it connects North Dakota with a common north-south 

corridor reaching domestically across nine States, from Texas to 

Montana, and internationally to markets in Canada and Mexico. 

The Alliance is a corridor of national significance, and we appreciate your support with that. It provides a backbone to the common 

economy of energy and agriculture that are so critical to the security and economic vitality of the United States. 

I’d like you to consider these facts: Six of the top ten oil-producing States are in this corridor; five of the top ten natural gas 

producing States are in this corridor; seven of the top ten U.S. 

States for installed wind and wind-energy potential are in this corridor; the corridor contains North America’s agricultural heartland, 

producing $44.3 billion of agricultural goods, or 25 percent of the 

U.S. total; it contains six of the top ten farm States; and Canada 

and Mexico are the top two export markets for U.S. farm commodities. 

Nearly 25 percent of U.S. ethanol refining capacity with 33 existing refiners and more are underway in this corridor. Domestic 

trade between these States in this corridor by truck is valued by 

the 2007 Commodity Flow Survey at 156 billion, which has increased 82 percent since 2002. International trade with Mexico by 

truck was valued, in 2008, at 87 billion, and that’s up 25 percent 

since 2008. International trade with Canada by truck was valued, 

in 2008, at 32 billion, up 55 percent since 2008. 

Highway 85, the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, and the Portsto-Plains Alliance Corridor are currently inadequate to meet the 

demands of this traffic, with substantial investments necessary to 

upgrade these facilities to modern, safe highways capable of serving local and regional and national needs. 

It’s for this reason that the next Federal transportation reauthorization bill is so important, and one of the reasons we’re here 

today. This legislation must provide the necessary resources to 

make significant progress in upgrading this corridor of national significance. 

The key components of these recommendations that our group 

have are: 

Rural connectivity and mobility. The new legislation should include a major focus on upgrading and modernizing the transportation infrastructure that provides connectivity and mobility for 

America’s small communities and rural areas, especially federally 

designated high- priority corridors in the National Highway System. 

Freight transportation is an issue. The new legislation should 

also include a major focus on freight movement, including freight 

corridors in rural areas, especially high-priority corridors in the 

National Highway System. 

Border infrastructure. The border infrastructure that’s critical to 

promote safe and efficient movement of goods, facilitating trade 

and supporting jobs in America. 

And something that I know you’re concerned with is rural safety. 

The new legislation should include a major focus on highway safety, especially safety on two-lane rural roads, which have often had 

fatality rates well above urban interstates. 

100 

The freight pilot program. We are supporting a freight pilot program. We’d like to see upgrading and modernization of the Portsto-Plains Corridor and Heartland Expressway and the Theodore 

Roosevelt Expressway. 

And a permitting pilot program. We support a pilot program for 

streamlined transport of overweight and oversized equipment along 

the Ports-to-Plains Corridor and the Heartland Expressway and 

Theodore Roosevelt Expressway. 

Finally, the last two points I’d make. We feel the Federal Trust— 

Highway Trust Fund must have adequate resources to meet the 

needs of rural areas, as well as small, medium and large metropolitan areas. 

And a critical area we haven’t talked about: It is imperative that 

the transportation bill, as well as any climate change legislation 

Congress might enact, be balanced. It must recognize that rural 

areas are different than major metropolitan areas and that additional capacity in rural America is critical if these areas are to be 

tied to the national network in the 21st-central—-century global 

economy. 

Thank you, again, for addressing—coming to Watford City and 

addressing our needs locally. We also like to thank you for recognizing the importance of this corridor as its national significance 

along the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway and Ports-to-Plains Alliance. We appreciate your being here. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Veeder follows:] 

101 


58154.040
102 


58154.041
103 


58154.042
104 


58154.043
105 


58154.044
106 


58154.045
107 


58154.046
108 


58154.047
109 


58154.048
110 


58154.049
111 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you, Gene. Thank you for that excellent testimony. And thanks for the invitation to be here. 

We’ll go next to Sheriff Rankin. 

Thank you for your willingness to testify. And please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF RON RANKIN, SHERIFF, McKENZIE COUNTY, 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. RANKIN. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. Chairman, Congressman Pomeroy, sir, in addressing your request for testimony on improving safety along the U.S. Highway 85 

Corridor, I submit the following: 


58154.050
112 

Speaking strictly from a law enforcement point of view and directed only to U.S. Highway 85 as it transitions through McKenzie 

County, the safety problems I am facing this year are caused by 

an increased volume of traffic. I do not for sure know—I do not 

know for sure, but I am working and planning, with my department’s strategy, under the assumption that the oil production has 

not yet reached its peak. 

The safety concerns created by an increased traffic volume are, 

first of all, an increase in the number of accidents. I am aware that 

your office has statistics on the number of fatal accidents on Highway 85 for 2009 and 2010. However, the number of accidents investigated on Highway 85 in McKenzie County in 2006, were 49; in 

2007, were 47; in 2008, were 55; in 2009, were 53. These figures 

were taken from the North Dakota Driver’s License and Traffic 

Safety Division. This does not count the car and deer accidents. 

Car and deer accidents are quite often investigated locally, and 

they are not—generally, if the damage is not significant, they are 

not reported. 

Second, there have been a—there has been a dramatic increase 

in the number of 9–1–1 and 9–1–1—non-9–1–1 traffic violation 

complaints and reports received by our office. These are complaints 

that deal with speeding motorists, passing where prohibited, reckless driving, and possible drunk drivers. There are also many reports of near-collisions caused by reckless driving. Each of these 

calls requires a deputy to respond and attempt to contact the vehicle. 

Of major concern to me, as sheriff, is that these issues are not 

limited to Highway 85, although this is our discussion. I still—they 

are not limited to Highway 85, they are countywide. McKenzie 

County, as you know, is the largest county in the State. Not only 

do I have Highway 85 to deal with, I also have Highway 23, Highways 200 north and south, and all the county roads that run 

through the county. This is a concern because, even though we 

enjoy complete cooperation with the Williston District North Dakota Highway State Patrol, I only have six deputies that must deal 

not only with the highway concerns, but other law enforcement-related issues. This reflects in our response time and places a strain 

on an already stretched manpower level. 

As sheriff, I see safety concerns on U.S. Highway 85 being 

caused by a significant increase in the volume of traffic along the 

corridor, and the inherent problems associated with a heavy traffic 

flow. Short of making Highway 85 a four-lane highway—I’m one of 

those that voted on it—I support—I see super-highways, turnout 

lanes placed strategically along highway 85, with an increased law 

enforcement presence, as being a helpful part of that solution. Having marked patrol vehicles patrolling routinely along the highway, 

I really believe that would help in a proactive manner. 

Thank you for the opportunity to voice my concerns regarding 

the safety issues on Highway 85 through McKenzie County. And I 

hope I have assisted you in a small way. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rankin follows:] 

113 


58154.038
114 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir, you have. I appreciate very much your 

testimony here today. 

Next, we’ll go to Mr. Bruce Erickson, representing Rugged West 

Trucking. 

STATEMENT OF BRUCE ERICKSON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, 

RUGGED WEST TRUCKING, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. ERICKSON. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Pomeroy, I’m Bruce 

Erickson. I am the current operations manager for Rugged West 

Trucking in Watford City. We’re a small company, about 35 trucks 

large. We started, a few years back, with one truck and two drivers, and in a matter of 5 years, have expanded to about 35 trucks 

today. 

We move approximately 20,000 barrels of crude oil per day from 

the field to the pipeline. That’s what we do. In that process, our 

guys see a lot of things every day. 

I started out—I came to Watford City originally—I taught high 

school music for 20 years, and I drove those big buses, hauling kids 

on Highway 85. Pretty important cargo. We have people in this 

community that drive those buses every day on these highways. 

Precious cargo. 

I was involved in the tourism industry. I owned a resort. I deal 

with—I dealt with the tourism—the part of that came along with 

it. And I see the increase and I see the conflicts that arise between 

not only the local traffic and the industry with the oil and agriculture and whatnot, but also with the tourism. It’s a common complaint I hear on the phone. I push the trucks, currently, and I get 

this complaint on the phone a lot: ‘‘They’re in our way. They go too 

slow. Can’t they get out of the way? Can’t they drive somewhere 

else?’’ You hear that all the time. I hear the same thing from my 

drivers, too. They wonder why we’ve got to go around motor homes, 

or what they’re doing, and all of a sudden they veer off. 

But, at the same time, it’s—it deals with that issue of safety that 

Sheriff Rankin and everybody else is—has brought forward. 

This morning, we had a safety meeting, and the opening of the 

meeting was, What season is it? Everybody kind of looked around 


58154.039
115 

and, ‘‘Spring, summer, yeah.’’ And everybody was wrong, the guy 

said, ‘‘It’s tourist season.’’ In North Dakota we have three seasons. 

It’s when no one wants to be here, in the winter, and then tourist 

season, and then harvest. And in all those times, there’s an increased amount of traffic. And there are issues that arise from each 

one of those. 

I strongly support the idea of turning lanes; widening the road, 

making it into a super–2, as a minimum, though four-laning it 

would be the most appropriate. 

Just outside of town, south—4 miles south of Watford City, 

there’s a particular intersection infamous, for not-good reasons. 

But, today, there’s about 100 trucks every day that enter and exit 

this intersection. It’s at the bottom of a hill. If you’re heading south 

out of that, down Highway 85, if you’re in a truck, by the time you 

get to start negotiating the corner, you cannot—you have no visibility of the vehicle approaching that’s heading south. By the time 

you can see that vehicle, it’s too late. Every day, there are mishaps 

there. There are many, many near-misses. It’s one of the issues 

that needs to be addressed. 

Just a few more miles down the road—and this one’s kind of interesting—this isn’t really the Highway Department’s issue, but— 

there was a well drilled, just off the highway. This winter, we 

started to haul that, and my guys had to lay on the highway to 

chain up in the traffic in order to be able to negotiate the hill to 

get up that. We put those guys’ lives—you know, that’s just not 

reasonable. And I think that’s the things that we need to look at. 

We like to tell our guys we want ’em to go—come home as in 

good a shape as they left. That’s important to us. They need to 

leave safely, be able to do their job, and return home each day as 

safe as they were when they got here. 

Those are the big concerns we have. There are other things that 

deal with trucking issues—States’ State regulations that aren’t the 

same, things that prohibit us from using Highway 85. But, those 

aren’t the important things. The important things are the lives 

that it affects each day, and bringing each person home safely. 

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you for allowing me 

speak today. And if there’s any further questions—thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you. Very, very good testimony, Mr. Erickson. 

I’d like to go right back to you, if I could, and talk about that 

intersection. What is that intersection that you identified, the one 

where you’re going south and—— 

Mr. ERICKSON. It’s actually where we’re located, 4 miles south of 

Watford City. It’s—there are now three trucking operations working out of that intersection. One of them’s soon to be 300-plus 

trucks large. They bought 100 acres to put their trucks in the yard. 

Also on there is Redrock Transportation and Rugged West Transportation. There’s also a repair shop, Big Rig Services, there. And 

the road—and it’s just the topography—the road that is accessed 

is at the bottom of a hill. And there’s a large grade going to the 

south, which is, you know, miles long, and so, very visible—can see. 

But, the one coming from the north, by the time the cars poke over 

the top, a truck turning to go south—and whether you’re loaded or 

empty, it’s just a target. You can’t see it until it’s too late. 

116 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Director Ziegler, is that an intersection 

that we’ve got—you’ve got plans to deal with? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, yes, it is. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good. And 

Mr. ZIEGLER. We’re putting a southbound left-turn lane—. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I assume that would help—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. And the right turn—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. All right. So, that’s—— 

Mr. ERICKSON. Yes, that would—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. That’s good news. That’s slated for 

something to be done. 

Gene, if I can go to you—when you were in to see me, we were 

talking about other issues, as well, but these transportation issues, 

which are increasingly important in the area—I want to ask you 

the same question I asked the Mayor, because I know, when I go 

back to Washington, and I indicate this audience voted overwhelmingly for four- laning, that they will say to me, ‘‘Well, that’s not 

representative.’’ In your judgment, was that vote of the people 

present at this hearing—was that a—representative of the feeling 

in the community. 

Mr. VEEDER. Yes, it is. 

The CHAIRMAN. And so—maybe if we could hand Gene the microphone so that they can capture that for the record. 

So, let me just repeat, in terms of the vote that was taken here 

earlier today on support for four-laning, you believe that that’s representative of feeling in the community? 

Mr. VEEDER. Yes, I do. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I assume the reasons for that would be the 

safety reasons, as well as just the efficiency of being able to move 

goods and services across this area. 

Mr. VEEDER. Well, yes, it is. And, to follow that up, the unique 

part about Watford City—and I believe that’s one of the reasons 

that you came here—is, it is our tie-in. We don’t have rail here. We 

don’t have the interstate here. Highway 85 is our lifeline, north 

and south. And so, it is the only way we get those goods and services. They do come by truck. And, as the Mayor said, the—we’re 

mixing traffic and rough terrain in a tough environment. 

And so, you know, the responses we have are good. But, I think 

that people feel that a four-lane is good for us, locally, but for the 

State, as well—for the commerce to the State, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Congressman POMEROY. 

Mr. POMEROY. Gene Veeder was in school with my brother. I’ve 

been hearing about Watford City from Gene Veeder for about 35 

years. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. VEEDER. Don’t say it like that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY. I have. I am thrilled that Jesse’s back. You’re 

going to have a fourth-generation Veeder—— 

Mr. VEEDER. Yep. 

Mr. POMEROY [continuing]. In McKenzie County, and thrilled 

with the entirely different range of economic opportunity that Jesse 

will have, in light of this fabulous oil play taking place. I wish 

117 

you’d have told about the mineral acres, because I might have 

bought some, 35 years ago, but—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You didn’t have any money. 

Mr. POMEROY. Well, there is that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. POMEROY. Nothing’s—that’s one area, nothing’s changed. 

I do think that the Veeder story represents something extraordinarily special happening up in this area, and it’s not without its 

challenge. 

And I found today’s hearing, both in Williston and Watford City, 

extremely helpful, in terms of understanding what our assignment 

is, making sure the Federal Government is doing its part to continue to emerge this opportunity. 

Because it’s not just an opportunity for the families of the region; 

we have a desperate need for the energy sources that we can 

produce, made more acute now by the tragedy unfolding in the Gulf 

of Mexico. And so, you look at the corridor—yeah, there’s some investment there, but it’s nothing compared to the investment we’re 

going to be making, cleaning up places where maybe we shouldn’t 

have been drilling in the first place. So, we have to make the best 

of this opportunity. And that certainly includes the kind of infrastructure that’s going to afford the optimal development. 

So, I appreciate everybody in the—all the evidence put into the 

hearing. 

We’re meeting in a facility that reflects infrastructure investment—the Stengem’s private-sector infrastructure investment— 

now what a wonderful place this will play in the community, going 

forward. It’s just an example. Yeah, there’s money up front, but 

long-term dividends to flow from it. I think we need to consider 

this 85 project in that vein. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to thank everyone who’s testified here 

today. I think this is exactly what we needed to get on the record. 

It couldn’t be more timely, with the Secretary of Transportation 

coming to North Dakota on Friday, with the Director of the Federal 

Highway Administration with him. 

And I deeply appreciate, really, the excellent testimony of both 

panels. Thank you very much. We appreciate your participation. 

With that, we’ll close the hearing. 

[Whereupon, at 4:58 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(119) 

FIELD HEARING: TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH 

AND IMPROVING SAFETY ALONG ND 23 

THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, 

New Town, North Dakota 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m. in the Arikara 

Room of the 4 Bears Lodge, 202 Frontage Road, New Town, North 

Dakota, Hon. Kent Conrad, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everyone this morning to this hearing of the Senate Budget 

Committee. This is an official hearing of the committee, and therefore we will be operating under the rules of the U.S. Senate, and 

an official record of this hearing is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is, ‘‘Transportation Investments: Promoting Economic Growth and Improving Safety Along North Dakota 23.’’ As the title suggests, we’ll be focusing on what investments may be needed to upgrade and improve highway 23, to promote the economy in Western North Dakota. We also want to focus 

on how to make the road more safe. I think all of us are concerned 

about the safety of local residents who use this highway. 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. 

We have two panels. Our first group includes our North Dakota 

Department of Transportation Director, Mr. Francis Ziegler. Welcome, Francis. Mandan-Hidatsa and Arikara Nation Chairman, 

Marcus Levings, welcome. And New Town Mayor, Dan Uran. Welcome mayor, good to have you with us as well. 

The second panel will include State Representative Kenton 

Onstad, and Trust Land Oil Field Service President, Steve Kelly. 

I look forward to hearing from each of you, and we will share 

your concerns and your points of view with our colleagues back in 

Washington. I also want to warmly greet Congressman Pomeroy, 

who is here as well. As you know, Congressman Pomeroy serves on 

the Ways and Means Committee, which has a key role in writing 

the new highway and transportation legislation. 

This is actually the third hearing that I have held this summer 

that relates to the impact of oil development in Western North DaVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00125 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
120 

kota. In June I held a hearing in Williston on the need for more 

housing in the region to support the growing energy industry. I 

held another hearing in Watford City on the impact of energy production on highway 85. Last year we held hearings in Williston 

and Dickenson on highway 85. 

This map shows why highway 23 is so important to energy production in our State. The road is a critical lifeline for energy development. It runs east-west through the Bakken Formation, and 

links the area to other major highway networks. It serves as a 

major route for the transport of oil rigs, pipes, steel, and supplies. 

We need to ensure that highway 23 has the capacity to handle the 

increased activity from the growing energy production. 

The next chart shows the Minot Daily News report from last 

month summed up the situation, ‘‘Oil Boom Impact: Highway 23 at 

New Town is Areas Busiest Highway.’’ And the picture shows the 

kind of large truckloads coming through the area. 


58154.241
121 

We have seen a dramatic increase in oil production in North Dakota from the oil boom in the Bakken Formation. This chart demonstrates that. North Dakota oil production was up to 8.5 million 

barrels a month as of April, with further production in the Bakken 

and the discovery of the Three Forks formation, we can expect production to continue to climb. 


58154.355
122 

The next chart shows that highway 23 has seen a dramatic spike 

in truck traffic. Truck traffic on highway 23 near New Town increased 193 percent between 2005 and 2009. Unfortunately, the 

highway was never designed to handle this number of heavy trucks 

and oversized loads that are currently traveling on it. This road 

clearly needs improvements to foster continued growth, to better 

serve the communities in the area, and to ensure a safe travel 

route. 


58154.356
123 

The next chart shows what happened with respect to our transportation infrastructure needs and the critical nature of the time 

we are in right now. Because the administration is developing its 

Highway Bill Reauthorization Plan. It’s worth remembering that 

North Dakota benefited greatly from the last Highway Bill, which 

was completed in 2005. I was privileged to serve as a conferee. 

Conferees are chosen by the House and the Senate to work out the 

differences between proposals coming out of the House of Representatives and proposals coming out of the Senate to produce the 

final legislation. In that role as a conferee on that bill I was able 


58154.357
124 

to help secure a significant increase in funding for our State. We 

got $1.5 billion for North Dakota, a 31 percent increase in that bill. 

That averages out to $234 million a year for highways with additional funding provided for transit. We did very well overall by securing two dollars for every dollar in gas tax collected in the State, 

ranking us among the top four States in the Nation for return on 

gas tax dollars. So, only three States do better than North Dakota 

in terms of our return on our tax dollar. 

Here are some of the priorities I will focus on as we consider the 

next highway bill. The next bill must identify sufficient funding so 

that infrastructure investments are secure and robust over the long 

term. States and communities must be able to rely on them, something I know Director Ziegler is acutely concerned about. Next, any 

new highway bill must maintain recognition that rural transportation needs are vital to the nation. And it must recognize the importance of a nationally connected highway system. 


58154.358
125 

Finally, I will fight to enhance investments in the Indian Reservation Roads Program. And I am particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on the immediate investments that are 

needed in highway 23, and what future investments are required 

to support the growth in this area and the safety of those using 

this road network. 

With that, I want to turn to Congressman Pomeroy, and again 

acknowledge the key role that he will play in the funding decisions 

for the next highway bill as a member of the important Ways and 

Means panel. 

Congressman Pomeroy, welcome. Before you begin, I should also 

point out that in the Recovery Act we also secured some $180 million for highway improvements in North Dakota, money that has 

been spent last year and some of which will be spent this year. 

The CHAIRMAN. With that, welcome, Congressman Pomeroy. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EARL POMEROY, U.S. CONGRESSMAN 

FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much for having 

me at your budget hearing, and pleased to make this bicameral 

event. I normally put on a tie when I’m with you at a budget hearing. I am later today going to actually look at the oil activity, tour 

a man camp, see a drilling site, and so you’ll forgive my more casual attire as we commence this hearing. 

Two vivid images impress upon me the importance of this inquiry. The first, one time along highway 23—there was a period of 

time where memorials are placed representing the lives that have 

been lost along this highway. I happened to be coming down the 

road at a time when the memorials were out and I was struck by 


58154.359
126 

the astonishing number, between here and Cody, of white crosses, 

other memorials representing accidents that have occurred, lives 

that have been lost over the years. And that was before the oil activity. 

So this has been a stretch of road that has seen more than its 

share of tragedy. Before being asked to encounter the kind of activity that the most welcome oil has brought us. But this oil boom is 

occurring on an infrastructure that was not built in anticipation to 

the kind of traffic and industrial demand now on these roads. 

Clearly, you have brought your focus on one of the most stressed 

areas of infrastructure in the State, Senator, and I’m pleased we’re 

developing the record on the need for activity in the—in this area, 

as we look at a new highway bill. 

A new highway bill is going to involve the Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, as we look at funding strategies, recognizing that the existing highway trust fund is not entirely getting the job done, in terms of producing the kinds of revenues from the previously in place Federal gas tax that’s going to 

accommodate the needs of the nation. 

Another unwelcome development is the push from States that 

have previously paid more into the trust fund than they have received back. It’s just a factor of population, North Dakota, 16 people per mile, South Dakota 19 people per mile. On average a multiple of that, 120 people per mile not uncommon. So of course it 

pays—it costs more on a per capita basis to maintain the North 

Dakota road system, which I’ve been told has more roads per capita 

than any State in the entire country. But if those States that have 

historically paid more into the Nation road system are now saying, 

‘‘No, no, we put in a buck, we get a buck back just like every other 

State,’’ this is going to be a very negative development for maintaining a national infrastructure across the rural reaches of our 

country, because the economics fall apart very quickly. So we’ve got 

our work cut out for us in the new highway bill. 

One feature that I think needs to be mentioned is this oil activity 

is producing a tremendous amount resources, some of which go directly to the Federal Government, in revenues collected from the 

taxes, as well as the drilling activity on Federal lands itself. This 

is not a—yet another lost Federal investment, this is an area 

where the Federal Government gains for—as it builds out the oil 

plain in Western North Dakota, the Federal Government has direct 

gain like everyone else. 

Let me conclude with the second vivid image, 4 Bears Bridge. I 

crossed it this morning coming to this meeting. And I imagined 

what a different experience that might have been, indeed I think 

we’d have been waiting for a pilot car because I can’t imagine, giving the kind of traffic now traveling across that bridge, that you 

could have the two-way traffic that was scary enough prior to the 

oil boom. That bridge came about because Senator Conrad demanded we were going to get the bridge that had long been promised when Lake Sakakawea was established and the reservoir was 

created, and the tribe was flooded. The makeshift bridge moved 

from another location, slapped in place, served over the many decades, was never viewed to be an adequate fulfillment of the Federal 

commitment in this area. And Senator Kent Conrad insisted on a 

127 

new bridge, no ifs, not buts, no ands. We got the bridge. It was put 

in place as we now can see just in time. And we’d have had no end 

of trouble, in terms of infrastructure, but for that component. 

So I think it’s an example of what can happen with a hearing 

like this one. We’re identifying problems, we intend to address 

these problems, but we’ve got new activity that needs to be responded to, we’re all gaining from the oil activity, we need to make 

sure we just keep the infrastructure expanding accordingly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Congressman Pomeroy, very much 

for you kind words and for being here, and for you continuing involvement and interest in the opportunities created by the oil play 

in our State, but also the challenges it presents. 

With that we’re going to turn to our witnesses. We’re going to 

start with our North Dakota Department of Transportation Director, Francis Ziegler. Francis, thank you so much for being here and 

please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr.ZIEGLER.Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I’m Francis Ziegler, 

Director of the North Dakota Department of Transportation. I want 

to thank you for the opportunity. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you’d withhold just 1 minute, because I want 

to make sure that I acknowledge Lance Gaby, who is here, the Governor’s Deputy Chief of Staff, Lance Gaby, and I very much appreciate his involvement and the Governor’s interest in having one of 

his top aids here for this hearing. So welcome, Lance, thank you. 

Francis, please proceed. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Again, I want to thank you for the opportunity to 

appear before the committee today and for your interest in improving transportation in North Dakota. 

Today, I’d like to address several broad transportation issues 

that you’ve already touched on, Senator, and specifically today on 

highway 23 and other roads in the immediate area. North Dakota 

is working very hard to improve transportation. Our infrastructure 

investment results in many benefits, creates jobs, strengthens the 

economy, improves safety, improves mobility for citizens and business. We these and other benefits, DOT is working hard to improve 

transportation in our State. 

This year the department has the largest construction season in the history. We have about $450 million in projects on more than 

2,000 miles of roadway improvement Statewide. The money comes 

from the regular Federal aid program, ARRA, or often called stimulus, emergency relief, and State funding. Transportation systems 

are important in Western North Dakota. The DOT has recognized 

the importance of the transportation system in Western North Dakota, and from 1999 to 2009, we’ve invested about $886 million in 

preserving and improving the corridors in this area. And some of 

the projects are highway 2, 22, highway 23, the high interest today, 

highway 40, 50, 85, and 1804. Eight is not mentioned in there, but 

that’s another one of the main highways in this area. 

DOT has been aggressive in the energy area of the Western part 

of the State. With recent pavement preservation projects and many 

transportation investments planned to be completed from 2010 to 

128 

2014, as shown on the attached map—and Senator, that’s an attachment that I have to the testimony that you have in front of 

you—shows what we do in this area, and I know we’ve got copies 

for the audience here today. But fundamentally it shows, by map, 

just how much work we’re doing in this area and what we’re doing 

to try to keep improving the transportation system, including highway 23 and other projects, again, in this local New Town area. 

Let’s get into some specifics. On page two of my testimony, highway 85. Senator, you’ve had several hearings on this corridor reviewing transportation needs. In 2010 and 2011, the DOT is going 

to be putting more than $70 million worth of improvements into 

highway 85. We’re going to add a three lane section between highway 2 and the Missouri River, several turning lanes in numerous 

intersections, all the way to highway 200 east of 85 and the Missouri River. We’re going to be regrading and adding a climbing lane 

south of the Longex Bridge and we’re adding multiple passing 

lanes between Wotford City and Williston. 

But highway 23, high interest today. In this area, 23, 22, and 8 

are in the fastest growing areas in the State. Construction projects 

in this area include highway 23 and the improvements involve adding turn lanes at six intersections between here and highway 83. 

DOT staff is now scoping, reviewing needs for the future on highway 23 to see what we should do in the area to meet the future 

and the current growing traffic needs. 

We’re also scoping highway 8 and 23. What we mean by scoping 

is that we’re looking at—trying to figure out what it is we need to 

do in the future. We’ve flown it so that we can get good pictures 

of what’s happening and what it looks like, but we’re going to have 

to take a good hard look at it, because the six intersections that 

we’re building this year we don’t believe are going to be adequate 

for the long term. I’ll be getting into some traffic counts later, Senator, and it’s significant, it’s really significant. 

On highway 8, we’re widening and regrading north of Stanley, 

but we’re also scoping highway 8 between Stanley and highway 23 

out here east of New Town. We have to look at those areas too, and 

see what it is we need to do. 

Safety, as you know, is a priority for the Department of Transportation, and we’re always concerned about the safety of the traveling public. We’re continuously monitoring crash and fatality rates 

in the area and evaluating the data to implement safety projects. 

Some of the more recent safety projects include lowering the speed 

limits on 8, 23, and on a four mile section north of Dickenson on 

highway 22. Installation of center line and edge line rumble stripes 

in the Williston district, the entire district is going to get those. 

We drove from Stanley to New Town today and saw the rumble 

strips and stripes, is what we call them, and they’re working. Research has found that it’s a significant safety improvement. It 

keeps the distracted driver in the lane. If you start getting out of 

the lane there’s a rumble, a vibration in the vehicle sets up and 

it reminds the driver to get back in that lane. And so from a safety 

perspective, I think it’s one of the more important things we can 

do, at least in the short term, Senator. 

129 

North Dakota Department of Transportation is working—also 

working in partnership with the Petroleum Council to create educational programs to promote safety on roadways. 

Moving on to page three, the recent oil boom in Western North 

Dakota is an economic benefit for the State, as you and the Congressman have already said, but it also includes challenges for the 

DOT and local entities. We’re planning for transportation needs. 

We’re working with the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, studying the local needs in oil producing counties. And the 

DOT is developing what we need for State highways to do our part 

in the future as our normal budgeting process is coming up. 

Recognizing the transportation challenges—the DOT has several 

projects planned over the next 4 years in Western North Dakota, 

about $468 million will be invested in rural projects through the 

17 oil producing counties, that’s $400 million in State roads and 

$68 million on local roads. Moving with this project, of course, always depends on Federal and State funding at or above current 

levels. 

But I want to get into some of those traffic counts that I talked 

about earlier, Senator, and I’m not going to go through this whole 

chart in the interest of time, but I’ll just point out a few highlights. 

On highway 8, starting from the top of the page, you can see that 

23 North to Stanley has a high of 4,430 vehicles, a low of 1,675, 

and the way our traffic engineers do that, they average a corridor. 

And that’s 2,454 vehicles, that’s a 301 percent increase from what 

we’ve seen in 2006. It’s a tremendous increase in traffic. Highway 

22, there too, average of 1,869, a high of 3,685, a 73 percent increase. 

But on 23, from Watford City to highway 1804, 1804 is just on 

the west edge of the city of New Town. On that stretch, we have 

a high of 6,460 vehicles a day, with an average of 2,304 vehicles, 

70 percent increase. Then, if you look at the next line, it’s the high 

number. From 1804 to highway 83 is a high of 7,300 vehicles a day 

and a low of 1,268 in some segments, and the average for that corridor is 2,095. That’s a 31 percent increase. And so on and on, highway 72 which is just off highway 22 west of here. That has an increase of 209 percent. 

And so what we’re seeing out here is unprecedented in traffic 

growths. Typically we see three to 10 percent maximum growth, 

and here we’re seeing these—on an annual basis—and here we’re 

seeing these kinds of numbers. 

Now that’s—that includes trucks, Senator, but on page four, on 

the top of that page, we’re going to see some truck numbers and 

those two are astonishing. Highway 823 to Stanley, a high of 905 

trucks per day, with an average of 744, a 629 percent increase. And 

the number you had shown earlier on the chart, on highway 23, a 

high truck ADT of 880, with an average of 625, a 274 percent increase. 

And I know I could go into these details, but Senator, in the interest of time, what I’m saying to you is that traffic has increased 

at unprecedented amounts here, and what we’re going to have to 

do is make sure that we address those issues. 

And while we’ve made significant transportation improvement in 

the New Town area, including the Four Bears Bridge, we recognize 

130 

there’s been an increase in traffic, and I’ve asked staff to immediately start scoping highway 23 and 8, as I’ve already mentioned, 

to address the traffic growth. 

The State of North Dakota and the DOT are doing more than 

ever in the area. However, Federal and State funding for transportation projects is essential to the growing needs of the energy industry in Western North Dakota. Federal dollars are so important 

for State residents who are working hard to serve the energy needs 

of our nation today and in the future. 

Public input that we took this spring at many regional meetings, 

we had eight regional meetings around the State, Senator, and the 

preliminary input includes statements like, ‘‘The residents really 

want more transportation infrastructure.’’ They’re concerned about 

traffic increases, especially in Western North Dakota, and public 

expectations are growing, especially for load-carrying capacity and 

wider roads. 

Moving on to page five, we certainly recognize the benefits of 

transportation. The State has increased its financial commitment 

to transportation by enacting a $1.35 billion transportation dollar 

bill—excuse me, $1.35 billion—that’s a big number—transportation 

funding in the State, and that includes an unprecedented sum of 

non- matching in State general fund, and then it also includes Federal dollars, such as the regular Federal program ARRA and the 

State’s money. Excluding ARRA, we use 52 percent of our budget 

is based on Federal aid. And with ARRA, Senator, that’s 57 percent. 

Even though our State’s large road network has few people to 

support it, North Dakotans pay more than the national average to 

support the Federal surface transportation programs. The per capita contribution to the highway account of the highway trust fund 

attributed to North Dakota is $161 compared to a national average 

of roughly $109 per person. So, this is a per capita contribution of 

48 percent above the national average. 

There are large benefits, as I’ve said before, from transportation 

infrastructure investment, job creation and a general boost in the 

economy, and safety, as I’ve mentioned before. Preserving and improving the roads in pursuit of smooth surfaces, appropriate roadway with guardrails and signage and pavement marking is essential to our mission of providing a safe transportation system. 

Moving to the bottom of page five, clearly our ability to continue 

to invest in surface transportation infrastructure in North Dakota 

will depend in part on Federal surface transportation funding levels. 

Moving on to the top of page six, our association ASHTO has recommended for the 6-year period, 2010 to 2015, proportional increases in the highway and transit programs over the prior 6 years 

to $375 billion, and $93 billion respectively, plus funding for other 

programs. Another relevant factor to funding are the level of inflation. The highway industry has been hit hard by inflation during 

the past decade. From 2001 to 2010, the construction cost index for 

North Dakota’s projects is 87 percent. So in other words, we’re 

spending 87 percent more in 2010 than we did in 2001 to get the 

same work done. 

131 

We’re concerned about a number of aspects of the bill that’s 

being considered now, in that it creates a large new program funding only metro areas with a population of 500,000 or more, and 

provides funds for large nationally significant projects, high speed 

rail and infrastructure banks. And the next paragraph, Senator, in 

regard to that, we’re very pleased that bipartisan rural mobility 

legislation in 3485 was recently introduced in the U.S. Senate by 

Senator Barrasso, yourself, Mr. Chairman, and 11 other Senators. 

That legislation basically takes the position that if new legislation 

is to dedicate significant funds to discretionary highway programs 

only for large metropolitan areas, the legislation must also include 

a significant counterpart program of funding for rural States. We’re 

hopeful that efforts like this will ensure that the final legislation 

will not ignore national need to continue to invest significant Federal transportation funds in rural States, as well as in urban 

States. 

In the interest of time, Senator, I’ll move on to page seven. The 

nation benefits from transportation investment and access across 

rural States. We serve as a bridge for truck and personal traffic, 

we enable exports to serve the nation’s ethanol production, largely—and the energy extraction industries, which are located largely 

in rural areas, and our lifeline for remotely located and economically challenged citizens, enable businesses to traverse sparcely 

populated land and provide access to scenic wonders. Our bridge 

serves—our State serves as a national bridge for connectivity. Just 

over 90—excuse me—just over 59 percent of the truck traffic using 

North Dakota’s highways does not either originate or terminate 

within the State. 

Moving on to page eight, essential service and agricultural natural resources and energy—a significant portion of the economy in 

our State is based on ag, energy production, and natural resource 

extraction. Governor Hoeven’s economic strategy has identified ag 

energy, advanced manufacturing, technology-based businesses, and 

tourism as growth industries, because North Dakota holds a competitive advantage in these areas. Ag is one sector of the economy 

where the United States has consistently run an international 

trade surplus, not a deficit. 

Apart from its value to the State, there’s a strong national interest ensuring that ag products and natural resources have the road 

network needed to deliver product to market, particularly export 

markets. North Dakota is a major contributor of energy production 

in the nation. We’re currently fourth in oil production and contain 

a large coal reserve. 

On page nine, I want to talk a little bit about avoiding complications or increases in regulatory requirements. We certainly support 

the Federal Highway Administration’s every counts initiative to 

streamline the project development process. However, any new 

statutory provisions that add requirements and regulations will 

add time to the program and project delivery and increase costs. 

Moving on to the last page, Senator, 10—page 10. Before closing, 

let me note that while we want a surface transportation authorization law, that’s good for North Dakota, enacted as soon as possible, 

without a reauthorization law, States and businesses are faced 

with operating under current program extensions. While we’re curVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00137 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
132 

rently operating under such an extension through the end of 2010, 

we suspect that some will say that any—that any next extension 

should be short. However, short extensions make program delivery 

less efficient and discourage investment by the private sector. So 

if there are extensions, they should be practical length and perhaps 

a year or even more, Senator. 

I want to say that transportation is a good investment. You 

know, in today’s society, surface transportation was built by our 

forefathers as an investment in our country. Today, that investment is taken for granted and everybody automatically expects a 

strong transportation network. Many people have invested in new 

forms of communication in their home and are spending more than 

ever on items such as cell phones and the internet. It’s interesting 

to make the comparison, it’s not unusual to pay $500 for a cell 

phone, but yet the average cost for transportation in a household 

is $109, so it’s interesting to say that—the whole point is that 

transportation is a good investment. 

In conclusion, Senator, it’s essential that Congress, through the 

reauthorization process, recognize that increased Federal investment in highways and surface transportation in rural States is and 

will remain important to the national interest. Citizens and businesses of our nation’s more populated areas, not only residents of 

rural America, benefit from a good transportation network in and 

across rural States like North Dakota. With such legislation, we 

will be equipped to address transportation issues in the highway 

23 corridor, as well as elsewhere in the State of North Dakota. 

And that concludes my formal statement, Senator and Congressman, and I’ll be willing to answer any questions that you may 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 

133 


58154.057
134 


58154.058
135 


58154.059
136 


58154.060
137 


58154.061
138 


58154.062
139 


58154.063
140 


58154.064
141 


58154.065
142 


58154.066
143 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Director Ziegler, for really an excellent statement. You know that a key reason I’m doing these hearings is to lay on the record the case that needs to be made for additional Federal investment in our transportation system in North 

Dakota. I’ve been told that if there are going to be any additions 

to funding, beyond the formula funding, if there’s not been a hearing and a hearing record established, that it is going to be very difficult to get any funding beyond formula funding. 


58154.067 58154.068
144 

And as you know in the last bill, we were very fortunate to get 

substantial funding beyond the formula for North Dakota, and of 

course that carried over into the stimulus bill, or the Recovery Act 

as it’s called. And so, we think it is very important to lay on the 

record, just as clearly as we can, the case that is to be made for 

additional Federal investment in these road and transportation 

systems. And I think you’ve done an excellent job here this morning of laying out the case just as clearly as we can make it. 

My intention is to go to Chairman Levings next, and then to the 

mayor, and then we’ll go to questions of all three members of the 

panel. 

Welcome, Chairman Levings. Thank you so much for being here 

and please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARCUS LEVINGS, CHAIRMAN, MANDAN, 

HIDATSA, ARIKARA NATION 

Mr. LEVINGS. Thank you, Chairman Conrad. My name is Marcus 

Dominick Levings, Eh-Bah-Dah-Gish, White Headed Eagle, and I 

am the elected Tribal Chairman of Three Affiliated Tribes of the 

Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. I would like to thank the honorable Chairman Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, and other distinguished officials for your visit to the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, and for this opportunity to testify before you today. I have 

previously provided Congressional testimony regarding the many 

issues that effect Fort Berthold, our enrolled members and every 

person who resides in and around the Fort Berthold Reservation. 

We would like to thank Chairman Conrad for his efforts in addressing an issue that is important to all of us who reside here, the 

promotion of economic growth and improving safety of our most 

travelled roadways in the North Dakota oil patch, highways 22 and 

23. 

As Chairman of the Three Affiliated Tribes and as a enrolled 

tribal member, I have witnessed the development of the Bakken 

Shale Oil Play and with it the possibility of increased economic 

wealth and opportunities to every resident of Western North Dakota, including the Three Affiliated Tribes and the Fort Berthold 

allottees. However, with those increased opportunities comes increased impact to our most important system of infrastructure, our 

roadways. The introduction of oil tankers, trucks, and other heavy 

equipment on our roadways has increased traffic numbers, increased the number of road fatalities, and severely decimated road 

conditions to the point where all roadways on the Fort Berthold 

Reservation are clearly overburdened and are in desperate need of 

upgrade. 

However, as today’s discussion is centered on State highways 22 

and 23, it must be clearly stated to this committee that these are 

not the only roads that have suffered with the increased oil activity. The tribal roadways of the Fort Berthold have been even more 

severely impacted by the development of oil and gas on Fort 

Berthold and the surrounding areas. The deteriorated conditions of 

the tribal roads are beginning to impact the ability of all our people, enrolled members and others, to safely travel even in the best 

of weather conditions. 

145 

The Fort Berthold Reservation is criss-crossed with a complex 

web of different road types, and with even more complex jurisdictional web as to which governmental bodies policies, monitors, and 

ultimately responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of these 

roadways. In short, this creates a very complex problem that can 

only be addressed through cooperation by all the governmental bodies who ultimately share in the benefits of the increased economic 

development that has risen with oil and gas activity in the Bakken 

Shale. 

As the main throughways on the Fort Berthold Reservation, 

State Highways 22 and 23 have seen a steady and dramatic increase in both light and heavy traffic. According to a report in the 

Minot Daily News, the four-and-one-half mile stretch of highway 

from the Four Bears Bridge east to New Town area sees over 6,300 

vehicles daily. This roadway, along with Highway 22, serve as the 

main routes for tribal members and others to access employment, 

healthcare, food, fuel, recreation, and other basic services that are 

scarce in most areas of the reservation. 

The safe and improved conditions of these roadways are vital not 

only to the increased economic opportunities for the reservation, 

but are absolutely necessary to the improvement to the basic quality of life of our enrolled members. 

It is the position of Three Affiliated Tribes, and I believe this 

view is shared by other local communities, that Highways 22 and 

23 should be, at minimum, upgraded from a two-lane to a four-lane 

highway system. Further, State, County and Tribal law enforcement would work cooperatively to ensure traffic and load-restriction laws are complied with to ensure the highest level of public 

safety is property established and maintained. These improvements 

are vital, not only to the continued economic development of Fort 

Berthold and western North Dakota, but to ensure the residents of 

this area are sufficiently protected as the oil activity continues to 

increase for the next 15 to 20 years. 

Presently, the Fort Berthold Reservation has a multitude of different road types, that are classified by the governmental body responsible for maintenance and upkeep. Specifically, I’ve listed the 

roadways on Fort Berthold, and the tribe is directly responsible for 

maintenance and upkeep of a majority of these tribal roadways 

being directly impacted by the increased oil and gas activity on this 

area. Rural minor arterial roads, 141.2 miles, community residential streets, 28.7 miles, rural major connector roads, 191.5 miles, 

rural local roads, 729.5 miles, city minor arterial roads, 6.8 miles— 

total miles on Fort Berthold Reservation that we have to maintain 

is 1,097.7 miles. 

In addition to the tribal Indian reservation road inventory, with 

the BIA there are also 664.4 miles of county roads, 150 miles of 

State-owned roads that are located within the boundaries of the 

reservation that both members and nonmembers use for daily commutes. 

As I stated previously, the issue of roadway safety and the need 

for improved conditions is not limited to merely Highways 22 and 

23, but is a problem that all roadways on Fort Berthold Reservation face and will continue to face. 

146 

The Three Affiliated Tribes, BIA highway system is currently beyond its acceptable life span. The current tribal roadways were 

built with 2 inches of bituminous asphalt, in the decades of 1970’s 

and 1980’s. The engineers, at the time, were not aware of the future oil boom, and did not design the BIA road system to withstand 

the heavy amounts of truck traffic associated with an oil boom, and 

the lack of planning shows today. 

Present-day travel on our BIA route today can only prove to be 

very hazardous and expensive. It costs hundreds of thousands of 

dollars each construction season to keep up with the repairs of all 

of our paved routes and infrastructure. The highway system is so 

old that the roadbed begins to deteriorate immediately right on the 

other side of the patch job. Currently, the list of improvements and 

repair jobs exceeds the amount of revenue coming in. 

It is the goal of the Three Affiliated Tribes and our Tribal Road 

Department to keep our primitive gravel and our paved roads as 

safe as possible, despite the limited resources currently available to 

us. We understand and accept the responsibility of our road system, must handle the daily commute of multiple oil field trucks, 

daily school traffic, our elders, emergency and public safety services, and the daily commutes of all residents of the Fort Berthold 

Reservation as they move about in their daily lives. 

Currently, BIA Routes 12, 18, 6, 2, and 22 are in need of complete reconstruction and repaving to withstand the influx of oil 

field traffic, and the assurance of the safety of our school-aged children, our elders, and our emergency and law enforcement personnel. 

In total, the traveled roads require a minimum of 56.2 miles of 

reconstruction. Even with the dedication of a portion of the oil and 

gas tax revenues received by the Three Affiliated Tribes through 

our tax agreement with the State of North Dakota, our current IRR 

budget does not have enough money to reconstruct even a single 

route on Fort Berthold Reservation. 

The Three Affiliated Tribes is faced with a unique situation. 

While we welcome and encourage the development of tribal oil and 

gas resources, and yet must unfortunately welcome the devastating 

impacts to our already fragile and outdated roadway system. It is 

this issue that the tribes, as well as other communities in and 

around Fort Berthold Reservation, now address this committee in 

order to find a solution. 

Chairman Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, and other officials 

with us today, I would once again like to thank you for this opportunity to briefly speak to you regarding our collective issue, the 

safety and conditions of our roads. The ability to travel safely and 

securely is something that the Three Affiliated Tribes has continually strived for here on Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. The 

Three Affiliated Tribes, given our rural environment, recognize the 

need for safe and adequate road systems so our enrolled members 

can travel safely during their daily lives. 

We also recognize the need for an adequate road system so that 

the tribe, the Fort Berthold allottees and all of our enrolled members can benefit from the economic opportunities that stem from 

the Bakken shale oil field. 

147 

However, while we recognize and fully support this committee in 

its study, what can be done to improve State Highway 22 and 23, 

we cannot let this committee and the surrounding local communities overlook the simple fact that much of the continued oil and 

gas development in this area will also severely impact our travel 

roads. 

We respectfully remind and request this committee to review the 

need for improved and upgraded roads as a problem that requires 

solutions for all of our roadways, including the Bureau of Indian 

Affairs roads that the tribe is responsible for. 

It is simply unacceptable to ignore these non-State roads on the 

reservation when the economic benefit derived from the use of 

these roads benefits not only the Fort Berthold Reservation, but 

the surrounding communities, counties, and the entire State of 

North Dakota. 

Once again, on behalf of myself and the Three Affiliated Tribes, 

I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to testify to 

you today. I will be happy to try to answer any questions you may 

have. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Levings follows:] 

148 


58154.069
149 


58154.070
150 


58154.071
151 


58154.072
152 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

And next we’ll go the Mayor? Please proceed with your testimony 

and then we’ll go to questions of the whole panel. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DANIEL URAN, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW 

TOWN 

Mr. Uran. Good morning, and thank you, Senator Conrad and 

Representative Pomeroy and the Budget Committee for taking the 

time to hear our concerns today on Highway 23. When we talked 

about—when you guys brought up the chart a little bit ago about 

bringing back 2 dollars for every dollar or whatever, and investing 

in roads and safety, what’s one life worth? If we put a billion dollars into Highway 23 and we save one life, is that not worth it? 

The number of fatal accidents that have been happening in the 

New Town area and the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation has everybody concerned. You know, we’re losing loved ones, friends, relatives, neighbors—whatever amount of money we can put in to 

Highway 23 or all of our roads south of New Town, north of New 


58154.073
153 

Town—any of the highways, any of the county township roads, anything—if they can save one life, it’s worth it. 

Highway 23, which ids what we’re here talking about today—I 

don’t want to give away my age, but I can remember it, traveling 

to Minot on that road when I was a kid. It’s got to have been built 

in the 50’s or 60’s. I don’t know that there’s been a whole lot improvement done to it since that time, other than maybe repaving 

it once in a while. It’s, you know, built for the traffic of the 60’s. 

We’re in 2010. 

That highway, it runs right through the main street of New 

Town. New Town is fortunate enough where we’re looking at replacing—reconstructing Main Street in 2012. We’ve received a 

grant through the State—$2 million is Federal money, $200,000 is 

from the State. Without that $2 million from the Federal Government, we wouldn’t be even able to consider reconstructing Main 

Street, so it’s greatly appreciated. I mean, that shows how important Federal dollars are to our area. 

We probably can’t fit a four-lane through New Town or across 

the bridge, but we can probably fit three lanes, a turning lane, and 

that’s the plan that we have right now for reconstructing Main 

Street—is to put three lanes, a turning lane in the middle. The last 

traffic surveys warrant—show we warrant traffic lights, OK? Along 

with traffic lights come the $250,000 bill, per light. You know the 

project is about $3.6 million, so right now that’s just figuring two 

stoplights. So that, the city share is going to be $1.4 million that 

we have to come up with. But, we are trying to address that traffic 

problem in New Town. 

The traffic in New Town, right now, I’ve attached a map that 

shows the traffic surveys that have been done over the last—since 

2006. Traffic in New Town is up 27 percent, anywhere from 25 to— 

25 percent on each intersection. Since 2002, it’s up 53 percent. 

The truck traffic alone, just a couple of examples, the truck traffic is up 123 percent on—at West Avenue. It’s up 373 percent at 

Sioux Place since 2002. I mean, we have all kinds of concerns about 

pedestrians trying to get across the street; imagine trying to cross 

the street. I work at the school district, I go to the bank, I walk 

to the bank at least three times a week to make deposits and do 

banking business. Sometimes you can stand there 5, 10 minutes to 

get across the street. 

Luckily, we haven’t had any fatalities as far as pedestrians in 

the city of New Town—so far. But, you know, we’re addressing that 

problem. 

The city of New Town is also selling a lot of water to the oil field, 

you know, for frack jobs and what-not. I think, from January 

through May I figured out it was over a million and a half gallons 

a month that’s sold to the oil field. All of that is trucked, and most 

of that traffic goes down Highway 23, most of that truck traffic. 

And right now, we’re taking a portion of that revenue that we receive off the sale of water and we’re putting it away to help with 

the Main Street project, to help raise that $1.4 million. I mean, we 

feel that that’s part of the traffic problem, so we’re using part of 

that revenue to help fix the problem. 

The city continues to grow, the tribe is putting in a new health 

center up here. Along with it is going to come—I don’t know, I’ve 

154 

heard anywhere from 65 to 120 homes. We have another housing 

project planned for west of New Town—all of that’s going to add 

to the traffic that goes on Highway 23, you know? 

And they’re talking the Bakken field to be here the next 40 

years. Well, our highway is already 50 years outdated, what’s it 

going to be like in another 40 years? So, we need to invest in Highway 23, not only Highway 23, but Highway 22. My sister just came 

up from Dickenson yesterday and asked me if I had been on that 

highway. There’s big holes and what-not in there, she said, it’s 

unreal, the shape of that highway. 

Myself, I drove to Stanley the other day, there’s a 55 mile per 

hour speed limit on Highway 8, coming back, I was passed three 

times by semis. I had my cruise set on 55 miles an hour. I drove 

to Minot, here, Monday, July 5th. Between New Town and Plaza, 

I was passed 8 times—not by oil field traffic but just by holiday 

traffic, for the Fourth of July. There was twice, there was about 6 

of us in a row that had our cruise set on 55 miles an hour, there 

was twice that vehicles come around and passed all 6 of us at one 

time, you know? That’s an accident waiting to happen. And those 

types of things need to be addressed. 

So, I guess I would just like to say any Federal dollars that can 

come our way, that can save a lift, that can improve our roads, improve the safety for not only the residents of New Town and Fort 

Berthold Indian Reservation, and not only for those that live along 

Highway 23, but any tourist or anybody who travels through on 

Highway 23, we don’t want to lose that life. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Uran follows:] 

155 


58154.074
156 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you very much. Excellent testimony. 

Let me just ask you, Mayor, we have some in our society now 

who say the Federal Government’s got a dramatically cut back proVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00162 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.075 58154.076
157 

grams like this one. What would your response be to that? What 

would be the result? 

Mr. URAN. I understand, you know, living under a budget, but 

I also understand that when there’s a dire need, you have to address it. And I think there’s a dire need, here, I don’t believe that 

we can put this off any longer. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Levings, what would you say to those 

people who might be listening or reading this testimony and they’re 

of the belief the Federal Government should cut this program dramatically? Federal Highway transportation dollars, specifically. 

Mr. LEVINGS. Chairman Conrad and Congressman Pomeroy, respectively, all audience members, as a lifetime resident of Fort 

Berthold, since May 1966 I’ve been living here. There was only a 

year and 9 months I moved away to go to work in Oregon. And I’ve 

never seen such congestion, I’ve never seen such Grand Central 

Station, I’ve never seen so much activity. 

Four Bears is where I grew up—western part of the reservation, 

right on the reservation line, actually, where the Wells-Levings 

Homestead is at. And I lived there from day one. It was a fourwalled, frame home from Beaver Creek, south of the reservation 

after the flood of our homelands, Alba Woods, North Dakota. And 

we moved out here and relocated up on hilltops—no running water, 

no road, no electricity, nothing. Coal and water were hauled to heat 

the home and the water came from the Little Swallow Spring 

across Highway 23, there, and it was by team horse. These were 

the times that my parents and my grandparents lived. 

So, then to live that life, as well, my father raised us there. I 

didn’t have running water until August of 2005. I’m 44 years old, 

so 39 years, I hauled water. So, I kind of have an opportunity to 

see what the hardships are of our hearty people of the Mandan 

Hadats and Arikaras, as well as western North Dakotans—as all 

North Dakotans go. You all went through that. 

Today, with this traffic boon that we’re dealing with, I think this 

is the second or third one for western North Dakota. Today, there 

is just a fear factor, now, as the Mayor has spoken of. In August 

2009, I and the new town partial Mayors—Watford City Mayor, 

Minot Mayor, Stanley Mayor, Williston Mayor, Killer Mayor got together and we had a press conference at the tribal headquarters— 

live on KMHA 91.3 and we talked about a four-lane on 23 and 22. 

So, about 12 months ago, we addressed this because we were losing too many lives. There was accidents, and more accidents. July 

1997, my brother was killed on Highway 23. And he wasn’t a driver, he was a passenger. And it was devastating to my mother, 

Rosalda Dwa Grady Wells, and my father, Marcus Wells, Sr. So, 

I know full well what Dan was speaking of, as Congressman Pomeroy was speaking of. 

That was before this boom. At that time there was a tail end of 

the 80’s and 90’s oil boom. Today, it is very, very dangerous to 

drive 23. I had a weed and seed meeting, right here, in this 

Arikara Room of the Four Bears Casino Lodge with the DOJ attorneys, three of them—Claire Hawkhalter, Rick Volk, and I can’t remember the third one—Lynn Hyme, I think. We were all here and 

we were talking about the traffic. And they said, ‘‘Chairman, we 

don’t even drive 23. We’re going to go back out 22 and go back 

158 

down to Dickenson and go back to Bismarck.’’ They know the statistics. They know the fatalities as Congressman Pomeroy was alluding to, those crosses that were put on those 23 line and 22. And 

that’s where they drove out. Now, if those are Federal attorneys, 

they know where to stay away from, the concern of the narrowness. 

The rumble strips—now the road is narrower. Do you think 

about that? So, it’s a good thing, it wakes you up a little bit, but 

now you’ve got to, you know, navigate a narrower strip on each 

side, because there’s one in the middle, too. 

So, the four-lane, in August 2009, Chairman Conrad and Congressman Pomeroy is what we’re looking for on 23 and 22. When 

I went up to the Mount Churro County celebration last fall and the 

Williston Mayor cornered me, the Stanley Mayor corned me, too, 

and they said, ‘‘OK, Chairman Levings, you need to help me. You 

need to help both of us,’’ they said. ‘‘We need a four-lane on 1804 

to Williston, we need a four- lane on number 8.’’ Because it’s all 

of us. And they know that we’re working as a team. The Three Affiliated Tribes, Tribal Business Council and the Administration, 

we’re working with everyone—the cities, the towns, the State, the 

counties—and our issue right now is, let’s work this through. And 

it shows—it shows. I mean, this group effort has expanded. We 

went and did that with the water, we went and did that with getting that supply to everyone, and that’s how we’re carrying forward 

on this infrastructure. 

We don’t think that working separately it can be tackled, because 

this is a Federal highway issue. Twenty percent of the fund comes 

from the State and 80 percent comes from the Federal Congress, 

and the White House, the ability. 

I think being here is a lot easier to understand. You can see 

photos in D.C., you can see photos in Bismarck, but when you actually drive these roads, it speaks for itself. 

I’ve got a picture, here, where there’s 9 trucks on the Four Bears 

bridge. Wow, that old bridge probably would have collapsed. And 

I used to drive that, all the time. And I’m an original resident of 

Dragsford Village, house 214, from Head Start through K to 12 

through New Town School Public District Number 1. I rode that 

bus. I remember how dangerous it was. Now, we’ve made strides 

on that, now we just need to expand. 

Talking about 22, the Mayor mentioned 22. It’s called an obstacle 

course, really. The speed limit goes down to 45. And there’s a little 

jump, by Beardon, it’s actually like a little roller coaster, and you 

just hack it, you know? And then you’ve got to look behind you, too, 

because a truck is trying to pass you while you’re trying to go 

through that obstacle course. So, it is very, very dangerous. 

In fact, at our groundbreaking for the fiberoptic with RTC which 

our Congressional delegation helped us receive $21.9 million, I told 

the story, and I’ll tell it again. On 22, coming down from the top 

by Bergbears, going into Beardon, I was in front of an 18-wheeler, 

and there was a bar behind the 18-wheeler, and we were going 

down into Beardon and there was an 18-wheeler coming up with 

a white passenger truck and then an oil service truck coming up. 

Well, just as the Mayor alluded to, trying to pass six cars, well this 

passenger truck was going to pass a service truck and an 18-wheeler, and I and that 18-wheeler that were behind me seen it coming, 

159 

so we both got in the shoulder—literally got in the shoulder. And 

that truck didn’t even slow down, it just zoomed right between both 

of us. And that’s how close it was to having a head-on collision. 

And I’m the chairman of this tribe. And I was coming back from 

a funeral for a long-time realty officer for the Fort Berthold Agency 

and the funeral just concluded. So, that’s real. 

And, it was a long answer to a short question, Chairman Conrad, 

Congressman Pomeroy, but these are actual facts. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s a good answer, and an important answer. 

Let me just announce that they’ve just informed me that the air 

conditioning is not working, they’re working to fix it. I just invite 

anybody with a coat on, feel free to take a coat off. People who are 

standing in the back, there are some chairs up in front where 

you’re invited to come and sit so you don’t have to stand the whole 

time, there are chairs up in these first two rows for anybody who 

doesn’t want to have to stand. 

Let me go to you, Mr. Ziegler. What would you say to those who 

are saying Federal highway program should be cut substantially 

from where it is? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, Congressman Pomeroy, you know, 

our country’s economy took off in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s when we 

started putting out the interstate system. That’s when we create 

iconic activity in this country. That’s when we started saying, ‘‘You 

know what? We need to be able to move people across this country.’’ From the interstate system, after it was completed, obviously 

we need to look at the Federal highway system that connects to the 

interstate, and then from there, to the local highways that connect 

to the State highways. 

I think our country needs to continue its investment in infrastructure. If we don’t, we will potentially become a third-world 

country. When—I haven’t been there, but I’ve certainly heard stories about what’s happening in China and what’s happening in 

India, now, with their transportation systems. And with the infrastructure they’re putting into place, and it’s significantly above 

what America is doing. I think without that investment, our country is going to continue to fall backward from the economic power 

that we have been in this world. 

Speaking from more of a local perspective, I do understand the 

concerns of safety. And there are days, Mr. Chairman, Congressman Pomeroy, that we feel overwhelmed at the Department. Highway 22 got to the condition that it’s in because we’re working on 

Highway 85. And we had bad weather this spring, so the trucks 

has to be moved to Highway 22, or stop commerce. We knew we 

were going to have trouble. Walt Peterson, our District engineers, 

here, Jim Reading, our District Engineer from Minot are both here, 

as well as Grant Levi, our chief engineer. They’ve been working 

diligently to try to fix those potholes, but they get one fixed and 

a few trucks blow it up, again. 

But we have been planning. We have a contract in place; we had 

it in place months ago. But, this spring just took its toll on all our 

roads, we had a wet spring, we’ve had more water, as you know, 

in the State than ever before, and we have a contract with Knife 

River Construction who are going to fix those holes, and then do 

a heavy overlay. And it’s costing us. 

160 

We’re going to be increasing the contract significantly. On High- way 22, we’ll be spending $2 million more, and that’s all State 

money. It’s coming out of Walt’s budget, and he’s squirming a little 

bit about that, but we’re going to have to do it. 

Also, on Highway 73, we’re going to spend a million dollars more 

than the contract because of the breakups there, due to the oil industry. That is coming out of the Central Office maintenance budget. So, we’re working hard to keep the roads in good condition. 

What it’s going to take for our planning to be successful in the future is a long-term transportation bill that addresses the needs of 

the infrastructure, not only in the country, but right here in North 

Dakota. 

The CHAIRMAN. Director, let me ask you this question. In your 

testimony, you referred to your National organization as calling 

for—if I’m correct in my math, somewhere around $78 billion a 

year in funding. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. For transportation. As you know, the current Trust Fund provides $31 billion a year. So, if we kind of put this 

together, we have $78 billion a year in need, we have $31 billion 

a year in funding. We all know that we’ve got to deal with the deficit, because the debt is growing too rapidly and that threatens our 

long-term economic security. So, in the short term of this period of 

economic weakness, it’s been important for the Federal Government to run deficits, to give lift to the economy, to provide liquidity 

to prevent a collapse. We know, very soon, we have to pivot and 

begin focusing on bringing down this deficit and debt. Highway is 

not immune from that, transportation’s not immune from that, 

we’re going to have to deal with, over the medium-term and longerterm, bringing down this deficit and debt. That means it’s going to 

have to be paid for. And right now, we have $78 billion a year of 

need, identified by Mr. Ziegler and his colleagues across the country, and $31 billion a year in funding. That’s a $47 billion shortfall. 

So, somewhere, we’re going to have to come up with additional 

resources, and a lot of them. And I know, people say, ‘‘Well, we’ve 

got to improve the roads,’’ but where is the money going to come 

from? If people say, ‘‘No, you can’t raise revenue,’’ then the only alternative is going to be to cut spending, and if we cut spending on 

roads from what we’re already doing, which is insufficient, I think 

you can think for yourself what the result will be. 

I mean, these are hard facts. This is reality. You know, the best 

thing in the world would be for us to believe we didn’t have to do 

anything—don’t have to cut spending, don’t have to raise revenue, 

but that’s not real. We can see, right here, we’ve got a State need 

that is also a national need. We’re not just asking on behalf of 

North Dakota. Yes, we get $2 back for every dollar we send Washington in transportation, but we are part of a national network. 

And this energy play is part of a—has a national benefit, because 

we are helping reduce our dependence on foreign oil. And we’re 

spending a billion dollars a day buying foreign oil. And that money 

is going to place where we don’t have a lot of friends. So, it makes 

no sense to continue this policy of sending a billion dollars a day 

to Venezuela, to Saudi Arabia, and the rest—Kuwait. How much 

better off would we be if that money stayed home? 

161 

But, we’re not going to produce more energy here unless we have 

the transportation network to help us do it. And if we’re going to 

have the transportation system that is needed to help us with this 

energy development, it’s going to cost money. And we don’t have 

the money, right now, to finance what’s already being done, much 

less to do anything more. And the testimony—the very clear testimony that has been here today that we’re going to need to do more. 

Is that fair to say, Director Ziegler? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is a fair statement. A very fair statement. 

The CHAIRMAN. Chairman Levings? What is your reaction to 

that? 

Mr. LEVINGS. I think—Chairman Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy—that being here, driving the road, stopping at intersection, 

trying to get on 23, trying to get on 22, trying to get on number 

8, trying to get on 1804, 37—as you go across the reservation, it 

is here. So, our focus, I think, as our task force started this initiative in August of 2009 was, let’s get 22 and 24 a four-lane. I heard 

the Mayor say it, and I heard Congressman Pomeroy say it—you 

can’t really put a value on a life. While we have a few members 

in the audience, here, who have lost lives this last year, and my 

condolences still go out to them and wipe their tears, because we 

need to prevent that. 

We know, you know, the divided highway with the four-lane will 

probably have a different speed limit. However, it will do a good 

job of trying to prevent those head-on scrapes and head-on collisions. We just had one yesterday, I don’t know if Mr. Ziegler told 

you that, Chairman Conrad and Mr. Pomeroy. That’s what happened. And it was roughly around 6 p.m. last night. So, that was 

over here on 23 in Partial. And so, I mean, that’s No. 8, there. 

So, it’s real—or, 37, excuse me. And it’s never going to go away 

because we’re just getting started. So, I commend our Congressional delegation for getting this Federal Lands cap off the oil and 

gas development, now we just need to deal with the progress, is to 

take care of the infrastructure needs, because without this oil and 

gas development, our tribe would still be in a different situation. 

So, we’re working with all of the needs. We have the Bureau 

routes and tribal routes, but I called Governor Hoeven myself on 

22, because I drove through that obstacle course, took pictures on 

my Blackberry, emailed them to Ryan Bernstein and they got the 

issue addressed. By July 15th, they’re going to get of those potholes 

filled in, and they’re going to get it all restriped and back in good 

condition. 

But that’s a temporary fix. It’s going to be like that a month 

down the road. We have Bureau routes, tribal routes that are connected. We all need to have the same effort but again, the Federal 

highways having a heck of a time on their heavy highway—now 

imagine the tribe. We’ve got car and pickup traffic conditions, 

truck, compactions when they buildup these roads. Basically, our 

tribal roads were old cow trails. And then they just put a little bit 

of gravel on them and they kind of built them up, and then they 

put, you know, some mix on some of them. 

So, now imagine having 18-wheelers across that. All of our roads 

were built for pickups and cars and maybe a bus or two, but we 

also have ag. This picture I showed you with these 8 trucks on the 

162 

Four Bears bridge was just 2 days ago. A lot of those trucks are 

ag. So, we’ve always had that. But the tribe and the Bureau routes, 

we need the funding, as well. 

So, the IRR program as Kurt Wells has put together for us, we 

need that, as well. And we want to work as a team, we want to 

get this worked out in a team effort, because what’s good for Fort 

Berthold is good for everybody. As I said earlier, about the water, 

well, we did that in healthcare, too. And it’s with the Congressional 

delegation’s assistance. We want to be working through a constructive effort versus, ‘‘Well, we’re going to be over here and we’re 

going to do our own thing,’’ well, we can’t afford that. Every year, 

I think, we put in over $2 million on maintenance and that’s over 

and above the general contract. So, that’s General Fund money. 

That’s revenue made out of the casino, lease income, other areas. 

That could be going to services to our people, while we’re putting 

them on the roads. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Mr. LEVINGS. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pomeroy. 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I think that you’ve elicited the key 

facts for the record. I would just—I just go back and circled some 

of those that I pulled out of the Commissioner’s testimony. 

59 percent of truck traffic neither originates nor ends in North 

Dakota. Thirty percent of ag crops grown here are exported, and 

I bet we’ve got a number of commodities where the figures would 

be substantially higher than that. 

Farm to market roads, the interstate, the network of roads critical to our ag export dimension benefits to the entire country. Energy production, we all know that story, one that’s unfolding and 

is going to have a multi-decade dimension to our contribution to 

the Nation’s energy supply. And then the final one, and one I think 

that we need to talk about a lot more in framing this issue—North 

Dakotans are paying way more than the national average, relative 

to highway taxes, highway taxes per miles driven, you live in a 

rural area, you drive more miles, you pump more gas, you pay 

more money. So, our per capita contribution of $161, compared to 

the National average, $109, really puts some balance into this 

donor/donee argument that we’re on the receiving end, we’re paying 

50 percent higher gas taxes out here. We’re doing our part. 

And, Mr. Chairman, thank you for this—and I want to thank the 

panel members for their excellent testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. Any other final thought any of the other panel 

members would want to make before we go to the next panel? Director Ziegler? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Just one, Mr. Chairman, in that—and I know I’ve 

talked about it a lot in my testimony, but if we understand the— 

a new transportation bill may take some time, we understand that. 

We understand the reality of that, as you have said. We ask, 

though, that for our planning purposes that if we have to work 

with continuing resolutions that we get at least a year—if not 18 

months—so that we can continue planning out ahead. Because as 

you know, from an environmental perspective, it takes time to create projects and move earth and put down pavement. It takes time. 

163 

And so, if we know where we stand, we can plan, and pick the 

highest priorities and make those happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Very important—very good thought. 

Mr. ZIEGLER [continuing]. For the opportunity to be before you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. And you, Mr. Pomeroy. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mayor? 

Mr. URAN. Just to add, when you’re talking about what we pay 

in highway taxes, what about the royalty income that the U.S. Government gets out of all of this core land that’s flooded that goes 

back into the Federal Government? I know, 25 percent of that, the 

Federal Government keeps. Seventy-five percent comes back to the 

State, through the State, to the counties and the school districts. 

The leasing alone, New Town School District—I worked for the New Town School District—our cut was $22 million. And that’s just 

a cut of that 75 percent—of that 75 percent, 25 percent goes back 

to the—or, 25 percent of that goes to the county, 25 percent to the 

townships and 50 percent to the school districts, and that’s all of 

the school districts in Montrail County and New Town School District has about 50 percent of the students in Montrail County, so 

our cut was like—well, actually, it didn’t go by student, it went by 

acres, we have like 42,000 acres under there. Our share was 22 

million. The Federal Government kept 25 percent of that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say, when I make this argument to my colleagues, they say, ‘‘Kent, North Dakota gets $1.70 back for 

every dollar you send Washington.’’ I’m talking, in total, now. So, 

we are a huge recipient State of Federal money. We get far more 

Federal money into the State than tax money we send Washington. 

And so, we’re depending on the year, fourth, fifth, or sixth in terms 

of return out of all 50 States, in terms of getting more Federal 

money into the State than we send. And that’s from all sources 

combined. 

So, let me just say, as your representative, our colleagues are 

saying to us, and saying to us increasingly, ‘‘Hey, your State gets 

a lot more Federal money than you send in tax dollars. And, you 

know, now you’re down making an argument for more?’’ I am. Because I think we’ve got a good case to make. We are participating 

in securing the energy future for the country, and of course we are 

the food supply—not only for our country but for much of the rest 

of the world. And you’ve got to have a transportation system to be 

able to do those things. 

But I just want you to know and people in North Dakota need 

to know, the argument my colleagues make to me is, ‘‘Gee, your 

State gets a lot more Federal money than you contribute in taxpayer dollars to the expenses of the Federal Government, you’re 

getting a pretty good deal already.’’ That’s the argument they make 

to me. And, you know, we have to acknowledge that fact and then 

make the case on why these funds are required. 

I want to thank—to stay on time, we need to go to the next 

panel. I want to thank this group of witnesses. Thank you, you’ve 

been excellent, you’ve helped us make what, I think, will be a very 

strong record. Next, I’ll call on State Representative Kenton 

164 

Onstad and Trustland Oilfield Service President Steve Kelly for the 

second. As they’re coming, I want to acknowledge Senator Warner 

is here. 

Senator Warner, won’t you stand and be recognized. Thank you 

for being here, Senator Warner. 

Representative Conrad, I especially like that name, won’t you 

stand, please? Thank you for being here. 

As the second panel is being seated, I want to just repeat for 

those who are here why we are doing this. We are having an official hearing, where a record is kept, so that we can make a case 

to our colleagues on why additional funding is needed in North Dakota because of the energy activity and the agricultural activity, 

primarily, although we also have growing tourism, for additional 

investments in the transportation system above and beyond the 

funding that is provided via a formula. So, that is the reason that 

we’re doing this. 

I want to welcome Representative Onstad and I want to recommend, also welcome Steve Kelly, the Manager and the Owner of 

Trustland Oilfield. 

Good to have you here. Kenton, why don’t you proceed? And if 

you’d grab the microphone to have it in front of you so our stenographer can get all of your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. KENTON ONSTAD, DISTRICT 4 REPRESENTATIVE, NORTH DAKOTA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

Mr. ONSTAD. Good morning, Senator Conrad and Congressman 

Pomeroy and welcome to District 4. You acknowledged my running 

mate, Senator John Warner, but I also want to acknowledge Tom 

Conklin is in the room, also. 

We’re here to talk about Highway 23 and need to point that all 

the—Highway 22, Highway 8, 1804—they’re really part of the 

whole investment part. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just stop you there, if I can, because 

while we have headlined this as Highway 23, we’re really interested, as Director Ziegler knows, in the entire network, here. That’s 

why we’ve done separate hearings in different parts of the State on 

the road network, we’re going to be doing another one tomorrow. 

Because we’re trying to build the case, not only for 23, but as we 

look at 23 and focus on that, because that’s the busiest road, here, 

that we’re looking at 22, we’re looking at 8, we’re looking at the 

tribal network—that all of these are part of the record that we’re 

building, here. 

Mr. ONSTAD. Great. The question is, is investing in Highway 23 

a prudent, wise investment? And I’ll say, absolutely. Addressing 

safety issues is very critical to this increased traffic. We need 

transportation investments to keep pace with current industry investments. North Dakota is sparsely populated—we’ve talked about 

that. We have the highest miles driven per capita in the Nation. 

And so that’s an added cost. When you look at this current area, 

we have to travel 70 to 100-plus miles to go to our major shopping 

areas—Minot, Williston, Dickenson, and Bismarck. So, Highway 23 

really is that connecting route to those areas, so it becomes a vital 

route to this region. 

165 

Agriculture is our No. 1 industry, and I suspect that will stay, 

but recent oil and gas developments in the region is emerging, 

along with recreation. Each of these industries are highly dependent on Highway 23, they’re highly dependent on trucking. All of 

those industries—and the highway system is there to promote moving of produce, moving of products, but it’s also movement of people. 

When we look at the demographics of 23, and it was pointed out 

on the one map, it’s only one of two major highways that run east 

and west north of the Missouri River—one of two. And we refer to 

Highway 2, that’s a four-lane highway. Where Highway 23 is just 

single. And it’s also only one of two major crossings across the Missouri River, and that connects us to the Dickenson area, southwest 

North Dakota, through Four Bears Bridge. Other than that, the 

Garrison Dam. So, we have a situation of location that’s really important to look at our highway system. 

We have to look at recreation in this area. We look at our recreational sites of Van Hook, Partial Bay, Pouch Point, New Town 

Marina, Four Bears Marina—all of those are dependent on Highway 23. On any given weekend, you have to note the population. 

On any given weekend at these recreational sites, it more than 

doubles a population of Montreau County of 7,000 people. Those 

people are looking for houses in lots, and they’re making investments in those recreational sites. And it’s important that we, in 

turn, increase our investments in Highway 23 to pay a large part 

of that. They’re a large part of our economy, the State’s economy. 

So, now we have to look at oil and gas development. Oil and gas 

is completely dependent on trucking. We’re not talking pickups and 

cars, we’re talking heavy, heavy trucks. Tankers, rigs, those movements all are huge and very damaging to our system. 

Let’s take one well site, one rig. One rig can drill about 10 to 12 

wells in a year, but to set up that rig, take it down, dismantle it, 

we’re talking 1,000 truckloads into that one site. 

Take the hydraulic fracking techniques that’s needed. They’ll 

need as much as 900,000 gallons to as high as 2.3 million to complete one fracking job on that rig. One tank alone, about 6,000 gallons, you’re looking at 150 to 400 truckloads into that one well site, 

plus the 1,000 that’s already mentioned at that point. Now, that’s 

just one well. 

We currently have over 60 rigs working in this area, over 100 in 

all of western North Dakota, but 60 in this alone. So, you add that 

up, we’re talking now, in the next year, 700,000 truckloads to move 

in and out, establish these wells, we’re looking at 200,000-plus 

loads of water that’s going to be hauled to these well sites, we’re 

now putting us over 1 million, or close to, miles or truckloads a 

year traveling across our roads. 

Our highways were not designed for that kind of traffic. The 

interstate highway system is the only system designed to handle 

that. Again, remember, 22, 23, Highway 8—we’re only a two-lane 

highway. The interstate’s four-lane, along with Highway 2. 

So, where do these tankers get their water? Well, they’re going 

to come out of the communities, the majority out of New Town and 

Partial. That’s putting an additional strain on their own road system within those communities. And they’re going to travel right 

166 

down Highway 23. That’s going to tributary out into our county 

and township roads, and you can see the destruction that 23 is 

having, the added destruction is happened to our county and township roads. 

Now, this isn’t just short term. We talked about earlier, mentioned earlier, we’re looking at 15 to 20 year of drilling. We’re looking at 10,000, probably, to 15,000 wells being drilled in western 

North Dakota. Current technology, if it keeps improving, who 

knows where that is going to lead to in the future. As this thing 

expands, it’s going to be here awhile, so we significantly need that 

investment. 

Francis Ziegler, the Director of DOT provided a lot of statistical 

data for the highway and I’ve added that to my comments, and you 

can see from 2006 to 2009, it’s been a pretty stead increase. That 

increase in those last 3 years—just in the last year—has doubled 

that increase in the last 3 years. If you’ll note in those, I–94, the 

traffic in I–94. Highway 23 now is higher than I–94 from Bismarck 

to Dickenson, by their account. 

A local engineering firm, Aquinescefold, has had account of over 

9,000 vehicles right downtown New Town. Over 9,000 vehicles. And 

most of that is truck traffic—heavy truck traffic. I can’t emphasize 

that enough, about that portion of that. 

And so this increased traffic, that leads to our safety concerns. 

Highway 23 has no turning lanes. We have no shoulder, to speak 

of, on these roads. Traveling up any of these hills, you’ll notice on 

major highways you’ll have a truck route, we do not have that. If 

you look at our intersections, a lot of them are just below, or on 

top of a crest of a hill. These now become major intersections for 

oil traffic, residential traffic, and so on. That’s a concern. That’s 

where we’ve had our accidents. And it isn’t just a fender-bender, 

you’re talking deaths. It’s important to that point. 

It’s kind of looking like you can put—a 6-inch pipe will hold so 

much water. We’re trying to shove that same amount of water 

down a 1-inch hose. Everything gets speeded up, everything now 

becomes dangerous, and that’s where we’re at—we’re at a critical 

point, at that point. And so it’s really reflective of our situation, 

and we—the necessary and the point—we need to make those investments in our highway system. 

Speak of a situation just last week. We had a few rainy days, I’m 

on Highway 23, we have a stalled tanker truck. And he’s loaded. 

Because there’s no shoulder there, and what is left there is pretty 

wet, and he’s—he must be a veteran driver, he pulls over a little 

bit, but most of that truck is still sitting on the highway. Now, this 

would probably be OK if it was on a flat stretch, but it was right 

below the Crescent Hill, going up that hill. So, the safety concerns 

that we have because there’s no where for him to go, there’s no 

shoulder on that road for that particular person to pull off, to go 

around, you have oncoming traffic the way it is, that’s a safety 

thing. And we have about—in that short term that I sat there, 

there must have been 15 vehicles behind me, including trucks to 

pass that point. And that’s evident of the situation that we have. 

And so, to kind of come to conclusion, you know, 5 years ago, our 

current highway system could handle the agriculture economy of 

this area. But this current highway system is now limiting our 

167 

growth, not only for oil development, they’re making huge investments. The recreational areas are dependent on the road system, 

and those individuals are making investments out there, we need 

to, in turn, make the same investments in our highway system. 

And I again want to thank you for holding this Congressional 

hearing, and thank you for coming to hear our remarks, and—— 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Onstad follows:] 


58154.077
168 


58154.078
169 


58154.079
170 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you for that excellent testimony. 

And now we’ll go to Steve Kelly, Manager and Owner of 

Trustland Oilfield Services. 

Welcome, and please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE KELLY, PRESIDENT, TRUSTLAND 

OILFIELD SERVICES 

Mr. Kelly. Thank you, Senator Conrad and Mr. Pomeroy. Good 

morning to both of you, and thank you for providing me with this 


58154.080 58154.081 58154.082
171 

opportunity to provide testimony at this hearing in this very important matter. 

In the interest of full disclosure, I will say I was also—I’m a 

former attorney. I was the supervising attorney for the Northern 

Cheyenne tribes and the Three Affiliated Tribes for, combined, for 

over 10 years. 

So, I’ve had—and over those years, I’ve had numerous opportunities to write testimony for various tribal officials, so it’s nice to be 

able to write your own, and be able to testify. And especially about 

something that I am very excited about and very interested in as 

an owner, now, of a trucking company. I own Trustland Oilfield 

Services. That company provides trucking—we haul freshwater and 

disposal water, saltwater, and we also haul gravel and scoria. In 

that company we also have—I have 10 trucks that haul tankers, 

and then I have a winch truck and then we have 5 roustabout 

trucks, so we have people out on the road around Newtown and 

Mandaree and Partial and Stanley every day. 

I also own a company called Trustland Consultants, LLC. And 

that’s a land brokerage company, and I have field reps, about 5 of 

them that go out every day, and they’re also out on the road. 

Our shop is located 1 mile east of New Town, so we enter and 

exit off of 23 every day. And I would, personally, like to see the 

speed limit reduced to 45 past my shop, because I know we’re going 

to get rearended making that right-hand turn into that—onto that 

road. And I’d also like to see a turn lane there. 

I figure that we, right now, I have had, in the last 2 months at 

least 5 trucks go 24/7 for the last 60 days, except for 3 days within 

that period. I estimate that my trucks will put, in the roustabout 

truck, 700,000 miles on Highway 23 and the surrounding roads 

this year alone, and I only have 10 trucks—I’m a small operator. 

OK? 

I don’t know how many more miles—I have calculated how many 

more miles my field reps will put on, but they will—they certainly 

put on their share of miles. 

So, as an owner, when I was asked to testify, I immediately said 

yes. Because safety on these roads is paramount for me, as an 

owner of a trucking company. I cringe, at night, when I get a call 

after 10 thinking that one of my trucks might have run into somebody or somebody might have run into one of my trucks. Either 

way, it doesn’t matter, because I own a truck, you’re always, seem 

to me, the bad guy in that situation. 

And as a member of the Three Affiliated Tribes, a proud member, I also have a lot of family. So, there just about can’t be a wreck 

without me having a family member involved, or at least somebody 

I know. Again, when I sat down to write the testimony, I immediately recalled 7 traffic accidents that have occurred in the last 

two and a half years. Three of them occurred east of New Town, 

three of them occurred west of New Town, between New Town and 

the turnoff on North Dakota Highway 22. And then one occurred, 

it involved—I did get the call, I had my truck pusher, Esley Thornton, who’s also my cousin—got in an accident when there was real 

bad fog, he was driving down to get some tickets signed, and the 

line on BIA 14, past Mandaree, the center line disappeared, there 

was no center line. So, when he went to look for the shoulder, the 

172 

line on the shoulder of the road, he didn’t realize he was going 

around a corner, and I don’t think the other people did, either, because the fog was really bad, and they hit head-on, driver to driver. 

That was March 5th of 2010, he still is not back to work. And I 

don’t foresee him being back to work. He pulverized his hip, and 

I don’t see him being back to work until probably October 1 or 

later. So, these are the types of problem that we have to deal with 

and that we live with, here. 

With respect to the other six accidents, out of those six accidents, 

nine people were killed and three people were seriously injured. So, 

when we have accidents on these roads, they’re bad ones. And out 

of those six, obviously the one involving my employee involved an 

oil company—three of those were oil-related. And three of those accidents included family members of mine, and all of them included 

somebody I knew. So, we take this very seriously. 

OK, in listening to the testimony I think I agree with everything 

that everybody’s said, about—that we’ve outgrown this road. You 

know, when I sat down to analyze and take a look at and say, 

‘‘Well, you know, what would I—the one thing I would say about 

Highway 23, what would it be, and that is, ’Nice ditches.’ ’’ Because 

we don’t have anyplace to go. There is, virtually, mo shoulder. 

Coming up here today from Minot, my wife has a place in Minot, 

I have a place that I stay at because I work here all the time, down 

at Pouch Bay. There was, somebody got a flat tire on a trailer. 

Well, he—when he got off, he got off the highway completely, and 

he was on the grass. And if you go back to Minot, or head east 

today at all, take a look, and you’ll see where the State mows the 

grass so people can pull off, there, and do whatever they have to 

do. Trucks can’t do that. You know, trucks can’t do that—they can’t 

get completely off the road because the slope is too steep. Especially if you’re top-heavy, you’ll tip over. 

So, you know, at the very least, you know, tell Congress to give 

us a shoulder to—to lean on. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. KELLY. So, and you know, the other thing is, is people have 

to realize that we have to fight the elements, here, at any given 

moment, and we cannot predict when we’re going to get blinding 

rain, blinding snow—we had, I’ll bet you we had 90 days of fog between the middle of January and the end of March, early April, 

where we had 50 feet or less of visibility. It was terrible. And so 

you get scared, and my drivers get scared, I get scared driving, and 

you don’t know what to do. If you pull over, are you going to get 

hit from behind? You don’t have a shoulder to pull over on, there’s 

nothing there. And it’s just not—it’s just not 23, it’s 22, it’s 8, it’s 

1804, it’s that way everywhere. And honestly, I believe it’s a miracle that more people haven’t been killed on these roads. 

The other thing—my statement about nice ditches, really only 

applies to New Town and everything east of New Town. West of 

New Town there is no shoulder, absolutely none, and what you 

have there—they did some roadwork a couple of years ago, where 

they repaved the top of the road, and they didn’t go out to the end. 

And when they didn’t go out to the end, they put an abrupt edge 

on each side of the road. So now, if you go over, you’ve got to fight 

it to get back on, and a car, you can flip. If you’re on a truck and 

173 

a trailer, you’ll swerve that trailer over onto oncoming traffic to get 

back on. That’s very, very dangerous. That—from the casino to offreservation—and, by the way the road all of a sudden gets a shoulder once you get off reservation, I really don’t understand how that 

happened—it’s treacherous. It really is. And something needs to be 

done. 

Just the other day I was driving along and you could see where 

a truck got off on the shoulder, he couldn’t make it back, he ended 

up going down in the ditch—and by the way, the ditches on that 

side of the river are narrower, and they’re steeper. But, anyway, 

he got down in the ditch, and he ended up going over an approach. 

And he was high-centered. So, you know, we need shoulders on the 

road, all the way, you know, wider shoulders, 5-foot, 6-foot, whatever it is, you know, all the way along Highway 23 and every other 

road, at the very minimum. At the very minimum, and you need 

turn lanes, and you need passing lanes. The second-biggest problem on 23 that I can see and my drivers see is from New Town east 

to Highway 8, you’ve got all of those hills in between here and the 

Scenic. And if I had my druthers, I’d be no passing all the way. It’s 

already 55, but of course, you go back to 55 and everybody wants 

to pass. Well, that should be four-lane, as far as I’m concerned. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, you’re talking from—— 

Mr. KELLY. From New Town, east to Highway 8, to Stanley, the 

turnoff. Yeah, 7 miles. That’s treacherous road, too, and so that 

needs to be taken care of. 

You know, and the other thing, we have a lot of deer and every 

now and then we get horses and cows that wander, and there’s just 

no place to maneuver to avoid these animals, there’s not. And so 

that compounds the problem regarding the shoulders, as well. 

OK, so, of course, now that I’ve pointed out all of the problems, 

I want to recommend some solutions. You know, I got on the internet, took a look at your site, Senator, and I saw where you had 

some meetings on the 85 corridor, and I believe it might have been 

on—the other one on Highway 8, I’m not sure. But anyway, everyone’s vying for four-lane superhighways. I would not oppose that, 

obviously. But I know that, like you’ve pointed out, money’s short 

in Congress and so they’re looking for solutions. But I would say 

if you can do that, construction of four lanes from North Dakota 

23 from Partial west to Watford City, or the junction of North Dakota 22 would be the second alternative, construction of four lanes 

from the junction of North Dakota 23 and North Dakota 8 and 

Watford City, or the junction of North Dakota 22—that’s all warranted. I would really push for a four-lane—at the very minimum— 

four-lane from 8 to 22. Because, you know, another thing I wanted 

to mention, if we’re doing a frack job and we are hauling from New 

Town, west, and it is a Friday or Saturday night, I will not let my 

trucks haul after 10. Because between—there’s a bar located just 

out—just on the other side of the casino, a couple of miles, and 

there’s no shoulders and we’ve got heavy foot traffic between the 

casino and the Four Bears Village. So, I don’t let our trucks drive 

between 10 and 7 in the morning, normally, if we’re going back and 

forth. We will go to Watford City, or we will go to Killdeer, if it’s 

feasible for us to do that, if we can justify it with costs. 

174 

So, we really do need four lanes, and we need a pedestrian walkway from the casino to that Four Bears Village, we really need 

that. So, I am, you know, surprised that people have not been hit 

and killed by, not only trucks, but by cars, as well. 

And then I say on my fourth recommendation, if four lanes can 

not be constructed, many turn lanes and passing lanes need to be 

constructed along North Dakota 23 in terms of minimize the disruption of traffic in a lane. And I mentioned the walking path. 

And then six, oh, here’s another problem. North Dakota 22 where 

it meets 23, you have a little hill and you have a warning sign 

right before the hill, and you have a crest and you come down, and 

you have the rumble strips, and those help, I liked, Mr. Ziegler, 

what you said about the rumble strips, those do help. But, you 

know, if you have bad snow, or you have a lot of rain and a lot 

of thunder, or if people just fall asleep, they miss that stop sign, 

and they go right through 23. And there’s a little approach there, 

and then a field. What I would recommend is that we put some 

flashing red lights on both the warning for the stop, and the stop 

sign, so that—as another safety precaution to warn people to stop, 

and then I would also recommend putting a little landing pad on 

the other side of that approach. It’s—we have a lot of people who 

run that sign, and it is a safety hazard. 

OK, I hear a lot of statistics and figures being thrown around 

about fracking, and I, you know, and I agree with much of them— 

I think Representative Onstad’s figures are a little lower than 

mine. When we frack, we normally frack 50,000 barrels—not when 

we frack, but when we deliver to a frack site, we’ll deliver 50,000 

barrels. It normally takes us a week. It’s about 416 trips for a 

frack, OK? Now, that’s at 120 barrels a load, which is within the 

weight limits for the road. When you put on weight restrictions in 

the springtime, between March 1, generally, and June 1, that’s 90 

days where you have to haul 65 to 80 barrels. It costs that oil company 50 percent more to frack that well, for the hauling alone, OK? 

So, guess what? They want to wait until summer and fall to do it. 

Now, we have had over 120 wells drilled, a month, for the last 

three or 4 months, and we’ll probably have 100 a month drilled 

for—if the prices keep on going the way they are, for a very long 

time. Now, if I’ve got to—if I can’t frack during those months, 

guess when they’re getting fracked? They’re getting fracked in the 

summertime when they’re also drilling 120 wells, and you end up 

having to make, I’ve done the math on this, that would be 360 

fracks that you have to make up, OK? And 416 loads, I believe it’s 

about another 150,000 trips that you have to make up, when you’re 

already going 90 trying to do the fracks that they’ve already lined 

up. So, you have that extra stress on the roads that wouldn’t need 

to be there if our roads could withhold the normal weights. 

So, if we’re going to do some construction, let’s construct these 

roads so that we don’t have to have load restrictions in the springtime, OK? 

When the oil company’s shut down, that means I have to lay off 

drivers, and I’ve got to wait 90 days. They may stick around, they 

may not. And then I’ve got to turn around and get them again. 

There’s no stability, no continuity, and that’s not good for the economy here, for the oil companies, or for my company. So, if we’re 

175 

going to build roads, let’s rebuild the roads we have with sturdy 

roads. 

OK, the auxiliary roads. You can’t just build, you know Highway 

23, obviously, and ignore the rest. And I’m glad to hear that we’re 

talking about Highway 8, 1804, 85 and 23, as well. All of those 

serve the oil industry, right now. And, not only to, but Soda’s BIA 

2, which is down here south of the Mitza, south of New Town, BIA 

12 which goes through Mandaree, BIA 14 which is a south route 

down to McKinzee Bay and East Mandaree and then you have 

Highway 17, which is south of Highway 14. All of those roads are 

decimated—terrible. And we need more Federal money to fix those 

roads. 

I estimate—when you go across these roads, and you have potholes, and you have—I can’t think of the word I’m looking for, here, 

but—roads in bad repair where you’re shaking the heck out of your 

trucks, it costs you money. Any weld that you have on your truck 

or on your trailer to hold anything else that wasn’t there when you 

got it, it’s going to break sooner or later. And it costs you to replace 

that. 

Your air lines break and come undone. There’s a variety of other 

things that poor roads cost me. And I estimate, I spend probably 

2,000 a month fixing these little things. So, good roads would also 

save me money. So, that’s another reason, you know, I’m trying to 

just be altruistic, but it does provide us a savings, as well, as well 

as being safe. 

So, I would really like—I’m glad to hear you mention these BIA 

roads, because the tribe really does need money for those—for 

these roads, as well. 

Economic development along North Dakota 23—I’ve started another company where we are putting in water loadout facilities, 

three miles east of New Town. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just stop you there, if I can, because we 

are—we’re supposed to be taking off—— 

Mr. KELLY. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Or, I’m supposed to be taking off in 10 minutes, 

which I don’t think is going to happen, and I have another hearing 

in Devils Lake. I have read the rest of—just that final paragraph, 

and we know that issue is really separate from this hearing. 

Mr. KELLY. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, I think we should reserve that—we’re well 

aware of that issue, that’s the Corps and the water permits issue. 

Mr. KELLY. Yeah. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kelly follows:] 

176 


58154.051
177 


58154.052
178 


58154.053
179 


58154.054
180 


58154.055
181 

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Pomeroy and I and Senator Dorgan are very aware of that. 

Let me just say that it’s very apparent to me from the hearing 

today that not only do we have major issues with 23, we’ve got 

major issues with 22, 8, 1804, we have significant challenges with 

the Loop Road, in terms of reservation, 12, 14 and 17 on the reservation. 

We, of course, we know from an earlier hearing, serious challenges on 85. So, you put all of this together, this entire network 

is stressed, and it’s going to require additional dollars and some of 

the things have to be done urgently. I think, 23 we’ve heard in the 

testimony, Steve your excellent testimony, Kenton, your excellent 

testimony—these are things that need to be done urgently, because 

we’re talking about loss of life. And we’re having people have accidents, losing their lives, that’s happening right now. And so those 

are things that need to be address urgently. And we’ve certainly 

heard, I think, the case made as compellingly as it could be. 

Congressman Pomeroy? 


58154.056
182 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, sensitive to your time, and you 

have the gavel, I think we have had, just superb testimony. This 

panel was absolutely excellent, also, in terms of really putting kind 

of a—how this works when the rubber hits the road, literally, on 

the operation of business and the daily life experience here, so I 

found this to be very informative, and I think we’ve built a strong 

record, this morning. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much, and thank you for participating. 

One thing we should do, because I will be asked, you know, did 

I load the panel, or are the witnesses all in favor of doing something but the general population is not. Let me just ask, is there 

anybody here who opposes additional steps being taken to improve 

23, 22, 8, 1804, the BIA roads, 85—is anybody in opposition to 

highway improvements on this road network? 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Not a single hand is raised. Let me ask it the 

other way. How many here believe it is important that we have improvements to this road network? Let me just see a show of hands. 

[Show of hands.] 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. That’s about as clear as it can be. Let 

the record show that the overwhelming majority of hands were 

raised. I think the only ones that weren’t are people who aren’t in 

a position to vote because they are the administrators of the program here in North Dakota. All right, thank you very much. I 

think this is an important hearing. Hearing will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

183 


58154.314
184 


58154.315 58154.316
185 


58154.317 58154.318 58154.319
186 


58154.320 58154.321
187 


58154.322 58154.323
188 


58154.324 58154.325
189 


58154.326 58154.327
190 


58154.328 58154.329
191 


58154.330 58154.331
192 


58154.332 58154.333
193 


58154.334 58154.335
194 


58154.336 58154.337
195 


58154.338 58154.339
196 


58154.340 58154.341
197 


58154.342 58154.343
198 


58154.344 58154.345
199 


58154.346
(201) 

FIELD HEARING: DEVILS LAKE FLOODING 

DISASTER: HOW SHOULD THE FEDERAL 

GOVERNMENT RESPOND? 

THURSDAY, JULY 8, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Devils Lake, North Dakota 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m. in the Cafeteria of the Lake Region State College, Devils Lake, North Dakota, 

Hon. Kent Conrad, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everyone today to the hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. This is an official hearing of the committee, so we will be 

operating under the rules of the U.S. Senate, and an official record 

of this hearing is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is, ‘‘Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: How 

Should the Federal Government Respond?’’ I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. I am pleased to welcome 

Governor Hoeven, he is on his way, I’m told, and we will recognize 

him when he arrives. 

We will have two panels of witnesses today. The Acting State Engineer of the Water Commission, Todd Sando; and the Director of 

North Dakota’s Department of Transportation, Francis Ziegler; and 

our good Mayor, Devils Lake City Mayor, Dick Johnson. 

Our second panel will include Spirit Lake Chairwoman, Myra 

Pearson, and I see Myra is here, welcome, good to have you here; 

Minnewaukan’s City Mayor Trish McQuoid, Trish—Trish is there, 

I see her. Yeah, it’s a challenge. Ramsey County Commissioner Joe 

Belford, I know Joe is there, good, and Devils Lake Basin Joint 

Water Resource Board Manager, Jeff Frith. Jeff is here, as well. 

Good. 

Each of you is on the front lines of this flood fight, and it is a 

fight that has grown even more urgent. Here are some of the headlines from North Dakota papers describing the disaster, ‘‘Tens of 

Thousands of Acres of Productive Farmland Have Been Flooded, 

and Hundreds of Homes Have Been Moved,’’ ‘‘The Transportation 

Network, Including The Roads and Rail Lines has Been Disrupted 

and the Local Economy Continues to be Affected.’’ 

202 

Here are NASA satellite photos showing the dramatic increase in 

the size of the lake between August 1984 and September of 2009. 

I might say that has had a—probably one of the greatest impacts 

on colleagues when they see this dramatic increase in the size of 

the lake. This lake, as I explained to my colleagues in Washington, 

is now four times the surface size of the District of Columbia, our 

Nation’s capital. 

Since 1992, Devils Lake has risen nearly 30 feet. Last year, 

alone, the lake rose more than 3.5 feet. Recent heavy rains have 

pushed it to record elevation this year. Devils Lake is now within 

6 feet of a level that would have an uncontrolled release out of the 

east end. Finding solutions to prevent an uncontrolled outflow is in 

everyone’s best interest, upstream and downstream. 

Tomorrow, I will be holding a hearing in Valley City to get their 

input, and to share with them the serious consequences of an uncontrolled release of water from the east end. Experts tell us that 

the wet cycle in the basin will likely continue for years, there’s no 

way to predict when a normal cycle of drier conditions will emerge, 

there is a 72 percent chance that the wet cycle will continue for 10 

years or more. Let me repeat that—a 72 percent chance that this 

wet cycle will continue for 10 years, or more. A 37 percent chance 

that it will continue for 30 years, and a 14 percent chance that it 

will continue for at least 60 years. 

Simulations show a substantial risk the lake will reach the spill 

elevation of 1458 feet—that is only six feet from where the lake is 

today. An uncontrolled outflow would cause significant damage 

downstream. The cities of Valley City and Lisbon would be devVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00208 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.390
203 

astated by flooding, and drinking water supplies would be wiped 

out if there was an uncontrolled outflow from the east end. 

When the flooding disaster began, we worked cooperatively on a 

three-pronged strategy—upper basin storage, protecting infrastructure, and the construction of an outlet. It is a strategy we pursued 

aggressively. 

We have successfully won over $700 million in Federal help that 

has been allocated, so far, to protect the region. To keep the road 

network intact, over $400 million has now been spent since 1995 

to raise roads and address the roads acting as dams. FEMA has 

spent $84 million since 1993 in repairing damage to public infrastructure caused by the rising lake and relocating threatened structures, and buying out Church’s Ferry. The Corps of Engineers has 

spent $200 million since 1993 on the levy, the evaluation of the 

Federal outlet, and other protective measures. HUD has provided 

more than $70 million, and more than $11 million since 1997 to 

mitigate damages. 

Here are some of the specific steps that have been taken by the 

Federal Government to be of assistance. The levy protecting Devils 

Lake has been raised three times. Without those raises, Devils 

Lake would, today, be underwater. More than 500 homes have been 

relocated through the National Flood Insurance Program. We secured a policy waiver, to allow roads to be raised before they’re inundated, and $70 million was provided to address roads acting as 

dams. 

A 300-cubic-feet per second Pelican Lake Federal outlet was approved, and initial funding secured. And the decision was made by 

State and local governments that they did not feel they could afford 

their cost-share, which would have been $72 million for that 

project. $9.2 million was provided for a new water supply for the 

city of Devils Lake and more than $4 million was provided to relocate Church’s Ferry and the BTR Farmer’s Cooperative Elevator. 

This Federal help has been important in mitigating the impact of 

flooding. But neither the Federal Government nor anybody else can 

control Mother Nature. 

Flooding has stayed, and grown, imposing more hardships. And 

I fully understand the frustration, the anger, and the anxiety with 

this ever-growing crisis and clearly, more needs to be done. 

The Federal Government has, and will continue to be a critical 

partner with us in responding to this crisis, but it’s clear, we’re in 

uncharted territory. 

So, what are the options, going forward? What additional steps 

can be taken? Should we continue to raise roads and the levy, relocate threatened structures, provide other infrastructure protection? 

For Minnewaukan, should permanent protection be built, or should 

residents and businesses be relocated? Should we focus on maximizing operation of the State outlet? Should we construct an eastend outlet and/or a control structure via the Jerusalem or the 

Tolna coulee? And, if so, how do we protect downstream residents? 

Should the Federal Government reexamine options for upper 

basin storage, and finally, should discharges out of the west end of 

the lake be enhanced, and if so, what are the best options to accomplish that? 

204 

So, those are options that are on the table, there are others, as 

well. We have asked the Corps of Engineers to examine the option 

of moving water west to the oil fields to provide water supply for 

fracking the oil fields and the development of the Bakken Formation, and so that option is also being examined. 

There are many options that must be considered, but there is no 

quick or easy solution, that’s the hard reality here; nothing is going 

to happen overnight. It will take time and it will take a coordinated effort and it will require close consultation and cooperation 

with downstream interests, because we know that even if we make 

a decision, if we get everybody to agree—the Federal Government, 

the State government, the local governments, they all agree—people still have the ability to go to court, and we have experienced 

what that can mean. So, we have to work hard, we have to work 

smart, and we have to work fast. 

Since the May Flood Summit, the working group has been convened with the Corps of Engineers put in the lead. The working 

group has representation from all of the representative—or, all of 

the relevant Federal agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Department of Transportation, USDA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the 

U.S. Geological Survey. The group’s final and full recommendations 

are expected by September 9th. I am particularly interested in 

hearing from our witnesses on where they think the working group 

should focus its attention and intend to share your input here 

today with the working group next week. 

I’m delighted that Colonel Price, the new head of the Corps of 

Engineers District Office in St. Paul is with us today, as is Judy 

Deharney, who—I always pronounce her name incorrectly. 

Deharney? I’m doing better. I always want to say Desharney. I 

don’t speak foreign languages very well. My French isn’t what it 

should be. But, we’re delighted that you’re here representing the 

working group, to listen and report back to them, as well. 

I’m also told that next Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, representatives of the working group will be here in town to meet with 

local leaders, county Commissioners, mayors, auditors, local emergency managers. This is one of several trips to the area that are 

planned by representatives of the working group, leading up to 

their final report in early September. The focus of this particular 

trip, as I understand it, will be on individual assistance, infrastructure, water level management, the levy, and Minnewaukan. There 

are other teams that are coming after this one to look at different 

aspects of the challenges that we confront. 

Again, we are delighted that Colonel Price, the new commander 

at St. Paul, is here. Colonel, maybe you could stand, we’d all get 

to know you. We’ve gotten to know Colonel Christianson very well 

over the years, I’m sure we’ll get to know you, as well. 

I understand Representative Ben Vigg is here, if you’ll put up 

your hand, Ben, in back. If there are other legislators here, if you’d 

just stand and identify yourself, we want to recognize any State 

legislators that are here. 

Ms. HECKERMAN. I’m Senator Joan Heckerman from District 23, 

we have the south side of the lake. 

205 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, good to see you, Joan. Didn’t see you there. 

Thank you very much. 

Mr. HASET. Kurt Haset from District 15, right here in Devils 

Lake. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir. Thank you for being here. 

Mr. ALKEE. Ed Alkee, Senator, District 13. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir, good to have you here. 

Any other State legislators? 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Let’s go now to the Governor. Before we do that, if I could, if we 

could just observe a moment of silence. As many of you know, we 

lost one of our best, Keenan Cooper, from Wahpeton, North Dakota, 

serving in the United States Army, was killed Monday in Afghanistan. We’d like to just observe a moment of silence in his memory, 

and in respect for what he did. 

[Moment of silence observed.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

We are delighted Governor Hoeven is here. Thank you so much 

for, once again, coming to the Devils Lake region to discuss these 

challenging issues. I appreciate very much your taking the time to 

be with us today. 

So, Governor Hoeven, why don’t you make your initial statement, 

then we’ll go to our panels, and hopefully you can stay with us during the whole hearing and have a chance to comment in conclusion, 

as well. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN, GOVERNOR, STATE OF 

NORTH DAKOTA 

Governor Hoeven. Thank you, Senator. Good to be with you, I appreciate you being here, and also very much appreciate the moment 

of silence for one of our soldiers. 

Whether it’s our National Guard, of course, we have Camp Grafton up here, or any branch of the service, our men and women in 

uniform are doing an amazing job. And we extend our condolences 

to the Cooper family and we thank Keenan Cooper for his service. 

It’s, again, good to have you up here. I’m dressed this way because we were out looking at the west side outlet, which is now 

running at 250 cubic feet per second. And some of you may want 

to get a look at that—that is a significant amount of water. And 

if you go about 7 miles west of Oberon and 1 mile south, there, 

that’s where the water actually comes from, the outlet into the 

Cheyenne. So, it’s about 7 miles west of Oberon, 1 mile south. 

Carl Dukeshire is the individual with the Water Commission 

who is overseeing the outlet operations, and if you call him, that’s 

probably the best way, if you want to take a look at it. But, it has 

been running at 250 cubic feet a second, now, since about a week 

ago Monday. 

You know, in terms of just, kind of, some opening comments, 

Senator, you know, this needs to be a Federal, State and local partnership to address the challenges, here, in the Lake Region. So, I 

appreciate the opportunity to be here, because it is truly going to 

take all of us working together—Federal, State and local partnership—to address this challenge. 

206 

And we need to get people working together, too. And by that, 

I mean, both in the upper basin and downstream. So, this communication effort is very, very important, because we need to get people working together as we work on this challenge. And that’s an 

ongoing communication challenge, and opportunity. 

Senator Conrad referred to it, but the approach is a three-part 

approach. Storing water in the upper basin, mitigation—which 

means building up roads and dikes in the region, and moving water 

out of the lake. 

First, in terms of water being stored in the upper basin. Devils 

Lake has increased in size from 1993 to the present from about 

49,000-acre feet, to I believe more than 180,000-acre feet. That’s 

well over 100,000-acre feet of storage. That lake, getting that much 

bigger, flooding land, is storing water. Right there in the lake, in 

the basin, we’re storing a huge amount of water in the upper basin. 

In addition, travel the area around the lake, to the north, to the 

west—all around the lake. There are a tremendous number of potholes, slooves, wetlands—there’s a tremendous amount of water 

stored in all of those wetlands. 

Now, some of the experts can quantify that for us, but the point 

I’m making is, there are hundreds of thousands of acre feet of 

water being stored in the basin. We are storing a tremendous 

amount of water in the upper basin, OK? 

Second, mitigation—building up roads and dikes. You, maybe, 

touched on some of those figures, Senator, but in terms of building 

up roads, and building up dikes, I mean, right now we are working 

on Highway 19, we are working on Highway 20, we are working 

in Highway 57 and we are even working on Highway 2. So, pretty 

much all of the highways in the region, we are building up. We are 

putting rip-rap along them, we are expanding them out with dirt 

to try to offset the wave action, both to reduce erosion, but also so 

that when cars drive on them, you feel safe. And, we’ve got all of 

the county roads, the township roads and everything else, right? 

So, there’s a tremendous effort on roads, and there’s a big effort 

on dikes—you see all of the dirt work going up. So there’s, I think, 

$650 million, plus. And somebody else can update that number if 

it’s not quite right, but I’m—there’s $650 million plus, between 

Federal, State and local putting dollars into mitigation. It’s a monumental effort, and it’s ongoing, right now. So, that’s the second 

part of the strategy. 

The third part of the strategy is moving water out of the lake. 

And that’s what I said, we were just up looking at that outlet. We 

are now moving 250 cubic feet a second out of the lake. That can 

move 6 to 8 inches off the lake, if we get the same amount in evaporation, now you’re getting somewhere between a foot and a foot 

and a half that we can take off the lake. 

But, to do that, and to take more water out, we need cooperation 

from the Corps, and from the EPA, right? So, both to continue to 

remove water from the west side, and increase it, which we can do, 

and to build a control structure and an outlet on the east side, we 

need cooperation from the Corps, and from EPA, and we need to 

continue to communicate with everybody both here in the upper 

basin, and downstream, that this is a controlled, managed way to 

address the problem. 

207 

But, we’re getting closer to the point where we can stabilize and 

hopefully even reduce the size of the lake, but it’s going to take 

some more work, here. It’s going to take all of us working together, 

it’s going to take the help and the cooperation of, like I say, the 

Corps and the EPA. And, as far as the sulfates, you know, for example, the case of Valley City, and I know you’re going to be down 

there tomorrow, Senator, we have already—through the State 

Water Commission—provided funding to help them build a new 

treatment plant which will have reverse osmosis to treat their 

water. So, actually, their water quality for the community—not 

only are we increasing their capacity, but it will improve the water 

quality, because it will have full RO—reverse osmosis—treatment. 

So, again, I’m just trying to bring that from a high level. We’ve 

got to do all three of these, we’ve got to move more water out of 

the lake, OK? That’s what we’re working to do. And like I say, 

when you take a look at it you realize, I mean, this is—it’s a huge 

lake. But when you go down to southwest of Oberon, there, you’ll 

see—we’re moving a lot of water, now. So, we’re getting closer. 

Now, we need to keep working, together, to get the job done. 

So, again, I thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to be here. 

And I know that you’re—this is a hearing and so you’ll be working 

with the witnesses, and I won’t do any questioning or anything 

during the hearing, but it’s good to be here with you, working with 

you, and to listen and maybe have some more comments at the 

end. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I appreciate it very much, Governor Hoeven, that 

you’re here. 

We’ll start with the Acting State Engineer of the State Water 

Commission, Todd Sando. 

Welcome, Todd. I’m delighted that you’re here. Please proceed 

with your testimony. Let me, before we begin, perhaps explain a 

bit more why a Budget Committee hearing. Anything that the 

working group comes back with in terms of recommendations will 

require Federal expenditure. And that means that we’re going to 

have to be able to convince colleagues to make those expenditures. 

And, typically, when large Federal expenditures are contemplated, 

hearings are held to lay down a record, to make a case, to justify 

those levels of expenditure. That’s what we’re here doing today. To 

lay down a formal record to justify the additional Federal expenditures that will be required to deal with the ongoing crisis in the 

Devils Lake basin. That’s the purpose of this hearing, today. 

Mr. Sando? 

Governor Hoeven. Senator, could I add one more comment before 

you get rolling, here? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Governor Hoeven. Mayor McQuoid’s here, and I also want to 

mention Minnewaukan, because they’re right there on the edge of 

the lake, and also super Byron Jerry is here, too. We have our 

Water Commission, so I want to mention Minnewaukan, as well, 

as part of this effort, we were up there, recently. But, we have our 

Water Commission people, and that’s led by both Mike Hall and 

Enray Morel with Emergency Management, working with the 

FEMA Section 22 Program and the community to figure out what 

208 

our options are. And also, we have now applied for funding assistance for the school, up to about $6 million, and we’re working with 

the superintendent on that. 

So, I just wanted to—that’s part of the overall effort, I should 

have mentioned that. 

The CHAIRMAN. No, I’m glad that you did, because again, it’s 

very, very important that we lay out, as clearly as we can, the financial needs that are connected to what is being done, and what 

needs to be done. 

Mr. SANDO. 

STATEMENT OF TODD SANDO, ACTING STATE ENGINEER, 

STATE WATER COMMISSION 

Mr. SANDO. Thank you, Senator. I do have six pages of testimony 

and I do have 25 copies, here, so I can submit that. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Very good. We appreciate that. 

Mr. SANDO. Six pages is going to take a little while to go 

through, I don’t know if you just want it summarized, or if—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, if you could summarize, that would be 

helpful. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. And then we’ll get into more of it as we go into 

the questioning. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. 

I won’t, you know, we’ve had a flood going on here for 17 years and $650 million have been spent, you know, protecting infrastructure, so I won’t go into all of the impacts that have taken place the 

last 17 years. 

As you know, Devils Lake is a 3800-square mile watershed, and 

one of the big things is, what’s happening at Devils Lake, we’ve entered into this wet cycle, and the amount of inflow, and the amount 

of precipitation has dramatically changed coming into Devils Lake. 

And in the testimony, one of the points that I wanted to make 

and it’s was, this wet cycle has changed the average inflow dramatically. From, previously, the inflow into Devils Lake from like 

the time period of 1950 to 1992, that 42-year period, the average 

inflow was 33,800-acre feet. So, 33,800. Now, in 1993, that’s when 

we got this big flood event that hit mostly the eastern half of the 

Devils Lake basin, we had 7 inches of rain and probably 35- 40 

inches of rain fell the whole summer of 1993, so that’s when the 

wet cycle really started. And since 1993 through this last year, the 

average inflow has changed from this 33,800—so, for this, the past 

16 years, now—it averages 243,700-acre feet. So, the inflow coming 

into the lake is 7 times greater than it had been for, you know, four 

decades. So, that’s that real dilemma, we’re in a very wet period, 

and that’s what the scientists and the scientific have been saying. 

And one of the points I have, wanted to make in the testimony, 

too, is related to this wet cycle, and how long it could last. Some 

experts say this wet cycle—National Weather Service, we did have 

a water topics legislative hearing up here a few weeks ago and we 

had National Weather Service here and the USGS. And they were 

talking about, they could see this wet cycle easily continuing for 

another 10 years, before it gets to the peak, and then it would still 

be wet and on the way down. 

209 

So, we’re on a real critical time period right now, and they think 

this wet cycle—the news they brought to that committee meeting 

was pretty dire, I mean, it wasn’t a very rosy picture they were 

painting, and they think we’re going to see lots of big events and 

lots of runoff for the coming years. So, that’s a major fear to have. 

Some of the issues, you know, the lake has come up so much 

since 1993, it was at 1442, and now it’s at 1452, so it’s 30 feet higher from 1993, the spring of 1993 to now. So, we’re—the real issue 

is we’re within 6 feet over overflow. The lake reached 1452 when 

we go this 3 to 4-inch rainfall a couple of weeks ago, and the natural outlet elevation is 1458, so we only have 6 feet to go. And 

that’s 6 feet that’s remaining, but the amount of storage in that 6 

feet is 1.3 million-acre feet of water. 

To put that into perspective, last year alone the inflow to Devils 

Lake was 590,000-acre feet. So, if we had a 2009 event, back to 

back, there would be enough inflow in those two events to get us 

to the overflow elevation. So, there’s a high risk that this lake— 

if we continue and have some of these big events—2009 is the biggest event, so 2009, at 590,000-acre feet, that’s the No. 1 inflow 

event in recorded time. But if we would have back-to-back, we 

would be there. 

Another thing to point out, when we only have 1.3 million acre 

feet of storage remaining, I know the city of Devils Lake and the 

Corps has been working on the levy raise, and they say about half 

of PMP or PMF event would produce a runoff event of 1.4 million 

acre feet. So, right now, the basin can not even handle the half 

problem, maximum precipitation. So, I wanted to point that out, 

and it’s well laid out in the testimony, too, so I wanted to make 

that point clear. 

USGS has done a lot of technical modeling for the Water Commission and for the Corps and for everyone. They’ve been, really, 

our technical expert on doing still castic modeling and seeing where 

the lake could go based on the past history. 

And Skip Veccia’s model points out there’s a 13 percent chance 

that the lake could spill in the next 20 years. That is a very high 

risk. Thirteen percent’s very high. And we can’t—we’ve really got 

to do something about it. 

And one of the things we’re doing is this outlet that we built. It’s 

250 CFS and they did model, to see what the benefit would be with 

this outlet. An outlet of 250 CFS, we could get 500-acre feet a day. 

If we could pump for 7 months out of the year, nonstop, we could 

get 100,000-acre feet out. So, if we could 100,000-acre feet a year 

out of the lake, over the long haul, actually, the computer models 

and the still castic model shows the risk being reduced by half for 

an overflow. We cannot eliminate the risk; the risk goes down to 

7 percent in the next 20 years. But it does reduce it in half. So the 

outlet does make—you know, reduces the risk a lot, but we still 

have the risk that it still could overwhelm us and still fill up and 

overflow. 

The CHAIRMAN. Did they do an analysis how much—what the 

discharge level would have to be to eliminate the risk? 

Mr. SANDO. We’ve—there has been some numbers, I just don’t— 

off the top of my head I don’t—it would—it would have to—it 

would take an awfully—— 

210 

The CHAIRMAN. I just—if it cuts it in half to be at 250 CFS for 

7 months, I’m wondering if you go to 500 CFS, if that would eliminate it? 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah, 500 wouldn’t eliminate it, I think it’s more I— 

this is not a factual number, but I would say more like, on the lines 

of 1,000 CFS, maybe we could get it down there. 

Skip Veccia and Bruce Englehart from my staff have been working on some numbers and trying to see how they could get it down 

to 1 percent. I don’t know, Mike Graftsguard, he might even know 

that, too, I’m not even sure. 

Do you know that there’s a way they could get it down to—because you—the city of Devils Lake was asking that question. If we 

could ask Mike, Mike might know that answer. 

Mr. GRAFTSGUARD. Senator, I don’t have the number off the top 

of my head. 

The CHAIRMAN. This is—for the purpose of the hearing record, 

Mike Graftsguard, the City Engineer. 

Mr. GRAFTSGUARD. I don’t have the number. Skip did do some 

modeling for that percentage. But to eliminate the risk would require very excessive discharges from the lake. But to minimize that 

risk, what we were kind of looking at is going to be that 1 percent 

chance, and it was still, you know, a large amount of discharge if 

there’s extremely wet cycles. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could get to us the calculations that have 

been made for the purposes of the hearing record, that would be 

helpful. 

Mr. GRAFTSGUARD. I will do that, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you, Mike. 

Back to Mr. Sando. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. That kind of sets the stage about the wet cycle 

and the risks and those types of things. 

Next point, we’ll talk about the State outlet, and some of the 

things that, you know, we could do to try—try and make some improvements. 

Some of the issues with the west end outlet—our biggest problem 

the last 5 years is water quality constraints of the Cheyenne River. 

And the water quality constraint was a sulfate standard of 450 mg/ 

liter. And so, until last year, we were trying to operate within that 

450 mg/liter. The problem with the Upper Cheyenne River, a lot of 

times the sulfate levels even exceed 450, in fact, there’s even measurements of 1600 mg/liter in the Cheyenne River. 

So, like, once we got the outlet up and operating, back a few 

years ago, for example, summer of 2006 came, and it was a hot 

summer, June was over 100 degrees several days in a row, the 

Upper Cheyenne River really got low, and basically dried up and 

the sulfate levels got extremely high, and in 2006, we couldn’t run 

the outlet at all, because there wasn’t water in the Cheyenne River 

to dilute Devils Lake water with. And we had these strict standards that, we couldn’t put water in there because of that 450 standard. And, so we went along with these issues with the 450 standard, and we couldn’t degredate the water quality by more than 15 

percent so, the first, you know, several years of operation we didn’t 

get much water out of the lake until last year, things really 

changed. We asked for an emergency rule change for the Upper 

211 

Cheyenne River and that would change the water quality constraints on the Upper Cheyenne, and what ended up taking place, 

just summarizing, there was an emergency rule put in place that 

we could go—raise the standard from a 450 mg/liter to 750 mg/ 

liter, and that would be from Bald Hill all the way through the 

Upper Cheyenne, past our point where we put the Devils Lake 

water in. 

So, at that point, once we got that 740, the water quality in Devils Lake at Round Lake has been, last year averaged between 550 

and 600 mg/liter. So, based on that, 550 to 600, we got the standard up to 750, we weren’t constrained at all at the insertion point, 

so we were able to run wide open. So, at this point, we were able 

to start the outlet and run it more, so we were able to run at our 

full capacity last year of 100 CFS. So, we were running at 100 

where the previous years we were averaging, sometimes, single digits, sometimes 10, sometime 20 CFS—rarely 100. Until we got that 

standard changed, and got that emergency rule in place, we didn’t 

move much water. 

So, July of last year, we started moving a lot of water, and we 

were able to move 100 CFS every single day, and that’s 200-acre 

feet a day and that’s really started making a difference. 

At that same point we got that emergency rule, we began the 

process of designing and upsizing the outlet from 100 CFS outlet, 

to 250 CFS outlet. So, we put the plans in place last summer and 

last fall and we actually constructed an upsizing to the outlet. We 

actually hired contractors, industrial builders and several other 

contractors and they worked all winter long, all spring long, and 

we got everything completed a week and a half ago. And that when 

we got the outlet up to 250 CFS. And that upsizing cost us another, 

like $14 million. The original outlet was, like, $26 million, so we 

have $40 million into the outlet. 

And now that we’re running at 250 CFS, now we’re getting 500- 

acre feet a day out. And if you get down to—go over by Oberon and 

go to the terminal structure and see what 250 looks like, it’s a lot 

of water. So, we are moving water, now. 

The CHAIRMAN. How would you describe it? What do you see 

there? 

Mr. SANDO. It looked like a river going out. It looked like a river 

going—it was like—it was a bigger river going into the Cheyenne 

River, because we have it go—flowing into an oxbow of the Cheyenne River, so there’s 250 there, and the actual Cheyenne River is 

probably around 100 CFS, so it’s even bigger. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it’s 2.5 times the Cheyenne. 

Mr. SANDO. Two and a half times the Cheyenne River size at 

that point. So, it looks like—it looks like we’re really moving water, 

now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. OK. 

Mr. SANDO. So, but now the issue, we still—we got this emergency rule from down to Bald Hill Dam, and the problem now is, 

the standard didn’t change from one mile downstream of Bald Hill 

Dam for the entire lower Cheyenne River because of beneficial use 

for municipal water supply needs, so the—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And that our issue of—— 

Mr. SANDO. That’s—— 

212 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. The ability of the Valley City structure to be able to treat the water. 

Mr. SANDO. Right, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. We’re going to have the new plant onstream next 

year? 

Mr. SANDO. I’m not sure of when it’s going to be complete. 

The CHAIRMAN. Because that will use reverse osmosis, that will 

be able to handle increased sulfate levels in the Cheyenne and we 

will—hopefully that will strengthen our case. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. It’s going to be membrane treatment process 

that will remove the sulfates. They’ll actually have even better 

water quality than they have been producing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Than they have right now. 

Mr. SANDO. Than they have right now, that’s correct. So, it would 

be—so they’re going to be upgrading their treatment plant. 

So, continuing on, this issue of downstream—as the water—the 

travel time, say, you know, we started this outlet here in July, 

back up, we had problems this year because of flooding downstream, we weren’t about to operate, plus we’re in the middle of 

upsizing the outlet that we didn’t start running until July. So we, 

the month of June we—well, we started running in June, excuse 

me, so we ran at 100 CFS for the month of June, and now we’re 

up to this 250. 

Travel time fro this Devils Lake water to work down the Upper 

Cheyenne to get to the head waters of Ashtabula is like 2 weeks, 

like 15 days. So, that water will be entering in to Lake Ashtabula 

at that point. 

The CHAIRMAN. The water that you’re releasing today will take 

2 weeks to get there? 

Mr. SANDO. Yes, that’s correct. So, we’ve been doing some extensive modeling with the USGS of trying to model, and we’ve collected a lot of data last year once we were able to start running 

at 100, and we monitored it as it moved down the Cheyenne River, 

and as it moved through Ashtabula, at several different road crossings, through Ashtabula. And some of the modeling results we’re 

seeing, it takes 45 to 60 days for the water to move through Ashtabula. It just doesn’t move—I mean it, so, it takes even longer, 

once it gets to the lake, the lake’s really, you know, it’s flat, it’s not 

current, you know, it’s—so it moves through that at a slower rate. 

So, we say it takes another 60 days for that water to buildup in 

Lake Ashtabula, and before it starts coming out Lake Ashtabula. 

The CHAIRMAN. How much additional capacity do we have in 

Lake Ashtabula? That is, in fact we were able to get even an enhanced discharge, either out of the west end, or the east end, or 

a combination of west and east end, because that’s also being examined. Having water—an enhanced outlet out of the west end as 

well as water out of the east end, is in—I know one of the things 

they’re looking at is Lake Ashtabula’s ability and capacity. What 

percentage of Lake Ashtabula’s capacity is realize at this moment, 

do you know? 

Mr. SANDO. Currently, Lake Ashtabula has a lot of store—I 

mean, they have spillway gates to that they can release the water, 

so what comes in can go out, too. So, you know, they operate within 

the conservation pool levels, that type of thing, so—and they do 

213 

have flood storage, so they—you know, the reservoir bounces up 

and down during spring runoffs and that type of stuff, so there’s 

plenty of capacity in Lake Ashtabula to deal with water coming 

from Devils Lake, is what I’m trying to say. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. SANDO. OK, so trying to paint this picture, as this water enters into Lake Ashtabula, how we’re going to operate the outlet as 

Lake Ashtabula’s sulfate levels rise, what happens, when the Devils Lake water starts getting in there and say the water quality in 

Lake Ashtabula is like—sulfates like 200 and starts building over 

the next month and the next month and the next. As it starts moving up toward that standard of 450, we’re going to have to throttle 

back and not release 250 CFS. And our model results show that 

this will happen most years, that we will not be able to run nonstop at 250 CFS, we’ll run into this water quality constraint. 

And we feel we can only run Lake Ashtabula up to about 400 mg/ 

liter sulfate, not all the way to the 450, because what happens— 

once we get this big, you know, 70,000-acre feet of water in Lake 

Ashtabula at this level, it’s going to be there for months on end, 

through the wintertime to meter out. 

So, what happens, when winter comes, we have ice forming on 

Lake Ashtabula, and what happens, it freezes all of the fresh 

water, so it concentrates—the dissolved solids are still there, so it 

concentrates it even more, so the water that was 400 mg/liter before the ice came now could be up to 450 mg/liter. 

So, that’s why this constraint—we’re getting constrained by 450 

standards, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. What would the 450 standard need to be in order 

to prevent us from having to throttle back on the amount of the 

discharge from the Devils Lake outlet that’s been constructed? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s a good question. Basically, I would need to be 

a number higher than what’s coming out of Brown Lake and Devils 

Lake. And that number, last year we averaged between 550 and 

600 mg/liter. So, if we could have—have a standard of 600 mg/liter, 

instead of the 450, then we wouldn’t be turning the outlet off and 

we would be able to keep moving water, 24 hours a day, nonstop. 

The CHAIRMAN. In Valley City, as I understand it, when their 

new plant comes on, they’d be able to handle a level of 600, on sulfates. 

Mr. SANDO. Oh yeah. They could handle much higher than that, 

even. 

The CHAIRMAN. Much higher. 

Mr. SANDO. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Lisbon’s not an issue because they don’t use 

water treatment. They use wells, is that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, Lisbon, not an issue. So, what, then, becomes 

the issue? What are we going to face in terms of an argument 

against going to a level of 600 on sulfates? 

Mr. SANDO. OK, as we go down, then there’s West Fargo, Fargo. 

Fargo, sometimes, in the Red River, when their numbers—sulfate 

levels in the Red River get high, they switch over to the supplemental water supply, and they take water off the Cheyenne River, 

so—— 

214 

The CHAIRMAN. But that’s their secondary source? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s their secondary, it’s not their primary source. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s not like—— 

Mr. SANDO. It’s not like Valley City, right. Where Valley City’s 

primary source is Cheyenne River water. Fargo’s is not the Cheyenne, they just use it. 

The CHAIRMAN. And how about West Fargo? 

Mr. SANDO. West Fargo, I’m not—off the top of my head, I’m 

not—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. They tell me West Fargo utilizes aquifers. 

Mr. SANDO. OK, yeah, it’s ground water, so that’s not—— 

The CHAIRMAN. They shouldn’t be a problem. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK? 

Mr. SANDO. So, now, say if we can get through there and get— 

have 600-standard and deal with the, you know, from municipal 

water supply and domestic use, the next issue is once it enters the 

Red River. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. SANDO. And the standard in the Red River is even more 

strict. It’s 250 mg/liter. And a lot of times, the baseline condition 

of the Red is even actually higher than that. So, now we’ve got 

other jurisdictions that we need to deal with, we need to deal with 

Minnesota EPA, a different region of EPA, because our region—the 

EPA is different from Minnesota. So, we’d have to work that angle, 

too, to get some relief on the standards on the Red River, too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Isn’t it in their interest to work with us? Because 

if there’s an uncontrolled release of water, if it comes out of the 

east end, then you’re talking 2500, 2600 sulfate level? 

Mr. SANDO. You’re—yeah, you’re exactly right on the money, 

there. That’s if, we continue on, down this path, we could have a 

release of very high-sulfate water. So, I think, it’s to the point now, 

it makes more sense to start putting out water that is at higher 

levels then we would need to try to get a variance and, you know, 

loosen these standards because it could be really nasty if it comes 

un—comes from the east end. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know what the level would need to be— 

we’ve talked about for between here and Valley City and Lisbon, 

we’ve got to get 600. Red River is 250. What would that have to 

go to, to permit us to have greater releases continuing from Devils 

Lake? 

Mr. SANDO. That gets a lot more complicated because we have 

a lot of tributary inflow, a lot of water coming from Minnesota, a 

lot of water coming from south of Fargo into there, so you wouldn’t 

have to go even close to that 600 number on the Red River, because 

there is a lot more water from dilution purposes that it’s fresher, 

so—— 

Just off the top of my—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Just notionally, would 350—? 

Mr. SANDO. I think that would help a lot, yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s one thing we really need to know. We 

need to get that number. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah, we can, yeah—work with the Health Department and try to get some better numbers on that, but—— 

215 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah, you know, we’ve just been working our way 

down the Cheyenne, and you know, we’ve had—our bigger roadblock’s Lake Ashtabula, right now, than the Red River. If we can’t 

get through Lake Ashtabula—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. SANDO [continuing]. It’s—— 

The CHAIRMAN. No, I understand. 

Mr. SANDO. No use in concentrating on that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. I understand. Well, that makes perfect 

sense. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. So, you know, the big thing is to try to reduce 

the water quality standards. The other I feel that we could really 

use some help on is permitting issues, NEPA compliance, whatever 

we end up doing. Say if we want to—say if we think we need to 

get another 100 CFS out, if it’s either out the east end. Each Devils 

Lake through Black Slew or some other location, or if it’s additional water out the west end, we’re going to need help with NEPA 

compliance and 404 jurisdiction and those type of things and permit issues. 

When we built the State outlets we did not acquire any of those 

types of permits. We avoided all wetland issues. It would be a lot 

better if we can, you know, get the permits and that would really 

make the engineering solution a lot easier. So, if we could get help 

from the Federal Government to expedite the process to get permits, if we want to try—upsize the west end, or it’s like, ‘‘Hey, we 

want to turn it into wintertime releases or to take some off the east 

end, we could use more help with the Federal Government on permit issues. 

I have a bunch of stuff, too, on Boundary Waters Treaty and 

dealing with Canada and that, and maybe I just won’t summarize 

it, since I’m taking up a lot of time right now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Let’s do this, Todd, because that part of 

it is really kind of the next stage of what we have to deal with. 

You know, frankly, one of our biggest challenges has been the Canadians. When we got approval for a Federal outlet, back in 2005, 

the biggest problem we had was with the Canadians, and frankly, 

Minnesota. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. Those were the two toughest hurdles we had. 

And so we know we’re going to have to deal with that, as well. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Anything you want to add on that? 

Mr. SANDO. I will just leave it at that, but yeah, that is a—that’s 

some—that’s another major hurdle, real tough, is State Department issues and dealing with. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, we had to meet with Condoleezza Rice 

at the time, who was Secretary of State because she was going to 

a meeting in Canada, and Canada was in very strong opposition to 

doing anything. That was very, very challenging. 

All right? 

Mr. SANDO. OK. So, then just to summarize, you know, relax the 

standards. One of the things we’d really like to see is, once this 

Federal task force completes its work that the Federal Government 

216 

needs to quickly fund implementation of those recommendations. 

So, if we can get additional Federal funding, you know, the State 

outlet was all State dollars and if we could get some funding to 

help us with the east end outlet or controlled structure combination 

type thing, over in that end, if we could get some help, too, if we 

need to try to move some more water off the west end. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s really why we’re doing this hearing today. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. So that we’re ready, we’ve laid the record, we’ve 

made the case if the decision is made. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK? 

Mr. SANDO. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sando follows:] 

217 


58154.149
218 


58154.150
219 


58154.151
220 


58154.152
221 


58154.153
222 


58154.154
223 


58154.256
224 


58154.257
225 


58154.258
226 


58154.259
227 


58154.260
228 

The CHAIRMAN. Francis Ziegler, our excellent Director of North 

Dakota Department of Transportation. Welcome. Good to be with 

you this morning in a new town, and good to be with you here 

today. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, P.E., DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I’m Francis Ziegler, Director of North Dakota Department of 

Transportation and I want to thank you for the opportunity to appear before the committee today and thanks for your interest in 

improving transportation in the Devils Lake area and in the State 

of North Dakota as a whole. 

Today, I’m going to include in my testimony not only discussion 

of the Devils Lake issues, but some broader Federal transportation 

issues. 

Continued Federal support through programs such as the Emergency Relief Program is extremely, extremely important, if we’re to 

meet the challenges dealing with the rising water in the Devils 

Lake Basin. 

Since 1993, the lake elevation has risen 29 feet. The current lake 

elevation is at 1452. The table that’s before you in your testimony 

indicates how much we have spent, just over $191.1 million—now 

this is just on transportation. And $161 million of that if Federal 

funding, $28.7 is State and local. This includes $149.4 million for 

State highways, $25.9 for county roads, and $14.4 million for BIA 

roads. 

Maintaining traffic flow is a major challenge when these projects 

are under construction. Currently, 18 projects are planned for 2010 

and 2012 on State highway as the Governor—as Governor Hoeven 

mentioned that we’re working on just about every road in this area. 

In fact, on every road that surrounds this area. And Table I shows 

the total cost of these projects is estimated to be $168.4 million. 

Which, $143.8 is Federal, and $24.6 State. Upon completion of 

these projects, the roadways will be at elevation 1460. 

Another element on the top of page 2 of the road—of what we’re 

doing is roads acting as dams. We’re doing a grade raise on Spring 

Lake on Highway 20, we’re installing dam components on Highway 


58154.261
229 

20, Acorn Ridge next to Camp Grafton and we’ve done culvert installations on Highway 20 in addition to the Highway 19, 281, 2 

and then all of those efforts that we’re making on those. 

I’d like to talk about some future concerns that we have in the 

transportation world, here. If the lake reaches a natural spill elevation of 1458, the DOT anticipates raising all essential State highways to an elevation of 1465. This would require an additional 

$250 to $300 million in investment and take 2 years to complete 

the work. By law, the Federal Highway Administration can provided $100 million in ER funding for repairs in a State for each 

natural disaster or catastrophic failure that’s eligible for Federal 

funding under the ER Program, it’s commonly known as $100 million State cap. If the roadways need to be raised to 1465, we may 

very well need Congress to pass special legislation, lifting that cap. 

A recent storm in the area caused two closed basic slooves—— 

The CHAIRMAN. By the way, I just met with Secretary LaHood, 

and I asked him for administrative relief. And he said, told me, 

they don’t have authority to give us administrative relief, so it 

would require legislative action. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct. We’ve heard that same—that same 

point. 

Again, recent rain in the area caused two closed basin slooves 

along Highway 2 east of Penn to overflow onto the roadway. The 

temporary grade raise is going to be put into place at a cost of 

$865,500 and a permanent grade raise taking the roadway to elevation 1460 is estimated to cost $7.976 million. 

Local jurisdictions are also faced with the challenge of providing 

access to certain areas, especially from a Commerce perspective. 

Graham’s Island Road on Highway 19, or right off of Highway 19 

that connects the Graham’s Island State Park, also needs to be 

raised. Very recently, the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute completed a study on the economics of access to Graham’s Island and the State Park, but study looked at raising the road from 

1455 to 1461 and the cost of that 4.8-mile project is estimated at 

$14.4 million. 

Ramsey and Benson County will each have to come with $1.45 

million in local match to complete the project. And, Senator, I know 

they’re working on that and that’s a big issue for them. 

Also, the AMTRAK line running through the Devils Lake Basin 

is in danger of being inundated. The line has already stopped coming through here, but planning a feasibility stuffy is being looked 

at to see what can be done with it. 

The Department of Transportation, of a $700,000 study has put 

in 50 percent of that to pay for the study costs. But a preliminary 

estimate to raise that grade on the railroad embankment is about 

$60 million. 

The Devils Lake Basin is not the only area in the State of North 

Dakota dealing with high water issues. As a recent result of heavy 

rains, 22 sites—that’s 22 sites on State highways on the West 

James River Basin were at, or close to being, closed. Four sites are 

inundated with water, you actually have to stop on the highway 

and take turns driving through the water. So, those have become 

eligible for ER funding, and we are going to raise those grades this 

summer. 

230 

Senator I’ve shared with you before very strong reasons, I believe, for continued Federal investment in our transportation system. I believe we’ve created the record this morning, Senator, so in 

the interest of time, what I’d like to do is go right from page three 

of my testimony to a conclusion statement, Senator, and the rest 

of the testimony that I have is available to you, to the committee, 

but it’s also available to the folks here. But, the fact is, I just want 

to make sure that you get that information and we’ve created the 

record on it before. 

But—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just stop you there and say to you that 

the entire statement of yours will be made part of the record. And 

you’re exactly right—we went in great detail this morning, laying 

out what is provided in this part of your testimony, so that’s been 

given live to the committee, so that’s all on tape, which is available 

to members and their staffs. So, I don’t think there’s any need to 

repeat it, here. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. So, this afternoon is a conclusion statement. I’d like 

to simply say that, in the transportation world, we’re anxiously 

awaiting a new highway bill. As you know, the existing bill expired 

on September 30th of 2009, and we’ve been working on continuing 

resolutions, and we appreciate the Federal money continuing to 

come. 

What happens, though, in working with continuing resolutions, 

it’s very difficult to plan for long-range projects. And if we have to 

continue going with continuing resolutions, I would appreciate at 

least a year, if not 18 months, of an extension—for the next extension. 

In a conclusion statement, it’s essential that Congress—through 

the reauthorization process—recognized that increased investments 

in highways and surface transportation in rural States and—is, 

and will remain—important to the National interest. The citizens 

and businesses of our Nation’s more populated areas—not only 

residents of rural America—benefit from a good transportation network in and across rural States like North Dakota. Such legislation 

would be better equipped to address transportation issues in North 

Dakota and specifically here, today, in the Devils Lake Basin. 

Thank you for the opportunity, again, to appear here before this 

committee today, and I hope to answer any questions that you may 

have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 

231 


58154.138
232 


58154.139
233 


58154.140
234 


58154.141
235 


58154.142
236 


58154.143
237 


58154.144
238 


58154.145
239 


58154.146
240 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, maybe I could just go to page one, here. 

You have total costs, Devils Lake Basin Highway expenditure of 

$190 million, $161 million Federal, $28 million State and local. As 

I calculate, that’s about an 85 percent Federal share? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Senator, that is correct. Mr. Chairman, that’s correct. And what happens when we work with the ER part of the 

Federal bill, the first 180 days after disaster is declared, the match 

becomes 100 percent. 

The CHAIRMAN. One hundred percent. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. And that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That was going to be my question, because this 

is a higher percentage than we see in the rest of the Federal Highway Program, which is typically 57 percent when we put in the 

ARRA funding, 57 percent Federal—that’s the State—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That 57 percent is the actual percentage of Federal 

aid in the DOT’s budget. The typical Federal aid percentage is 80/ 

20, and when we go to ER in the first 180 days becomes 100 percent, that Federal aid becomes a larger percent of the total cost. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, let me just make sure that we have this correct for the record. So, in this case, in the Devils Lake Basin, with 

respect to the road funding that’s been done so far under your calculation, that’s approaching $200 million, and 85 percent Federal, 

15 percent State. And the reason for that is, part of it is emergency 

funding, which is 100 percent Federal. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. It’s 100 percent for 

the first 180 days. 

The CHAIRMAN. The first 180 days. 

Now, 2010, how much will be expended in 2010? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, we have—we’re anticipating con- tracts in the neighborhood of $80 million. 


58154.147
241 

The CHAIRMAN. Eighty million? So, that would take the total to 

$270 million by the end of this year. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Federal Highway gave us the number of 

$404 million. I would assume that they are including BIA roads in 

that total. Is that the reason for the difference? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that’s what I’m estimating, here. I 

looked at your number and compared it to ours and I believe that 

would be the difference. 

The CHAIRMAN. The difference. Because you are not—you don’t 

capture the money that is spent on the BIA side of it in your figures? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. They gave us a number of—I remember 

404? $402 million spent so far, so the difference, there, would be 

the money that has been spent through the BIA system? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. I believe that’s the case. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Let me just say, that goes back to the total 

funding and I think the Governor used the number of $650 million. 

Our running total on just the Federal side is $700 million, so far. 

And I don’t know, maybe the difference—maybe the discrepancy, 

there, is the BIA money may not be in your total and as in ours. 

Director Ziegler, if I can go to the final point on your chart on 

page one, which is the estimated charge to raise State highways to 

1465 would be an additional $250 to $300 million. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, all of these things should be very sobering 

to anybody that’s listening. I know that the amount of money that’s 

been spent here is huge, and it’s going to take a lot more. I think 

that confirms the point that many of us have been making, is that 

absent an ability to release additional quantities of water from the 

lake, is going to increase the cost of mitigation dramatically, both 

in terms of raising of levies, and raising of roads, and raising of 

bridges and all of the other classes, is that not the case? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is the case. 

The CHAIRMAN. One final point that I should make to you, and 

that is, look. We all know that the Federal Government has a very 

serious deficit and debt problem. And while I, personally, believe 

it was imperative that we spend money to provide liquidity to the 

economy at a time of downturn, we are now going to have to pivot 

and start focusing on our deficit and debt, because it is growing at 

an alarming rate. But that means things have to be paid for. 

And as I reviewed your testimony, and we discussed this, this 

morning, in Newtown, ASHTO, which is the group of your compatriots from around the country are telling us that we need about 

$468 million in a new transportation bill. Four hundred and sixty 

eight billion dollars. Is that the correct number? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s the correct number. 

The CHAIRMAN. And if you divide that over 6 years, that’s roughly $73 billion a year, $78 billion a year, somewhere in there. Let’s 

say, $75 billion a year, that’d be $460. Seventy-five, seventy-six billion a year. 

242 

The trust fund is only throwing off $31 billion a year in revenue. So, that leaves us a shortfall of $45 billion a year. Is that approximately the gap that we have to fill in? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that’s approximately correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And so, we either gotta do it through cuts, or 

more revenue from someplace. And I’d just say to you if we made 

cuts of that magnitude, what would happen to the highway program, transportation program all across the country? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. The program would be about cut in half, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what would that mean for what you’re 

doing, here, in North Dakota? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Well, our program would be cut substantially. 

There’s no doubt about it. Our needs are shown to be there, as we 

talked this morning, and as we’re talking this afternoon, and so our 

program would have to be cut. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s go now to Mayor—we had a chance to visit 

with him at noon today. I want to wish him every success in this 

new challenge as Mayor, of course, he’s been a long-term member 

of the City Commission, so he’s very, very familiar with the issues 

that we’re confronting, here. I want to welcome our new Mayor, 

Mayor Johnson. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICHARD JOHNSON, MAYOR, CITY OF 

DEVILS LAKE 

Mr. JOHNSON. Thank you, Senator. 

First off, on behalf of the City, I thank you for coming here, 

today, and holding your hearing, here, because it is important to 

the City and our area. And along with that, to thank you for all 

your support you’ve given to us in the past for our embankment, 

for all of the infrastructure work that’s been put into the city, and 

our new water line—all of those types of items. Because without 

your hard work, and others, it wouldn’t have happened. So, we 

thank you for that and thank you for being here. 

I, too, have prepared a statement, much as the other witnesses 

have, and I think I’ll do as they did—pick out some of the highlights. We’ve talked about a lot of the items already, but I think 

being on the ground floor as we are, here in Devils Lake, we probably get a little more personal touch to it sometimes than maybe 

those from a distance. And, we see every day what goes on because 

of the flooding, we see the pain it causes, we see the hardships that 

go on. And certainly, we have a lot of partners working with us to 

help us get out of this mess, if you want to call it that. But, it’s 

the people down here right—their feet in the ground, you might 

say boots to the ground—that you see the suffering it’s caused, and 

it takes its toll on the community, it takes its toll on, I think, its 

civic leaders, too. 

So, I guess the comments that I have today, we know how devastating the flooding can be to our farmers, we see that by the land 

view—fly the area like I did last week, it’s devastating. You see our 

road system is deteriorating. With inside the city, we have issues 

with ground water, we have—our streets are, the subgrade is falling apart, causing the cracking and heating of pavement, and a lot 

of it’s hydraulic pressure caused by the lake. So, those are big 

issues. 

243 

We all know about the economic impacts. When the producers 

can’t produce their products, they can’t spend money. And I think 

there’s a lot of things that we could be doing, our community could 

thrive if a lot of these areas were handled. Get water off the lake, 

of course, is No. 1. 

But, as Director Ziegler mentioned, just about every arterial 

route into the city has some type of construction going on. And that 

is a deterrent for economic development, it’s a deterrent for our 

business community because it might be just as easy for someone 

to drive a few extra miles and not have to hassle with the pilot 

cars, and with delays in roadways, and, of course, the safety issues. 

I think just last Tuesday, there were two calls to search and rescue for vehicles in the water. So, safety issue, life safety issues are 

a huge issue, as well. 

And I think a lot of the other stories have been told about the 

loss of revenue and that type of thing. But, the title of our gathering here today was, ‘‘What Can the Federal Government Do?’’ 

And what should they—what should be their impetus. 

And I really feel, obviously, the first thing we need to do is get 

more water off the lake. I think the west end outlet is great, I 

haven’t seen it since it’s been pushing the 250 out, but that’s huge. 

But, we need more than that. And it’s the position of the city that, 

you know, and we have to look out to the east side, there’s no question about that. We have to blend the east side with the water from 

the State outlet, and do it in a responsible fashion. But, if we do 

nothing, if we let nature take its course, and Mother Nature do 

what it might do, it could prove to be a true disaster. And we don’t 

want that for anybody, we don’t want to spread our problems 

downstream. And I think how you can mitigate that is by, you do 

something about that now. You prepare a structure, you have the 

Corps help design that, along with the State, whoever. And we do 

a controlled structure out the east side, blend the water from the 

west side, and hopefully we can meet some EPA standards, and 

we’re hoping we get change. 

And, I think that’s No. 2. Get water off the lake, off the east side. 

No. 2 is to work with the EPA as Mr. Sando said. We have to do 

that, we have to get some of these standards relaxed, to do that. 

And if we have those two things, that will really get the ball rolling. 

Another thing I think that needs to be looked at, and I don’t 

know if its been mentioned here, today, but we have to look at the 

channel capacities. Do we have to do some work on those to allow 

more water to go through the river channels? I think in areas, it 

gets choked down a bit because of the capacity. And if we can do 

that, if we can widen those, take appropriate measures, that would 

be a helpful thing, too. So, that’s something I think the Federal 

people can look at, too. 

And then to help out with the financial end of things, due to all 

of the damages that’s been caused to the roads, to the township 

roads, county roads, city streets, and other infrastructure items— 

Ramsey Rural Sewer has a huge issue with their lift stations and 

things like that—if money could be provided to do those types of 

things through the Federal Government to help, again, mitigate 

some of the damages that have been done, that would be huge. I 

244 

know we have a lot of street work that has to be done, and the 

counties, townships, they’re suffering, and farmers can’t get to 

their fields—it was amazing when you fly it, it’s an eye-opener. You 

can see pictures, but it doesn’t hit home until you’ve met it faceto-face. 

So, I think those are some of the things that the Federal Government could do. I think another thing I’d like to point out, is we’ve 

talked about the amount of money that’s been spent, and $700 million is the number that pops up. And I don’t think that includes 

lost revenue. The money had—the production agriculture had been 

able to produce. You add that into the mix, and I’m sure it’s well 

over a billion, would be my guess. And that’s just a layman’s guess. 

But that should be factored in, it’s a real number. It’s not contrived, it’s a real thing. And that money rolls around our community and helps us do things with that money, too. 

So, I guess those are the four things, recapping would be, to get 

water off the lake off the east side, blend it with some west side 

stuff—continue the west end and all of that—get the EPA standards, and whatever necessary standards need to be changed to 

allow more of full, the riverings, the rivers to have the—create the 

capacity to move this water so we can get some water off the lake, 

and then money for mitigating some of the damages to the affected 

areas—not just the city, but our whole area. And if we—well, if 

that were my wish list, that’d be pretty good. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Mr. JOHNSON. I’d be pretty happy, actually. And my term would 

get off to a good start. 

But, having said that, it’s important. Our community can’t take 

another foot of water, I’ll tell you that. We, this last foot that came 

on, this year, was devastating. We got to four inches of rain in the 

upper basin, and people were running scared. You could see it. 

And, I’ve lived here since 1970 and I’ve never seen as much desperation, hopelessness, fear, anger, as I have, probably, this spring. 

So, again, I thank you for being here, and would answer any 

questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Johnson follows:] 

245 


58154.135
246 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you for that excellent testimony. It’s been a very good panel and I think we’ve made a very 

important part of the record, here. 

Let me just ask, Mayor Johnson, if I could, you know, there’s a 

lot of challenging news, there’s also some good news in this community you were sharing with me at noon, and maybe it would be appropriate to share some of that in terms of new employers who are 

coming to town, in terms of the investment that’s been made at the 

National Guard training center, and that’s proving to be a magnet 

for units around the country that are coming, now, to Devils Lake 

to do their training. And, also, the construction activity—there’s a 

positive side of that, as well, because it’s generated a lot of additional sales tax revenue in the community. And maybe you could 

share with us a new employer coming to town? 


58154.136 58154.137
247 

Mr. JOHNSON. Sure. There’s—Devils Lake has been working with 

a couple of major projects and one looks like it’s being finalized and 

that would be good for our community, a number of good jobs, goodpaying jobs. 

This I got an invite in the mail here, last week, to Summers 

Manufacturing. They’re going to open their paint processing area 

before they sub that out, and they’re going to start doing that here, 

and I think they’re having some type of an open house in August. 

So, that’s good news. 

Our sales taxes are up, so that’s good. Housing market appears 

to be strong. Camp Grafton, what a gem that is for us. They’re 

opening up their new RTI, they’re going to have an open house out 

there, I believe, the first weekend in August, and they’ve got another project online. I can just tell you, up from where I live in 

town, there’s a number of Guard families within two or three 

blocks of where I live. And young families, good-paying jobs. And 

that’s good for our community. Thank God for them. Let alone the 

services they provide the community when we need it. 

But—so, there are some good things, and our sales taxes are 

going to be high—artificially high, maybe, because of the construction, it’s not sustainable. So, once the construction’s done, you 

know, then trouble will be around the corner. 

But, hopefully by then, hopefully by—I’ll be optimistic—hopefully 

by next spring, we’re going to have some more water moving, and 

then we’ll get to more normal times. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Thank you. 

I thank this panel. And I’ll call now the second panel. Spirit 

Lake Nation Chairwoman, Myra Pearson; the Minnewaukan City 

Mayor, Trish McQuoid; Ramsey County Commissioner, Joe Belford; 

and the Devils Lake Basin Joint Water Resource Board Manager, 

Jeff Frith. 

Welcome, good to have you all here. Why don’t we begin with 

Spirit Lake Chairwoman, Myra Pearson? 

Myra, thank you very much for being here, and please proceed 

with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MYRA PEARSON, CHAIRWOMAN, SPIRIT 

LAKE NATION 

Ms. PEARSON. Good afternoon, and thank you, Senator, for inviting me to your hearing this afternoon. My name is Myra Pearson, 

and I’m the Tribal Chairwoman for the Spirit Lake Tribe, which is 

located in North Dakota in a region of the State that’s been 

plagued by flooding for more than—going on two decades, actually. 

And I’ve heard a lot of good comments, here, this afternoon. I have 

copies of my testimony that I’m going to leave with you, and I hope 

you can include that, you know, as part of the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, it will be included. 

Ms. PEARSON. OK. And I—for the record, I’ve served as Chairwoman for the Spirit Lake Tribe Reservation for, on two occasions—once during the late 1990’s, from 1997 to 1999 and presently 

I’m serving my final year of a 4-year term, but that 4-year term 

began in 2005, and my term will be up next spring. 

And the reason I want to mention that is I was here in the nineties when we sat out at the Elks Club, talking about these very 

248 

issues. I’m here again, you know, these past few years, still talking 

about the same issues. And, you know, shame on us. Shame on us 

today. Shame on me, shame on, you know, on us for not demanding 

a permanent fix for all of the heartache that we’ve caused ourselves. 

It’s frustrating, and I want to commend Mayor Johnson—welcome to the, you know, to your new position, post, here in Devils 

Lake. You know, he kind of tapped on a lot of stuff that’s very true. 

There’s so much frustration. I went out to Washington and I 

couldn’t quite do what I was supposed to without, you know, getting emotional about this whole thing. And, you know, we’ve suffered greatly, but we’ve all managed to adapt to it. 

This morning we had, at our office, during our meeting we 

were—we had a couple of people from FEMA. And it’s being discussed that, you know, we’re waiting for the big disaster to hit. I 

don’t want to see that happen, because I think we’ve got too many 

generations behind us—and ahead of us—that we should have 

looked out for. And we’ve got those that are up and coming, you 

know, that we need to do something now, so that they can be protected in the future. 

Earlier, you know, I heard it mentioned, you know, we’ve got to 

look at the Nation’s deficit, as well. That’s very true, we’re all a 

part of this Nation. And we have to look at ways of, how can we 

ask the Government to give us more money without showing them 

that we’re going to do something with it this time? How many 

years have we sat here, now? And I say, I mean, we’ve wasted this 

money. We haven’t done anything with it, let’s do something with 

it, now. Let’s make our lives more safer, and let’s do something 

with whatever we’re going to ask for. But, I’d be ashamed to ask 

for anything more, because of, you know, we haven’t done anything 

with what they’ve given us already. And I think it’s a shame, because our Nation—as everyone in this room knows—we are in deficit problem. And, you know, we need to do something—we need to 

do something that—we also better respect Mother Nature. We 

should have done that a long time ago. We should have respected 

her laws, as well as our own—our local, our Federal, our State 

laws, we should have respected all of those things, including hers. 

And I think we would all be sitting in a much higher ground today, 

but a respectable one—not asking the people downstream for permission to run this water, or the people into Canada. We shouldn’t 

have to sit here and do that today. 

We’ve created this problem for ourselves, now. Let’s all work together and try and fix it. But let’s think of the future generations 

that are coming up, yet. 

I’m just going to jump to the conclusion of my testimony, because 

I know time is running short, here. And I didn’t mean to, you 

know, get into it this harshly, but I’m also going to leave inundation maps, and I want—you know, I wanted a part of the record 

on the land loss that Spirit Lake Tribe has lost to this flood—we 

all hurt. We all hurt, and in that land that we have out there is 

all we’ve got, so it’s a big, you know, it’s a big loss to us. 

But I’d like to, excuse me, read through the latter part of my testimony, here. But for years, you know, I say we’ve watched this 

millions and millions of dollars that have been used to secure existVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00254 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
249 

ing roadways, and yet we have no solution to our flooding. We 

watched as our communities, such as those in the Red River Valley 

that have been ravaged by flooding, but have recovered from the 

floods with the support of the Federal Government and the knowledge of the local governments, our flooding issues are like those in 

the Red River Valley, but we have yet to recover from that. 

Everything happens around us, but it never gets to us. But we’re 

in the heart of the whole problem, you know, in this lake region. 

At this point, there are several measures that have been taken 

by the Federal Government which can support our efforts to alleviate the impact of the flooding. First and foremost, the Spirit Lake 

Tribe has agencies and programs in place that are ready, able and 

willing to respond to the crisis, but we need direct funding so that 

we can take the necessary steps toward our resolution. The Tribe 

has the infrastructure in place to fix our own roads, respond to 

emergencies for our constituents, protect and preserve our natural 

resources, and address health impacts, but we need direct funding 

to implement many of the plans that we have already developed. 

In terms of cross-jurisdictional issues that impact, not only the 

tribe, but also farmers and ranchers, nearby towns and the State, 

we are committed to working together to develop a long-term, sustainable solution to the flooding, through a water diversion project 

that will be feasible and sustainable. 

In closing, I want to state for the record that I am committed to 

working with the elected officials at the Federal and State levels 

of government to develop both short-term and long-term solutions 

to this emergency. Waiting for another decade is simply not an option. 

I thank you all for your time and your consideration of my testimony. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here, 

and thanks for your testimony and thank you for your leadership. 

On my list, we have next the Minnewaukan City Mayor, Trish 

McQuoid, and then Commissioner Belford, and then Jeff Frith from 

the Devils Lake Water Resource Board. 

STATEMENT OF HON. TRISH MCQUOID, MAYOR, CITY OF 

MINNEWAUKAN 

Ms. MCQUOID. Hello, and thank you for inviting me here today. 

I am Trish McQuoid, Mayor and business owner in Minnewaukan. 

I am here today to inform you of some our current statuses and doings in our town. I, unfortunately, don’t have a lot to report, but 

there is a lot going on for our city, currently. 

It seems that the waters of Devils Lake have somewhat leveled 

off for us at this point in our town. Behind our school the water 

hasn’t come up much more, we’ve been protected, right now, our 

wave action is—we’ve been saved by some of that, it’s come from 

the right direction every time, so far. 

So, I have been out to the outlet, I went out there the other day, 

a gentleman came and I took him out there and talked to Carl 

Doushire, and it is running at 250 and, boy, the water really is 

flowing through there. And that is such an awesome sight to see, 

for all of us. 

250 

Will it be enough? I don’t know, you know. I know that everybody is working on trying to make sure it can go up and we can 

get rid of more water as fast as we can. Will it be fast enough? I 

also don’t know that. 

So, here we sit. And hopefully, I guess, there won’t be any hiccups in any of your plans, there, to have it shut down temporarily 

as it was last year, and so on and so forth. So, if we could get something on a Federal level taken care of, knowing that this emergency for our lake and our people of our community, and get those 

levels higher, like Mr. Sando said, I mean, it would just be so huge 

and give some relief to some citizens, and to some of us city officials. 

Currently, our town has the Army Corps of Engineers working 

on a Section 22 study of feasibility for us, and I’m sure you’re all 

aware of that. I’m hoping to receive some results of that in the next 

four to 6 weeks. I was called on Tuesday and asked to get some 

citizens together of business owners and different people that live 

around and get some of their input, and I believe they want to 

come and meet with us one evening—I don’t know that date or 

time, yet—but it would be real important for that to take place. 

Right now, I currently feel that the relocation—or even a partial 

relocate—across Highway 281 would be a great thing for us. I have 

not investigated anything as far as land or certain landowners or 

anything like that. I do know Mr. Jerry now has put in some 

money, or put in an application for some money to build us a new 

school. I think that’s all really important, and hopefully one of our 

local farmers or landowners outside there for the west on 281 will 

come through and help us out with something like that. 

If we would get a possible relocate—even a partial relocate across 

the highway—then again, our town can grow, we can regain tax 

base that we’ve lost. You know, the homes that leave our town with 

the NFIP, we don’t gain anything from that, we lose from that. And 

I wish the—somewhere the Federal Government could help us out 

on that. They put that rule in effect, and maybe they can take that 

rule out of effect, as long as a basement isn’t put on that home, 

or it is a mobile home or such, I’m not sure. 

I feel that being a closed basin city that we’re basically dying a 

slow death, there, because we’re not really allowed to do anything 

right now—our hands are tied. 

We currently have seven homes that are leaving in the next two 

to 3 months, some starting next week. And there again, I understand that they’re working on our Section 22 and they’re going to 

come back with the best opportunity for our town. Living in limbo 

is really hard for us, and not knowing when the rain storm’s going 

to come. 

If we were able to obtain land and funding for infrastructure, we 

do have our water treatment plant and our lagoon system which 

would save a lot of Federal money and State money to do the relocate. So, I think that’s a big bonus for us, on our side. But, basically, what I would like to see done here, and I’m not sure how the 

Federal Government should respond, but I think the west-end outlet is—now that it is up and running at 250 CFS is a great thing. 

If we can bump it up and get it going higher for the summertime, 

and even if we could keep it at a lower rate through the winter. 

251 

I mean, if we have a rough winter, and we can get as much off as 

we can right now, I think it’s just going to be huge for us, as the 

whole lake region area. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Thank you very much. 

Ms. MCQUOID. Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. I know you’re going through a tremendous 

strain, and I can’t even imagine what it would be like to be Mayor 

of a community that has so many incredible challenges. We really 

admire the work that you’re doing and the leadership that you’re 

providing. 

Ms. MCQUOID. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. McQuoid follows:] 

The CHAIRMAN. Next we’ll go to our Ramsey County Commissioner, Joe Belford. Welcome, Joe. Good to have you here. 

STATEMENT OF JOE BELFORD, COMMISSIONER, RAMSEY 

COUNTY 

Mr. BELFORD. Thank you, Senator. I’m going to move around. I 

use a map, I learned that from you. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BELFORD. Traveling the halls of Washington. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yep, I like maps. 

Mr. BELFORD. And while he’s bringing it up—is this thing on? I 

thought the Mayor had fixed this when he was here, but I guess 

not. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BELFORD. You see that map in front of you that talks about 

the history of Devils Lake. And again, of course, when this fun 

started in 1993, we were sitting on a 40,000-acre lake. And basiVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00257 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.191
252 

cally, here—and we had, over at Stump Lake there was a small 

portion. And I was part of a group—and some of the rest of them 

are here—that formed a Lake Preservation Coalition to get water 

into the lake, and boy, I’ve been sorry I’ve been on that committee 

ever since. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BELFORD. Because we were successful. 

Governor Hoeven. The Chairman. I’ll never forget, when I was 

first elected to the Senate and I was called to a meeting with the 

Devils Lake leadership, and we met in a little schoolhouse that no 

longer is, because it’s in the lake, and I was told, ‘‘Senator, you’ve 

got to get water into this lake. And you’ve got to do it now.’’ 

Mr. BELFORD. So, you’re the guy we can blame. 

The CHAIRMAN. No. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, there’s a higher power that’s involved 

in all of this. 

Mr. BELFORD. Anyhow—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I think we all understand, you know, Mother Nature is a powerful force. And we know in the history from 4,000 

years, we look back—this lake has gone through this cycle. And 

those who think it’s not going to happen again, I think are making 

a bad bet. And it’s very important for people downstream to understand that this is not a crisis confined to the Devils Lake area. If 

there is an uncontrolled release of water, this is going to create 

havoc for people downstream, as well. 

And so, all of us really are in this together. This isn’t—this isn’t 

a matter of the Devils Lake Basin being on the opposite side of people downstream. Because what starts here, ends up down there. So, 

it’s critically important that our neighbors to the south understand, 

we’re in this together. 

Mr. BELFORD. And that’s correct, and of course, not only that, but 

there are four counties involved in this lake, there’s Nelson, and 

Downer and Benson and Ramsey and most of those folks are here 

today, as well. 

The lake, as I indicated, was 40,000 acres, and now it’s sitting 

up at about 188,000 acres as we speak. And we don’t want it to 

get to the red, which you see up here is the 58 elevation and the 

different areas. And then, of course, the Tolna coulee is right down 

here. And we don’t—we can’t afford to let it get up to the 1458 elevation. 

Millions of dollars have been spent—millions of dollars—as we’ve 

talked about and heard from some of the people who are testifying 

today. Constructing the levies, relocation, and of course, the water 

and sewer infrastructure that had to be either relocated or increased, not only by the city, but the rural district and everybody 

else as this has gone on. 

The buying of homes—and I want to tell you, that is really, a 

real experience, in particular in 1997 when 400 of them had to be 

taken out of here. And you’re standing beside some family that’s 

just losing their home or it’s having to be moved; or, in the case 

of some of them, the addition out the south of town—not the addition, but the other one—where we had to burn homes. Couldn’t get 

them out. Standing beside a lady with her home being burnt is not 

253 

fun. I have had the opportunity to do that, and I’ll tell you, it’s a 

real experience. So, we need to get something handled, so that we 

can stop doing all of these things with the homes that are happening and—not only the homes, but the farm homes, and the farm 

buildings, which you’re going to see some pictures of a little bit 

later. 

And that holds true with Spirit Lake Nation. Myra and I work 

together very closely, and they have homes going under, roads and 

of course, land which has affected both of us—Ramsey County, and 

Downer, Benson, Nelson—have lost thousands and thousands of 

acres of land in the lake. And, of course, one of the things that’s 

really hurt that loss is the fact of the tax base eroding. When that 

land goes under water, we reduce at the end of the day acres that’s 

a very minimal amount, because it’s the farmers’ for theirs to keep, 

and when the lake recedes—I don’t know when that’s going to be, 

but we certainly—it’s not the county’s to take it over. So, the tax 

loss for the school districts, the townships, the counties, and so 

forth, has been absolutely devastating through this whole thing, as 

well. 

The other towns of Church’s Ferry, of course, as you know, has 

bought out, the first town that we had to take out, and that was 

a heart wrenching thing. I know you were out there, and so was 

I and we—and now Penn has 9 homes that have to be taken out— 

not because the city of Penn is in the lake, but because the groundwater, which was spoken about earlier, the sewer systems, which 

are NODAC systems, will not function. And so there’s problems 

there. 

And, of course, you heard from Mayor McQuoid of Minnewaukan, 

and I’ve been over to several meetings that she’s had and she’s 

doing a great job over there. She got thrust into that, made it to 

high point, but she’s only up well, but—and that’s a county seat. 

And well in Benson county and imagine if Minnewaukan does have 

to be bought out—where’s the county seat going to go? That’ll be 

another big issue, as we all know, in sitting here and speaking and 

talking about this stuff. 

And then, of course, the agricultural land. Very devastating, you 

can see all of this up here. Quality of farmland, down and around 

in here, and it’s all along, and it’s all over. The loss—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I stop you, just on that point, because the 

Governor made a point, earlier, that I think is very, very important 

to repeat for the record. And that is, the amount of water that is 

being stored in the Upper Basin, already. 

You know, we built, I think it was in the tens of millions of dollars, of Upper Basin storage. But, just what’s naturally occurring 

in terms of Upper Basin storage, last time I was here we took a 

helicopter tour and what is—the amount of water in the Upper 

Basin, here, is really hard to get your mind around. 

So, people that don’t think—there’s no storage in the Upper 

Basin occurring, they just not—it’s not right. There’s an enormous 

amount of storage occurring in the Upper Basin. 

Mr. BELFORD. And if you look over at your map, you can see all 

of the little mini-Devils Lakes, over in Nelson County, like Loretta 

and Kislew and so there’s a lot of water being stored in the Basin, 

as well. All them dark spots are water. And, of course, it’s forcing 

254 

some of the farmers off and it’s—or leaving them with very little 

income, and it’s very, very stressful, where agriculture is the lifeblood of all of the communities around here, we have to figure out 

a way to maintain that revenue that has been lost. 

The roads—loss of roads, raising of roads, in all directions— 

Francis probably went over that very well, and that has been very, 

very—Highway 96 and 7, when 57 was closed, Myra remembers, 

we were running school buses out of Devils Lake leaving at 6:30 

in the morning, picking up first-graders, and getting them back out 

there at 5, 5:30 in the afternoon. I hope we never have to go 

through that again. And 7 buses, leaving this town, going out, picking up students on the Reservation. And the other thing that really 

bothers me about that is the high winds, when the waves blowing 

over, and hauling kids in buses, driving through that type of thing. 

Just, one of them buses into that lake would be an absolute— 

money could never bring that back. And so that’s—these are all 

issues that we need to continue to not leave our grips. 

And, of course, all of the roads that Francis went over but we 

also have county and township roads. We—up till the other day— 

we did not have a north/south county road in Ramsey open, except 

for Highway 20. And we got a contractor, awarded the contract, 

and he’s working on Ramsey 3 and Ramsey 4 to get them open. 

And fire service, and all of those people. 

In fact, we got to the point as the Governor knows, on ambulance 

service, we’ve got country roads that we cannot get a normal ambulance into, particularly at a rainy time, because of the narrow 

shoulder, the water on the shoulders, and so forth. And the 

Guards, General Spriztenatti and the Governor’s office were able to 

procure a four-wheel drive ambulance to be housed at our ambulance service for those kinds of emergencies. And we have to keep 

preparing for those kinds of things. 

But, it just keeps going on. The rail service, losing AMTRAK 

would be devastating, or even if the AMTRAK train someday, with 

the grade raising let go, when it was crossing. Can you imagine? 

I can’t, I don’t want to. But it’s very, very—could be very real. 

Emergency services—the shopping and the marketing of the 

farm products is getting tougher because of the roads. In fact, a lot 

of the country roads—and I’ve traveled these roads for years, I 

know them well, I’ve been the Commissioner for 22 years, and I 

was in the business for 35 years, these farmers are going to have 

a real problem getting their grain out of their fields, to their beds, 

and to market until it freezes up. In fact, one farmer told me that 

he has six quarters, planted and seeded, he thinks he can get a 

combine in before the rains that wash the roads—and this is miniDevils Lake, this has nothing to do with the main lake—and before 

he lost the roads, and he thinks he can get a combine in this fall 

to harvest it, but he’ll have to pile the grain on the ground, and 

take the grain out of there after it freezes, because the transportation network in the townships will not handle these types of 

loads. 

So, these are other things that we’re dealing with, and struggling. We’ve had a population loss for the area. Citizens, to get 

away from it, they’re sick of fighting the elements. It’s definitely— 

you can feel it. And the counties, the school districts, the townVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00260 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
255 

ships, cities suffering loss of tax base that have to keep operating 

or cut back the needs of their budgets. And all of these things, for 

us elected officials that have to deal with it, it’s timely and it’s 

frustrating, and we do things that we don’t want to do. 

The other thing is the mental and physical stress to keep operating with less revenue, not only for farmers, but for the businesses, with the shortage of traffic. Right now, with the traffic— 

or the work on 57, all of the roads, Francis indicated—people get 

sick of fighting this, and they go other directions, if there’s anything on the outer edge. And we really saw that at 97. My business 

dropped 40 percent in 1997 when Highway 57 was closed. 

And the time is long overdue for something to happen for relief 

from the rising waters of Devils Lake. We can not wait any longer, 

we need to move water out of the east end, in addition to the 

State’s outlet, and that is working very well, I was out there, I’ve 

had a couple of tours out there. And it’s great to see that canal running, full and heavy. 

And as you can see from the damages, and the stress, and the 

loss of population, it’s really—there’s no place else in the United 

States like it, what we’re going through. The great Salt Lake encroached Salt Lake City in 1982, Senator Bennett, when I was out 

on one of the trips, they put them pumps in and that retreated. So, 

we are one of our own. 

And so, with that, I certainly want to thank you, Senator, for 

being here today and all that you’ve done in the Congressional delegation, and of course, Governor Hoeven is here and has done a 

great job, and a great asset to our community. But we need action, 

and we need it now. Not tomorrow. We cannot wait any longer. The 

downstream cities cannot wait any longer, either, because if it 

breaks out, it occurs at the Tolna coulee, it will be a huge disaster 

for all. From here, clear on to the Red River. 

So, we’re all in this thing together, it’s time we put something 

together, east end outlet, spillway, whatever it be, we are overdue 

because we’ve got so much water in the lake, I’m not sure now that 

we can handle it, if we got a real disaster. 

So, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Joe. Thank you very much. And I appreciate very much your being here, and I appreciate all of your 

years of effort. 

Mr. BELFORD. I’d like to have Scott show a couple of the 

farmsteads, now. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. BELFORD. That’s the Towleson. A little dark but that—and 

we labeled them, though. So, there should be another couple of 

more in there. Is the Starstein one in there? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BELFORD. Anyhow, the reason I mention the Starstein family—I’ve been one of the family for years, they have lived on that 

farm for years. They’re here today, but they’re no longer able to be 

there, because they can’t get there. A homestead farm. And that’s 

just one of the many that are out there that are in trouble. And 

if you get pushed out of your home, it’s not fun. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

256 

Next, we’ll go to Jeff Frith, Devils Lake Basin Joint Water Resource Board Manager. Welcome. If you could get a microphone in 

front of Jeff, there. 

Mr. FRITH. I don’t know, I’m usually pretty loud, so I may not 

need it. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF FRITH, BOARD MANAGER, DEVILS LAKE 

BASIN JOINT WATER RESOURCE BOARD 

Mr. FRITH. Thank you, Senator, for allowing me the privilege to 

address this Senate committee, and I’d like to welcome the distinguished members of the panel, as well. 

We do have some visualizations to go along with my presentation, and I’m more of a visual person, and I hope some of you are, 

as well. 

Scott, if you want to run through some of these slides. Devils 

Lake Basin, we’re a rather large basin, 3810 square miles, 2.5 million acre feet, or two and a half million acres—go ahead, Scott— 

in Northeastern North Dakota. And next, we’ll kind of go through 

what has happened in the lake region. 

And Devils Lake Basin, currently in a wet cycle that began approximately 1980. Precipitation averaged about 4 inches per year 

during—more per year—from 1980 to 2010 than during the previous 30 years. Increase in precipitation resulted in dramatic increases in inflows in Devils Lake beginning in 1993. 

Much of the increase in precipitation during 1980 to 1993 went 

toward filling soil moisture deficits, the upstream chain of lakes, 

and thousands of smaller lakes and wetlands in the Upper Basin, 

thus little of the precipitation entered the Devils Lake system. 

Following the summer flood of 1993, most of the lakes, wetlands 

in the Upper Basin were full, and inflow to Devils Lake increased 

dramatically. These are the basin flows from 1993 through 2009, 

and as you can see on the side, here, these are hundreds of thousands. And we have well over, you know, 500,000-acre feet a couple 

of times, and as was mentioned last year we had a peak of 590— 

close to 600,000-acre feet. Four times in the previous 30 years, or 

the 17 years—just four times—we’ve not reached the 100,000-acre 

mark. 

On the next slide, you’ll see in the previous 30 years, there were 

just a couple of times that we’ve reached over the 100,000-acre feet. 

So, a very dramatic difference in climatic changes. 

Pictures are worth a thousand words. And I have some visualizations—this is 1992, a satellite image, you can see the separation of 

the lakes in through here, Stump Lake is way over here, East Devils Lake, you know, the upper chain of lakes a long distance away 

from the main body of water, down in here. Pelican Lake, we have 

Ervin, Alice, Mike, Chain, Dry Lake, Cavanaugh, Sweetwater, and 

Morrison. All separated lakes, and clearly definable. 

And if we go through these images, this is 1994, we can see a 

dramatic increase in wetlands, you can see the size of the lakes, 

here, see in the Upper Basin they’re increased, as well. 1998, more 

water, again, this is after the 1997 inflows that we’ve had, and 

here, the Upper Basin Lakes are starting to become one—Pelican 

and Devils Lake are merged, and we’re getting close to running 

over into Stump Lake. 

257 

This is 2003, wetlands have increased again, the Upper Basin 

lakes are full. You can see the Devils Lake and how much it has 

increased. We’re currently at an elevation, here, of 1446.4. We’re 

covering 120,000 acres, and we’ve started to fill up Stump Lake. 

This is 2006, again, this is part of their—our dry years within 

our wet cycle, if you would, and we’ve completely filled, or put on, 

about 43 feet onto Stump Lake, over here, and if we go next, 2009, 

this is November of 2009, and you can see, Alice, Ervin, Mike’s, 

Chain—they’ve all become one. They’re merging with Dry Lake, 

over in here, and we’re becoming an island, you know? Channel A 

is here, we’ve got the Mave here, so we’ve got this—virtually an island over in here. These townships have been absolutely devastated with the amount of water put on them, and the amount of 

water over in the basin over here, and just the wetlands. 

And the next slide is 2010. And I have a printed out copy of that 

behind me, and people can see the amount of wetlands. And, you 

look at that and you wonder, ‘‘How are people farming that?’’ How 

do you get from Point A to Point B, and it’s just an absolutely incredible image. That was from the 15th of May, this year. 

This is the railroad bridge that had been in everybody’s discussion, this is right east of Church’s Ferry—this is barely out of the 

water. Freight trains no longer cross that intersection, it’s just left 

up to AMTRAK, and AMTRAK’s going to banish that if the lake 

rises another foot. city of Church’s Ferry, this was bought out in 

the early 2000’s, and very few local residents remain there. People 

that have chose not to participate in the buyout, but you can see 

the water around that. 

The city of Minnewaukan, you know, Trish has her hands full. 

That’s the city of Minnewaukan, flooded farms, we have several. 

Joe talked about the Starstein farm, I think that’s in the next slide. 

That’s in 1990, that’s what it looked like. It was a viable, producing 

small grain farm, typical of any in Northeastern North Dakota, and 

the next slide shows what it looked like last year, and it’s even 

worse this year. That road going into it is completely underwater, 

and as Mr. Belford mentioned, Mr. Starstein and his wife had to 

move to town. 

After how many years of being on that homestead, Joe? 

Mr. STARSTEIN. I’ve lived there since 1949. 

Mr. FRITH. Yeah. So, farmlands are—this is what the farmlands—that’s not a picture of the Florida Everglades, folks. That’s 

Northeastern North Dakota. And that was taken the spring of 

2009, so that picture has actually increased dramatically from last 

year, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can we go back to that one, Jeff? 

Mr. FRITH. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can we go back to that one, because I think this 

is very, very important, for those who think there is a lot of capacity for additional Upper Basin storage. I think those of us who 

have seen what’s happened over this last decade know that there 

just isn’t a whole lot more capacity in the in the Upper Basin, the 

Upper Basin is saturated. The Upper Basin is absolutely soaked. 

So, this idea that there is a lot of room for additional Upper Basin 

storage, I don’t think fits the reality that we can see on the ground. 

258 

Mr. FRITH. Agricultural impacts, a lot of people have mentioned 

those. And for every foot of elevation, we lose nine to ten thousand 

acres. We’ve lost 13,000 so far this year. Almost 400,000 acres 

within the Basin have been lost, so far—212,588 in Ramsey County, alone. The annual economic impact of $83 million—this is numbers 

from the NDSU study, that’s just Ramsey and Benson County, 

that’s a multiplier of economic impact that we’ve lost within the 

last 5 years on an annual basis, so you multiply that past the— 

you know, for the 17 years that we’ve been fighting this. And then 

530 ag-related jobs lost in our communities. That’s an awful lot of 

jobs lost for a State the size of North Dakota. 

What’s being done? We’re doing some Upper Basin storage. We 

have a couple of projects, we work in cooperation with the State 

Water Commission and an ESOP Program, and the ESOP Program 

stores about 1,000-acre feet of water on 338 acres. We also have 

the Sweetwater Morrison Storage Program, which pays about 30 

landowners to store an additional half foot around the SweetwaterMorrison Lake area, currently they’re storing almost a foot more. 

Other entities storing water in the Upper Basin include U.S. 

Fish and Wildlife, Natural Resource Conservation Service, and the 

North Dakota Natural Resource Trust Fund. 

Difficulties in doing more—closing drains, legal or natural, would 

be very difficult and prohibitively expensive. The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld the determination that drains did not cause 

the Devils Lake flooding, that’s within the landowners’ lawsuit. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s stop on that point, if we can. And that’s a 

very, very important point to make. The Supreme Court of the 

State of North Dakota made a determination that this flooding in 

Devils Lake is not caused by drains. You know, we’ve heard a lot 

of commentary, both in Washington and here, downstream, and 

from our neighbors in Minnesota, interestingly enough, that this is 

caused by drains. And our Supreme Court has made a determination that is not the case. So, if we’re dealing with facts, here, facts 

are very important, the notion that drains caused what’s happened 

in Devils Lake is not—it’s just not correct. 

Mr. FRITH. Thank you. 

Would storing more water help? Let’s take a look. In the inflows 

in 2009 was about 590,000-acre feet. If you assume a vertical-side 

water storage site’s two feet deep, you would have—you would need 

295,000 acres of wetlands to hold that water. Often the two foot 

evaporation, evapo- transferation number is used in figuring out 

how much water would be lost to the atmosphere, or through plant 

respiration or metabolism in a wetland, which in a perfect world 

might be accurate. However, in some years, like last year, for example, the weather was cooler, cloudier, and as a result, ET was 

quite low. So low, in fact, that despite the fact that they—that after 

a very wet spring, the summer and fall were dry as compared to 

the 1993 standards, there was a greater surface water in the Devils 

Lake Basin in November of 2009 than there was in November of 

2008. And if you recall, the November of 2008, the fall of 1908 was 

extremely wet in the Upper Basin. 

So, the high that Devils Lake reached in the spring of 2009, we 

never really backed off that high elevation last year. So, the miniVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00264 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
259 

mal inflows that we’re seeing from June, onwards, seemed enough 

to compensate for any evaporation loss that we had. 

This is what happens to some of the homes around the shores 

of Devils Lake. As Joe mentioned, that’s not a very pretty site to 

have to go through with a landowner. 

What we don’t need, we don’t need false promises and false 

hopes. We don’t need an opposition and ignorance, we don’t need 

more homes lost, we don’t need more acres lost, and farmers displaced, and please, no more studies. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. FRITH. What we do need is understanding and acceptance, 

a workable compensation plan for inundated farm acres. Senator, 

I know you worked tirelessly to try to get that passed in the 1908 

Farm Bill, and what was passed is workable, but it’s not being implemented as you intended, or you would like. So, that’s—a workable compensation plan for inundated farm acres. Right now, we’re 

storing, you know, some 400,000 acres of wetlands, and—for nothing. For free. Farmers are doing that out of—and I don’t know if 

they’re, certainly not out of the kindness of their heart, but it’s certainly involuntarily. They would like to have that land back. 

A comprehensive plan of action for moving more water off the 

lake. 250 CFS out of the State outlet is greatly appreciated—we appreciate all the State is doing and we need to eat some of those 

Federal standards that the EPA has, the Clean Water Act and different things like that, certainly an east end outlet to compensate 

or blend that water to move more water off this lake is something 

that’s needed, and it’s needed soon. 

Fargo is working on their flood diversion plan, and I know your 

Budget Committee is probably heavily involved in that aspect, as 

well. From a mitigation standpoint, they’re looking at—is it a 500- 

year flood diversion? So, that’s a quarter of a percent of risk responsibility. So, when we’re talking about a 13 to 14 percent risk 

that Devils Lake could reach its natural elevation, overflow elevation, that’s really got to be an unacceptable elevation for our 

downstream communities. And, you know, a lot of it is, you know, 

we mentioned a lot of downstream mitigation, we want to mitigate 

against downstream. But what about the mitigation for the upstream, as well? Mitigating against upstream damages has to come 

into play at some point in the conversation, whether it be compensation for lands that are inundated, or some type of aspect like 

that, but we need to move water off the lake, and we need to do 

it soon. 

We’re all part of the same watershed. So, moving water out of 

Devils Lake shouldn’t be a real big concern. Devils Lake Basin, as 

big as it is, it’s very small compared to the Red River Basin that 

it’s a part of, and an even smaller aspect when you look at the subbasin that it’s a part of in the Nelson River Basin in Canada, and 

globally in the Hudson Bay watershed. 

This is the old post guard, people have seen it. You know, that 

lady is standing at the junctions of Highway 20 and 57 and I believe that’s about a 14—I can’t read that, Scott, 1419 elevation. 

And the top of it—the very top—is 1437, I believe. So, we’re 15 feet 

higher than the top of that pole, currently. So, to put that in perspective, that’s an awful lot of water. 

260 

I’d be happy to take any questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Jeff. 

Mr. FRITH. And if we could also, Senator, State Water Commission put together a Devils Lake flood fax, and we printed a whole 

bunch of them out, if we could enter that into—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, we’d be pleased to enter that in the record, 

and that could be very valuable to have in the record. 

[INFORMATION] 

Devils Lake Fact Sheet 2010 

Devils Lake has reached its spill elevation and overflowed into 

the Sheyenne River at least twice during the past 4,000 years. The 

last time it occurred was less than 2,000 years ago. 

The water quality on the east end of the lake where an uncontrolled overflow would occur is 5 times worse than the water quality o the west end of the lake. 

At its spill elevation, the lake will cover more than 261,000 acres. 

The surface area of Devils Lake has increased from 44,230 acres 

in 1993 to more than 177,000 acres today, making it more than 4 

times the size of the District of Columbia. 

The volume of water has grown by more than 6 times. 

The lake has risen nearly 30 feet since 1993. Between 2004 and 

2007, Devils Lake spilled into Stump Lake and the two lake are 

now equalized. During this time, Stump Lake road 43.5 feet. With 

each one foot increase in the level of the lake, another roughly 

10,000 acres is inundated. 

Jeff, if I could, I’d like to turn to the agricultural side of this. 

Mr. FRITH. Certainly. 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re right, we’ve worked very hard, in fact, 

Scott is one of my two lead negotiators on the Farm Bill, had this 

as part of his portfolio, Scott Stoffren who is here, getting help for 

our farmers in the Devils Lake Basin. 

And it was incredibly hard to get those provisions included, we 

had enormous opposition to doing it. And at the end of the day we 

were so pleased to get a program that was supposed to help farmers with land that had been inundated. 

Now, it required a 30-year easement. And farmers don’t want to 

sign 30-year easements, we understand that. They hope against 

hope that the lake will go down, and that they will get this land 

back sooner than 30 years, so they’re reluctant to sign a 30-year 

easement, I understand that. 

There’s also a limitation, it can only be on water that’s up to six 

and a half feet. And so, what’s been happening is people don’t want 

to sign a 30-year easement until the water gets, you know, to over 

six and a half feet, and then they wish, maybe, they had. 

But that’s the problem that we’re confronting, and of course we 

dealt with this question of not being able to get the payments, not 

being able to get—because people were concerned title would pass 

to the State—that’s all been resolved, thanks to the Attorney General here for his help with that. 

261 

So, we’ve got to go back and try to get some changes made to 

make this more acceptable, more attractive to farmers. What I’d 

like to see is something like a CRP or Wetlands Reserve Program, 

so that farmers could get what would, in essence, be a rental payment every year to replace that lost income. Now that we have the 

assurance the State’s not going to seek title on that land, we’re still 

going to confront this question of, you know, length of an easement. 

Thirty years is just too long, I think we see that. We had a hard 

time getting thirty years, they wanted it to be 50 years. 

So, you know, it seems to me, unless we can get it down to five 

or 10 years, we’re probably not going to get a lot of takers. 

Can I just see a show of hands, those who are farmers, here, 

would a five or a 10-year thing be attractive? A five or a 10-year 

rental? 

OK, five would be certainly more attractive than ten, I understand that. 

[Show of hands.] 

The CHAIRMAN. But the people—I can see by the show of hands, 

that’s much more attractive to people than 30 year. 

All right, any other ideas, Jeff, that you can share with us on 

that part of it? 

Mr. FRITH. Well, Senator, we have a—our Sweetwater-Morrison 

contract expired and we re-negotiated that. Initially, that was a 5- 

year contract and I had to lower that to a 3-year contract to get 

the landowners to agree to that. 

The CHAIRMAN. You did? 

Mr. FRITH. So, a 30-year—you’re absolutely right—will not work. 

And the idea of an annual payment works out very nice. When you 

put pencil to paper, that 30-year easement and the one-time payment come out to, in some cases, less than $20 an acre, you know, 

per year. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Where would we have to be, do you think, to attract signup? 

Mr. FRITH. I think you really need to stay in that cash rent value 

category. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what’s cash rent now, here? 

Mr. FRITH. Oh boy, I don’t know, I’m getting 55 bucks an acre 

for the stuff that I have, so, you know, I think—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Would $40, could we get people on $40? 

Audience Member. Forty, Senator, is kind of a low average right 

now. 

The CHAIRMAN. Low—below average. 

Mr. FRITH. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. Odell, what would you think? How much would 

we have to—what would it have to be at to attract a signup? 

Audience Member. Well, right now, on the cash ranch has been 

going up, there’s more cash value in that. Forty dollars is pretty 

low. A lot of it now is 50, 55 and in the valley it’s a lot higher. 

The CHAIRMAN. Here’s the deal that we’ve got to understand is, 

you know, this land’s under water. So, it has no productive value. 

And, the question is, between getting nothing, and getting something, and something that makes a difference to people’s lives. 

I’ll tell you, I’ve seen just heartbreaking situations here in the 

Devils Lake Basin. People I have known for 30 years, honest as the 

262 

day is long, and they’ve lost most of the productive value of their 

land, and they have nothing. You know, that just can’t be. 

So, try as we might, we had a hard time getting this 30-year deal 

in. 

Mr. FRITH. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. But, I think, we have to demonstrate that that’s 

not working in order to get people to accept something different. 

Any other? Yeah, Joe? 

Mr. BELFORD. Senator, we still have to maintain and get this 

lake elevation down, because even with easements on the land, 

people, nothing can be farmed there. So, we have to get the water 

down to where it’s manageable so that people have the land to stay 

here and farm it. And the same way with these small communities—that’s their lifeblood. And we’ve got to put a process in 

place. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

All right, let me just say we’re about at the end of our time, here, 

but I wanted to give the Governor a chance for any last-minute observations after he’s had a chance—first of all, I want to thank him 

very, very much for being here today and thank him very, very 

much for sitting through all of this. And I’d welcome any observations he has before we close the hearing. 

Governor Hoeven. Thank you, Senator. 

Really, I don’t have any additional comments. I think, you know, 

the testimony that we’ve heard bears out the comments that I 

made in an overview fashion on the front end. So, again, while we 

need to work together—State, Federal, local—I want to thank all 

of the—everyone who’s here today. Certainly, local officials, Mayor 

McQuoid, Mayor Johnson, our legislators that are here, City Commissioners, County Commissioners, you know, you’ve just got the 

whole gamut—Arnie Berg who is on the Water Commission, Senator Heckaman, Senator Dave Elkie, Representative Vigg, Kurt 

Hofstead, Representative Hofstead. You know, really, we’ve all—it’s 

got to be a team effort, here, and we certainly need the cooperation 

of the Corps and the EPA to move more water out. And, I think 

that’s been made very clear in the testimony. 

And then the communication effort. I thank you all—again, 

thank you for all you’re doing and your perseverance. Your efforts 

to continue to communicate—not only throughout the Basin, but 

with people downstream. And this is something we have to work 

on together for the greater good, both within the lake region, and 

downstream. You know, that’s the only way we’re going to make 

this work for all of us—for all of us. And when I say that, I mean, 

in North Dakota, but I also mean for Minnesota and Canada, as 

well. 

And that’s what we’re trying to do, you know, if you look at 

NAWS, the Northwest Area Water System, we’ve been tied up in 

litigation since 2002, is that right, Todd? 

Mr. SANDO. Yep. 

Governor Hoeven. I mean, we are working to do that right, and 

well, and take care of people, just like we’re working to address the 

issues here in Devils Lake. And we have been tied up in a Federal 

Circuit Court in Washington, DC since 2002. 

263 

The CHAIRMAN. And that’s a—if I can interject—that’s after we 

agreed to the best treatment that was available at the time we 

built the system. We went to the best—I will never forget the 

phone call, we had a conference call with all of us, the delegation, 

the Governor, on what kind of treatment facility we were going to 

have, and we opted for the very best that was available at the time, 

to do everything we could to avert lawsuits. And I just—I don’t 

want to predict what others might do, but we’ve got to be mindful 

of people who are willing to go to court at the drop of a hat. And 

our Canadian neighbors have done that in other instances, and 

have hung us up, now, for 8 years. 

Governor Hoeven. Right. And that’s why it’s so important, again, 

we all work together, and keep moving this forward. And, you 

know, that’s absolutely what we’re working to do and, again, appreciate being here, Senator, and thank you very much, both on behalf 

of myself, as well as Francis and the Department of Transportation 

and also Todd Sando with our Water Commission. 

And, again, to all of you who have been working on this very 

hard for a long time, thanks for being here today. Thanks for your 

ongoing efforts and again, as we go forward, let’s keep making sure 

that we’re communicating, both throughout the Basin and downstream so we can keep this going. 

Thanks. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, again, Governor. Thank you for your 

whole team. Thanks for Francis Ziegler, thank you for Todd, thank 

you for everybody that testified here today. Thanks to each member 

of this panel. I think you’ve made very valuable contribution to this 

effort. And I think we’ve laid out a record that’s about as clear as 

it can be in this hearing this afternoon. 

Thank you very much. The hearing will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(265) 

FIELD HEARING: TRANSPORTATION INVESTMENTS: PROMOTING ECONOMIC GROWTH 

ALONG THE U.S. 52 AND U.S. 281 CORRIDORS 

FRIDAY, JULY 9, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Carrington, North Dakota 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m. in the Teepee 

Room of the Chieftain Conference Center, 60 4th Avenue South, 

Carrington, North Dakota, Hon. Kent Conrad, chairman of the 

committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. 

This is an official hearing of the committee, and as a result we will 

be operating under the rules of the U.S. Senate, and an official 

record of this hearing is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is, ‘‘Transportation Investments: Promoting Economic Growth Along U.S. 52 and U.S. 281 Corridors.’’ 

As the title suggests, we’ll be focusing on what investments may 

be needed to upgrade and improve Highways 52 and 281, to promote the economy and agriculture in Central North Dakota. But I 

also want to focus on how to make our roads safer. I am concerned 

about the safety of local residents and want to make certain that 

we have done everything we can to establish the record, as the new 

transportation bill is written, to justify additional expenditures on 

this corridor. We held a similar hearing on Highway 52 in Jamestown last year, and it was very helpful and informative, and I 

think helped establish a strong record that we can take to our colleagues when the next transportation bill is written. 

I want to begin by welcoming Mr. Pomeroy. I’m delighted that 

he is here. Of course he serves on the all important Ways and 

Means Committee that will have a lot to say about the funding of 

a new transportation bill. We have a series of distinguished witnesses with us today. We have two panels. Our first group includes 

our the North Dakota Transportation Director, Mr. Francis Ziegler. 

Thank you, Francis, very much for being with us again today. 

Carrington Mayor, Don Frye, good to have you with us Don. I can’t 

266 

help but notice as we’ve gone around Carrington—I had the chance 

to stay here last night—how impressed I am with what’s been happening in Carrington. I mean it really looks good and you can feel 

that this community is on the move. Our additional witnesses includes the Fessenden and Coop Association General Manager Mark 

Hovland, good to have you here Mark, Towner County Economic 

Development Board of Directors member J.R. Gibbens, good to see 

you. Thank you for being here. And Dave Irmen from the North 

American Bison Cooperative. I look forward to hearing from all of 

you momentarily. 

Just a couple of charts to kind of lay the background. Highways 

52 and 281 provide critical connections to Canada and I–94. They 

are vital trucking routes for agricultural and manufacturing industries, which are important to economic growth and job creation the 

State of North Dakota. Sixty-nine percent of the goods shipped annually from North Dakota are carried by truck, and in the next 10 

years commercial trucking in North Dakota is expected to increase 

by 42 percent. 

The next slide shows the dramatic spike in truck traffic on Highways 52 and 281. Truck traffic on Highway 52 near Carrington has 

increased 53 percent from 2002 to 2009. 


58154.392
267 


58154.393
268 

Similarly, truck traffic on Highway 281 near New Rockford has 

increased by 60 percent, a very dramatic increase there. 

269 


58154.394
270 

The agriculture industry in particular has relied on the State’s 

road network to move products and services. Significant and growing agriculture businesses in this region rely heavily on Highways 

52 and 281 to receive raw goods and transport their finished products to market. The continued growth of these value added businesses in dependent on a transportation system that is both efficient and reliable. And our ability to attract new companies and 

new businesses is dependent on the quality of our transportation 

system. Unfortunately Highways 52 and 281, like many of our nation’s highways are deteriorating. Heavy truckloads have put added 

strains on these highways, and they need repairs to foster continued growth to ensure safe travel and to better serve the surrounding communities. 

Improvements to Highways 52 and 281 will pay dividends for agriculture in the region. They’ll enhance the transportation of crops 

and livestock, they’ll increase opportunities with enhanced access 

to Canada, and they will help further diversify North Dakota’s agricultural economy by attracting more value added agricultural 

businesses to the region. Now is an important time to focus on our 

transportation infrastructure needs, because the administration is 

in the process of developing its highway bill reauthorization plan. 

And they’re not alone, Congress is also moving on a new transportation bill. 

I think it’s worth recalling how much we benefited from the last 

bill. As a conferee on the last transportation bill, that is I was selected to represent the Senate in negotiations with the House to 

work out the differences between the two bills. I was able to secure 

significant added investment for North Dakota, a 31 percent increase in our funding to $1.5 billion. That works out to about $234 


58154.395
271 

million a year with additional funding provided for transit programs. And of course, in the Stimulus Bill, we got about $180 million for North Dakota for transportation as well. That’s over and 

above what was provided in the Highway Bill. 

We did very well by securing about $2 for every dollar in gas tax 

money collected in the State, ranking us among the top four States 

in the Nation for return on our gas tax dollars, that is we’re in the 

first four States out of the 50 in terms of the amount of money we 

get back for the amount of money we send. 

I also worked to direct investments to Highway 52, including the 

Jamestown bypass and other high priority projects in the previous 

highway bills. And let me say, our delegation works very closely 

with the State and Director Ziegler and Governor Hoeven’s administration to establish the priorities. We don’t cook up our own list 

of priorities. The State has a rigorous process that they go through 

to determine the priorities for the expenditure of highway funds, 

and we go by that process of determining the priorities. And I 

think that’s an important discipline to impose. 

Here are some of the priorities I’ll focus on as we consider the 

next highway bill. We’ve got to have sufficient funding so that infrastructure investments are secure and robust over the long term. 

States and communities must be able to rely on that funding actually being forthcoming. And any new highway bill must maintain 

recognition that rural transportation needs are vital to the nation. 

When our colleagues see that we are getting $2 for every dollar we 

send in, they’re quick to say, ‘‘That’s not fair.’’ I think it’s very important for us to indicate it is entirely fair if we’re going to have 

a national transportation system. That system is only as strong as 

its weakest link, and we have a vast State and we are sparsely 


58154.396
272 

populated. If we are only to rely on our own resources within this 

State, our highway network would soon crumble and fail. 

I am particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on the 

immediate investments that are needed on Highways 52 and 281, 

and what future investments are needed to support the growth in 

this community and in this area going forward. 

With that we’ll turn to Congressman Pomeroy for his initial observations. And I also want to indicate that Lance Gabbey, the 

Governor’s Vice Chief of Staff is here with us. Lance, thank you so 

much for being here, thanks to the Governor as well for assigning 

you to be here, as well as the other members of the Governor’s administration, especially Francis Ziegler, who will testify momentarily. 

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Pomeroy, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. EARL POMEROY, U.S. CONGRESSMAN 

FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, thank you and thank you for allowing me to participate in the hearing, making it bicameral event. 

I would start by saying, when it comes to road infrastructure in 

North Dakota, this has entirely been a bipartisan matter. We have, 

as you indicated in your opening statement, the Highway Department or now the Department of Transportation has given us by 

way of roads priorities, that’s what we move forward. You’ll see 

very different strategies play out across the States. Basically the 

official recommendations often mean very little as legislators pave 

favorite routes, take care of perfect—different constituencies, or 

even seek named arteries in various areas, not to name names, but 

the Bud Schuster Highway in Pennsylvania comes to mind. We 


58154.397
273 

don’t do it like that here. What we need, we try to get the funding 

in place. 

Now, Senator Conrad is developing an official record, which 

means that these projects would be eligible for funding as the legislative process moves forward. In addition to that, with his prior experience as a conferee—the group that meets, representing the 

Senate with Representative of the House to try and iron out differences—his prior experience as a conferee, we have some reason 

to hope that he would be a future conferee as well, and nothing 

could be more important to North Dakota’s fate in the highway bill 

than having him at that critical table at that critical period of time. 

House bills tend to be urban oriented, a lot more interest in transit systems than farm to market roads, as you might expect given 

the fact that population is allocated where the people live, they live 

in the cities, it’s a different focus. The U.S. Senate, two votes per 

State, provides the balance and brings into ply then the considerations of rural roads. We’re going to hear this morning from the 

panel about the critical interstate and national interests of such 

things as farm to market roads or energy roads. This is the third 

hearing that Senator Conrad has held, one in Watford City, one in 

New Town, obviously focused on energy impacted areas. 

But it’s not as though things have not changed and evolved in 

the heart of the rural ag areas as well, and that’s why I’m so 

pleased we’re in Carrington this morning to focus on 52 and 281, 

in light of changing circumstances relative to the utilization of 

these roads principally driven by agriculture. 

I had a pre-hearing briefing from very credible sources up at the 

truck stop, around the coffee table. But here we had three lifers in 

the area, farmers, one fella says he lives seven miles from town, 

he routinely counts the cars as he drives home. He frequently gets 

over 30 running seven miles north up on 52. He’d never seen traffic 

like that before. Another man said he live here all his life, never 

seen this kind of traffic, and most notably truck traffic beyond 

what he’s seen before. Changing the circumstances, increasing the 

dangers, means we need to focus on this, something is happening 

here. You’d like to think sometimes that, well, by golly, in a changing world, at least your infrastructure ought to stay the same. That 

doesn’t work either because things change within the State, energy, 

agriculture, always paying attention to what’s evolving and moving 

within the State so that we can keep our infrastructure adequate 

to deal with the commercial opportunities developing in North Dakota. 

So, I’m very pleased to be part of this hearing, Senator Conrad, 

and will be listening with great interest to our witnesses. Thank 

you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and again, thank you so much for 

being here Congressman Pomeroy. 

Before we begin, I’d like to observe just a moment of silence in 

memory of Keenan Cooper, a young soldier from North Dakota who 

just lost his life on Monday in Afghanistan. At 10 o’clock I’m going 

to be leaving, stepping out for a moment to speak to the parents, 

and out of respect, I’d hope we’d just observe a moment of silence 

before we hear from the witnesses. 

[Moment of silence.] 

274 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and again, at 10 o’clock I think we’ll 

take just a brief recess so that Congressman Pomeroy and I can 

talk to the—to the parents. 

With that, welcome Francis. I appreciate very, very much your 

participation here today, and why don’t you proceed and then we’ll 

go to the rest of the panel. I think we’ll do all five in a row, and 

then we’ll open it up to questions. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, good morning, I’m Francis Ziegler, 

Director of the North Dakota Department of Transportation. I want 

to thank you again for the opportunity to come before the Committee today and thanks for your interest in improving transportation in North Dakota, and thank you, Congressman Pomeroy for 

being here also. 

I’m going to talk about some specifics of the Highway 52 and 281 

corridors, and then about some general transportation issues that 

we may have—that we do have. And I will ad lib the latter part 

of my testimony, Senator, Mr. Chairman, in the interest of time. 

I believe we got the record established and we have handed out the 

document that I will be speaking from this morning. I think you 

have copies of that before you, and there are copies for the audience also. 

But transportation is vitally important to our states’ economic 

growth and is critical to many freight movements, connecting manufactures to retailers, farms to markets, and shippers to railroads, 

airports, and seaports. Transportation infrastructure plays a key 

role in supporting the growing needs of business, industry, and the 

traveling public. The US 52 and 281 corridors are important in 

serving these needs in the northwest and central part of the State. 

These corridors also play an essential role is supporting international trade with the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and 

Manitoba. These two provinces have the fastest growing economies 

in Canada. 

Specifically, on Highway 52, The DOT has recognized the importance of 52 Corridor, the 252 miles of it running from Jamestown 

northwest to the Canadian border. From 1994 to 2009, we put $147 

million into preserving and improving that corridor. Some of the 

major improvements were truck climbing and turning lanes, reconstruction overlays between Minot to the Canadian border. That was 

to improve safety and load carrying capacity. In the late 90’s there 

were major improvements from Fessenden to Carrington in load 

carrying capacity. With these improvements the entire corridor is 

105,500 pound capable year round without having any load restrictions. And as we’ve heard at prior hearings, load restrictions are 

a big issue for movements in the spring. 

In the late 90’s, we also four-laned, just out of Minot to the 

southeast, and the legislative assembly by House Bill 1166, has indicated that they’d prefer that we would four-lane from Minot, continuing on all the way to Velva when that job comes up for reconstruction. And so, if we can get the environmental clearances done 

on that, that’s what we’ll be doing. 

275 

In 2002, a truck bypass went around Jamestown to help improve 

that traffic flow, and safety, as you indicated. Mr. Chairman, safety 

is paramount to you and certainly to us and to our customers. 

There are about $28 million worth of projects scheduled on 52 for 

the years 2010 to 2014. I have an attachment, it’s attached to your 

testimony, and it shows all the projects that we’re going to be 

doing. And after we get all that finished, hopefully the corridor will 

be in great shape. But one thing about roads, we drove Highway 

52 and 281 south this morning, and we need some work and we’re 

going to be doing that in 2012. That’s how it’s been scheduled now 

and our district engineers are here, Wade Swenson from the Devil’s 

Lake district, and John Thompson from the Valley City district, are 

here, along with Lance and we made that tour this morning just 

to take a look at what we’ve got for infrastructure here and some 

of the concerns we’ve got. 

So, we’re always looking at what needs to be happening. But as 

you can see in my testimony there, traffic volumes are high here. 

The largest truck volumes, ranging from 650 to just over 700 vehicles per day, are between Jamestown and Carrington. Those are 

significant numbers, and that’s pretty much ag movement and 

movement out of—the finished products that we produce here in 

the State of North Dakota. And so we’re constantly looking at what 

it is we need to do. 

On the 281 corridor, we also recognize that important corridor, 

running from the Canadian border to South Dakota. In the last 15 

years, $138 million was devoted to preserving and improving the 

corridor. We’ve regraded and widened from Jamestown to the 

South Dakota border, making that 105,500 pound year round load 

carrying capacity. 

The urban section of I–94 through Jamestown, replacement of 

overhead rail structures in Carrington and New Rockford, and realignment of 281 west of Minnewaukan to avoid the rising water 

of Devils Lake. And then, as you probably drove—obviously drove 

the main street here in Carrington, the department helped the city, 

we’re really appreciative of the partnership that we’ve developed on 

that. It was a North Dakota street project, and that was finished 

just last year and there’s still some work left to do on it, but it’s 

a nice piece of work and it’s a nice street. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’d just say that it is very impressive. I mean, 

I really—it really catches your attention as a substantial improvement. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you. 

In addition, there are about $36 million worth of projects scheduled for 281 for the years 2010 to 2014. Again, on attachment 1, 

we show what we’re going to be doing and that’s where we show 

the major work that’s going to happen south of Carrington also. 

Traffic volume on 281, and that corridor is distinguished from 52 

a little bit because it’s—while it’s a common corridor, we consider 

that north of Jamestown—north of Carrington only. But the annual 

traffic is about 1,465 vehicles per day. The average daily truck traffic is 290 vehicles, with the largest volume, about 400 vehicles per 

day, just south of Jamestown. And so, that was reflected in your 

charts also, Senator. 

276 

Total traffic volume on US 281 from Carrington to the Canadian 

border ranges from 360 vehicles per day just south of the Canada 

to just over 6,000 vehicles a day near Belcourt. The average daily 

traffic volume is about 1,465 vehicles per day. And with 160 vehicles to 345 trucks per day, so, you know, as we give you these numbers, Senator, one thing that happens to us, close to the urban 

areas, we find the numbers to be higher and we’ll share those with 

you. But that’s why we also give you averages so you get a feel for 

what the entire corridor is carrying. And, so the traffic volumes can 

change somewhat, as we talk about it, but they only change of 

what we see in those urban areas, as being more significant traffic, 

it’s that loop of traffic does business with the major communities. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just stop you there and ask you to remind 

me—I’ve asked you in a previous hearing. What are the rules of 

thumb for four-laning? What kind of traffic counts? And I know 

that it’s not rigid, but the basic rule of thumb. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. The basic rule of thumb in some of the neighboring 

States, South Dakota is at 6,000 vehicles per day, and Minnesota 

is at 12,000 vehicles per day. Our national association, ASHTO, 

has come out with new guidelines that talk about, in the 6,000 to 

12,000 vehicles a day, that you would super–2, they’re getting onboard with the super–2 concepts. And then over 12,000 vehicles a 

day to seriously consider four-laning. The rules are never totally 

cut and dried. It depends on the mix of truck traffic with car traffic 

and so on. And it depends on how steady that traffic is throughout 

the day rather than having heavy movements of traffic early in the 

morning, to get back and forth from business and employment, and 

in the evening again. But fundamentally, those are the criteria. 

The CHAIRMAN. What would we have on 94, for example? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. On 94 it varies considerably. If you start out on the 

east end of 94, we have up to 80,000 vehicles a day crossing the 

Red River Bridge. And that varies a little bit during the winter 

months. Last winter I saw a number about 70,000 vehicles a day. 

So, it also depends on—a lot of students go back and forth to Morehead State from Fargo, and so there’s some variability there. 

But I’ll just say 70 to 80,000 on that piece of 94, and that goes 

all the way over to 45th and 25th and I–29. And then as we go farther east it drops off to about 40,000, and then it drops off to about 

25,000 between West Fargo and Castleton. But, on an average, I– 

94 carries about 20,000 vehicles a day, is what we would call an 

average. 

But we look at those segments. As you know, there is six-laning 

being done again, we’re adding to that all the way from 45th Street 

to Red River now, because there is so much traffic in that area 

now. I–29 carries 40,000 vehicles a day north for about 20 miles 

north of Fargo. And, then from there it drops to about 10 to 15,000 

vehicles a day. So the interstate carries significant traffic and it 

has more truck traffic. In my testimony later on, I’ll be talking 

about the fact that North Dakota is a bridge State, 59 percent of 

the traffic doesn’t originate here or have a destination here. And 

so what happens is, cross-country trucking is done on the interstates. Typically they have, you know, less access, so they don’t 

have to worry about vehicles coming on from approaches, so to 

277 

speak. And they’re just quicker to move across the country on the 

interstate, so that’s where the heavy truck movement is focused. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. You know, it’s essential to preserve and improve 

our transportation system to ensure it meets the present and future demands, and it’s a continuous thing. A reporter asked me not 

too long ago, ‘‘Why is it that we have so much road construction 

during the summer months?’’ And I said, ‘‘Well, the math is easy. 

We have 8,500 miles, 8,511 miles to be exact, in the State of North 

Dakota that the DOT cares for.’’ And if we design, which we do, 

a 20-year life on the pavements, doing the math, we need to reconstruct 420 miles a year. And we all know that a road doesn’t last 

the full 20 years of design life. We have to do seal coating, crack 

sealing, and those kinds of things because Mother Nature has a— 

is hard on the system here in North Dakota. So, we are in there 

working on those in the 20 year period. But, I shared to him, I 

said, ‘‘You know, that would be from Bismarck to Minneapolis.’’ 

Every year we have to do that many miles of road, and that’s to 

keep it up, that’s basically to keep up that life cycle of the pavement. 

The interstates are now being designed to a 30 year life, and so 

even with that, every 10, 15 years, we have to go in and do some, 

what we call, concrete pavement repair, to make sure that it’s kept 

up, and we do use Federal aid for that. We don’t use Federal aid 

for crack pouring, but we do use Federal aid for the major concrete 

repair work on the interstates. 

North Dakota, like I said, is working hard to improve transportation. We just recently did a regional study with the Upper Great 

Plains Transportation Institute, and what we got out of that is that 

the residents want more transportation infrastructure across our 

State, and I think you shared that traffic counts are up, and 

they’re significant. In the western part of the State, we’re seeing, 

you know, you can look at specific corridors, like we did yesterday, 

up 600, 700 percent increases since 2006. But on the average, we’re 

seeing 30 percent per year increase in the western part of the 

State. Here in the eastern part of the State we’re seeing 10 percent 

increases, which is significant on an annual basis. And obviously, 

on the western part where we now have the oil boom, one would 

expect that to happen with all the trucks that are needed for the 

oil wells. 

But residents are concerned about traffic increases, especially, 

like I said, in the western part of the State, and public expectations 

are growing for load carrying capacity and wider roads. As we—as 

we put more pavements, preventive maintenance onto our system, 

our roads get narrower, and we’re getting very worried about that. 

The fact is that we’re—we need to get out there to regrade and 

widen a lot of our roads. 

But recognizing all of that, the State of North Dakota increased 

its financial commitment to transportation by enacting $1.35 billion 

transportation funding bill in the last legislative session. And that 

includes an unprecedented sum of non-matching State general fund 

dollars, but it includes almost $600 million more to rebuild our 

roads and help cities, counties, and townships recover from the 

Statewide flooding. And this year, we have the largest construction 

278 

program in the history of the department. We’re putting $450 million into projects of about 2,000 miles that we’re touching. The program that we’re using is regular Federal aid, we’re using the second year of the American Recovery Act, the ARRA, and then we’re 

using emergency relief in the Devils Lake area, and State funding 

to do all that work. And so, it’s a tremendous workload. 

While the DOT—the State of North Dakota is doing more than 

ever, Federal investment is critically important. Federal aid accounts for 52 percent of our current transportation budget, and if 

you count the ARRA in there, it’s 57 percent. So, Federal dollars 

are important and certainly appreciate anything that you can do to 

help us in keeping the Federal dollars coming to North Dakota, because obviously our infrastructure needs that. 

Our road network has few people to support it. North Dakotans 

pay more than the national average to support the Federal aid system. The per capita contribution in North Dakota is $161 compared 

to the national average of $109 per person, and that is the gas tax 

that they pay. Federal investment in transportation is, not just for 

North Dakota, but it’s in the national interest, because I said before, we’re a bridge State and a lot of people travel across our 

State. 

I’ve said before, the benefits to the infrastructure are important, 

and you mentioned safety this morning, and I need to talk about 

that. As the Director of the department, I have the Statewide responsibilities, we’ve talked about that before. And from a safety 

perspective, I take that almost some days too personal. We look at 

every fatality, we analyze every fatality, we take a look at the police reports to know what’s happening and to see if there’s anything 

that we can do in the system that would improve it. Our customers 

are going to see rumble stripes on every mile of road, every twolane mile of road in the next 4 years. That’s part of our game plan 

to provide better safety. We’re seeing a log of distracted drivers and 

they’re leaving the lanes, and they’re getting off on the shoulder of 

the road. And we have—40 percent of our fatalities in the last 3 

years were single vehicle rollovers where people were ejected. 

So we believe that if—No. 1, if they were wearing their seatbelts, 

the automobile manufacturers have done their job, the cab is solid. 

But people are coming out of that vehicle as it’s rolling. But, what 

we want to do is keep the driver on the road, in their lane, by having rumble stripes on the center line and on the shoulder. So that’s 

our safety program for now, but at the same time, we need to continue to look at whether—what other safety aspects we can take 

or safety initiatives we can take to make it safer. But, we have improved in—I don’t want to jinx anything here, but last year at this 

time, on July 1st, we had 62 fatalities. This year we were at 40. 

So a significant improvement this year. And, this rumble stripe—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just say, you know, all of us have a responsibility, but drivers have a responsibility too. The other day I was 

driving and we were in a city, and I looked into the car that was 

next to us. We were both driving, I wasn’t stopped, and the woman 

was texting as she drove. I mean, not just on a phone, she was 

texting, I couldn’t believe it. I don’t know how you can drive in traffic in a city, be driving at all and be texting. So, you know, people 

have part of the responsibility here. And this distractive driver synVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00284 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
279 

drome, it really is increasing. I mean, people are talking on the 

phone, you know, I plead guilty, I’ve done it. But, this texting, that 

really takes your breath away. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. You’re correct, Mr. Chairman. In fact, an anecdotal 

story—Lance is here today. He and I were visiting about exactly 

the same thing. It was last winter and he said, ‘‘Francis,’’ he lives 

in North Bismarck like I do, and on his way to work driving down 

Washington Street, there was a person beside that he passed that 

was reading the paper on her way to work. So, you’re right, there’s 

something—the driver does have responsibilities, but what we’re 

trying to do—I use a line a work, don’t point the finger because 

three point back. And so what is it that we as engineers and transportation officials can do to make things safer, and that’s what our 

job is. And hopefully the drivers will heed their responsibilities. 

Talk a little bit—I know, I’ll try to condense the rest of it, Mr. 

Chairman. But, our association recognizes the fact that transportation is important to all of America. And on page four, in the middle of the page there, we talk about what our association has 

talked about for funding that we believe is needed for the next 

highway bill, it’s $375 billion for the next 6 years, that’s for highways and bridges, and the $93 billion for transit. And so, we know 

those are big numbers. But at the same time, we also need to recognize that inflation has eaten away at the dollars that we do have. 

And it’s in my attachment, that in 2001, what a dollar bought in road transportation and road building now costs $1.87 in 2010. 

So it’s gone up 87 percent in those 9 years. That’s a significant inflationary increase, and typically that’s because of the fact that we 

use a lot of diesel in road building, but the asphalt cements, the— 

to make the blacktop, that’s—that has gone up at least 100 and in 

some cases to 200 percent. It went in the neighborhood of $300 per 

ton, it is now $600 and $700 per ton. So it’s a significant increase 

in cost. And so, our purchasing power has decreased, and that’s 

why we’re so concerned about the future of the highway bill. 

And we also ask that, you know, North Dakota as a rural State, 

proportionally be able to get some of the proportional increases 

that there might be. I know that there’s a bill out there now 

through the House, as Congressman Pomeroy talked about, that is 

more population oriented. And in regard to that, I’m very pleased 

that the bipartisan rural mobility legislation in 3485 was recently 

introduced in the U.S. Senate by Senator Barrasso, you Mr. Chairman, and 11 other Senators. The legislation basically takes the position that if new legislation is to dedicate significant funds to discretionary highway programs only for large metropolitan areas, 

that the legislation must also include a significant counterpart program of funding for rural States, and we really do appreciate that. 

And those of us in rural States all appreciate that and we’ve talked 

about that. We do work very closely with South Dakota, Montana, 

Wyoming and Idaho as a group to work on rural issues. And so, 

we’ve noted that and are appreciative of it. 

What I’d like to do now is go out to page six and talk a little bit 

about essential service to agriculture of natural resources. Ag is the 

one sector of the economy where the United States is consistently 

run an international trade surplus and not a deficit. Over the last 

two decades about 30 percent of the U.S. ag crops were exported. 

280 

We think in this—certainly in this part of the State, that’s an important notation that the ag part of the State is doing its part to 

help us with the balance of trade. And so, it’s important we recognize that in our movement of goods and services on our transportation system. 

Moving on to page seven. We’re also, in North Dakota, a major 

contributor of energy production, whether it’s oil production, ethanol production, and our coal. Good roads throughout the State are 

important to the Nation becoming energy independent, and we all 

know we need to do that. 

Going down to the bottom of page seven, rural States face serious 

obstacles. We’re large, we’re rural, and we have low populations. 

But I want to share with you on the bottom of page seven just 

what it does take to keep maintaining these roads, and this is just 

for our maintenance. I call this the orange truck cost. It takes 

about $9,200 per mile per year to maintain our system. And using 

the current CAF standards, the Corporate Average Fuel Economy, 

it takes 2,700 vehicles a day using North Dakota’s gas tax income 

to pay for just the maintenance, which is sanding, salting, sealing 

the cracks, doing the patching, and so on. It seems like a big number, but we’ve compared that to what counties have and we’re very 

close to what—I worked with Mercer County on the road between 

Beulah and that gasification plant, and that’s—that’s what they’re 

saying, same types of numbers. So, we’re very close on that, so it’s 

very pricey to maintain the system. 

Moving on to the top of page eight, it takes three, 4 years in 

North Dakota to complete a project that requires full environmental process. So, in the new bill, I guess we’re just asking that 

we don’t make it any more complicated. We believe that our environmental process now is very protective of the environment and 

streamlining should be considered. The new highway administrator, Victor Mendez, who was director of Arizona, has a new initiative, Every Day Counts. And we have people on our staff working with him and his staff to take a look at what it is that we can 

do to shorten timeframes building projects. And, we’re very appreciative of what Victor is doing, and hopefully we’ll come to—when 

the bill starts being written out, that we’ll have some good input 

in that area. 

Going to the bottom of page eight, we’re hoping that—and we 

recognize the difficulty in coming up with a new highway bill, but 

we’re certainly hoping that we get a highway bill soon. And if we 

can’t get one soon, that if we have any continued resolutions or extensions, that they be at least a year and hopefully 18 months, because we need to continue to plan. If we’re going to continue to 

make improvements in our system, we have to plan in order to get 

out ahead of it. It takes at least a year for a pretty simple project, 

to get it developed and engineered. But for any complicated project, 

such as, let’s say four-laning, that’s a four, 5 year process from an 

environmental perspective, a design perspective, and all the public 

input that we ask for. So it takes a long time, so every day does 

count, and it’s important that we—we be able to plan ahead, and 

that’s the point of having a longer continued resolution where we 

know where we stand financially. 

281 

I just want to say, in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Senator, and 

Congressman Pomeroy, transportation is a good buy, it’s a good 

buy. After the last session, my wife and I were talking about how 

much do we pay for gas tax, and we didn’t know, so we did the 

math. And we pay about $500 a year with the amount of driving 

we do, the mileage we get. And my wife said to me, she said that’s 

kind of high. And I said, really, I just paid the cell phone bill, that 

was $82 this month. So we did some averages. The average person 

pays about $500 a year in a cell phone bill, but the average person 

in America only pays $109 for transportation. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s an incredibly good deal. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. I may be biased—I may be biased to transportation, 

but I think I get a whole lot more out of my roads than I do out 

of my cell phone. 

But in conclusion again, I appreciate the opportunity to come before you, to talk to you about transportation, and thank you for 

what you’ve done. 

And that concludes my testimony, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 


58154.192
282 


58154.193
283 


58154.194
284 


58154.195
285 


58154.196
286 


58154.197
287 


58154.198
288 


58154.199
289 


58154.200
290 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much. Thanks for being here. 

And we’ll go now to Mayor Frye and then we’ll go to each of the 

other witnesses in turn and then we’ll open it up for questions of 

the whole panel by both Congressman Pomeroy and myself. 

Welcome, Mayor, and congratulations on your recent election. 

Mr. FRYE. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s very rare for anybody to win a write-in election. It almost never happens, especially a write-in that was 

mounted just 2 weeks before the election itself. So, congratulations 

on that score, but more important, congratulations on what I see 

being done in this town under your leadership, because it’s very exciting. 


58154.201 58154.202
291 

STATEMENT OF HON. DON FRYE, MAYOR, CITY OF 

CARRINGTON 

Mr. FRYE. Well, thank you Mr. Chairman, Mr. Pomeroy. Thank 

you for your continued interest in U.S. Highways 52 and 281 transportation corridors. One of the most important needs of rural North 

Dakota and Carrington is a viable transportation infrastructure. 

The success of Carrington over the past 20 years is directly related 

to our ability to move both commodity Ag products and finished 

processed foods and feeds to locations all across the U.S. and the 

World. 

Our continued growth and success is threatened by the slow and 

steady deterioration of U.S. Highways 52 and 281 that serve our 

community. Thousands of vehicles either travel through or from 

Carrington each and every day. The success of two major ag related 

businesses hinge on these transportation arteries, Central City 

Marketing and Processing and Dakota Growers Pasta Company. I’d 

like to also add that just recently a new elevator in Rockford has 

been completed, and the numbers that were shown don’t indicate 

what that traffic is going to add to this system, because that’s 

going to be a unit railcar loading facility, and there will be hundreds of additional semis traveling those arteries. 

The Ag community, which is the back bone of Carrington and 

this region, relies on these transportation arteries to move product 

to market. Fair market prices will not be received if we are unable 

to transport these products to markets all across the U.S. and the 

world. It is critical to reach the market place in a low-cost and 

timely manner. 

Presently our community is working on several development 

projects that will continue to grow our important Ag community 

and processing sector. The first project I would like to talk about 

is the Central Dakota Feeds Initiative. This project will take coproducts, waste by-products from food processors all across North 

Dakota and combine these co-products with selected commodity 

grains. They will then be combined to form a new ‘‘Super Feed’’ 

product for livestock all across the U. S. and the world. We anticipate that this alone could add at least 100 to 150 semis a day in 

transportation in and around the city of Carrington. 

This new ‘‘super Feed’’ will provide a nutritional dense, highly 

palatable feed for livestock. The key component to the project has 

been identified as transportation. If we do not have a reliable and 

safe transportation artery to Carrington this project will not be 

able to bring the raw products to the processing facility. Then, 

transport the finished product to the market place. Carrington’s 

Central location to the food processing plants in North Dakota is 

critical to the success of the project, but if the transportation system is not up to the task, Carrington will not be a cost effective 

location. 

The second project I would like to talk about is the development 

of an ethanol processing facility using non-edible sugar beets as the 

feed stock for this new renewable fuel. The transportation of the 

raw material, non-edible sugar beets, for the processing plant will 

be done entirely by truck transportation. Again, we’re probably 

talking anywhere from 100 to 150 vehicles traveling to that facility. 

292 

Transportation again is a key factor in the development of this 

project and the future success of the region in creating new high 

paying jobs and market opportunities to the Ag producers in the 

region. 

I have focused on the transportation of these products but I 

would also like to add that safety on these highways is equally important. Whether it is the safe travel on the highways, providing 

the passenger vehicles on U.S. 52 and 281 the ability to pass large 

vehicles safely or the pooling of rain water or moisture retained in 

the ruts that have developed causing very unsafe travel conditions. 

This is just as important of an issue as the moving of goods and 

services. The loss of any life because of poor road surface conditions 

should never be acceptable. 

Thank you for your interest and concern for rural transportation 

issues that are facing all of us as we move forward in our efforts 

to grow Carrington and North Dakota. 

On a personal note, I’d like to add, that related to my present 

job I travel approximately 70,000 miles a year inside the city limits 

and the State limits of North Dakota, never leaving the boundaries. 

And so, I probably have a better understanding of the highway system and its shortcomings than most people do. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Frye follows:] 

293 


58154.203
294 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mayor. And that is pretty remarkable, 70,000 miles around North Dakota. We probably should have 

you as a consultant to the transportation department. 

Next we’re going to go to Mark Hovland, the Manager of the 

Fessenden Cooperative Association. Welcome, Mark, thanks so 

much for being here and please go ahead with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK HOVLAND, GENERAL MANAGER, 

FESSENDEN COOP ASSOCIATION 

Mr. HOVLAND. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for allowing me to 

come. My name is Mark Hovland, I’ll just give you a little background on our business and the communities we serve. I’m the general manager up at Fessenden Co-op, we’re headquartered at 

Fessenden which is 38 miles northwest of Carrington on Hwy 52. 

We are a grain and agronomy co-op which was established in 1943 

with 43 members, a manager, and one part time employee, and 

handles 22O,O00 bushels of grain in the first year of operation. We 

started out with seven board of directors and we still have seven 

members on our board, not the same ones that we did in 1943. 


58154.204
295 

The CHAIRMAN. There’s been some turnover? 

Mr. HOVLAND. Yeah, been a little turnover. We have term limits. 

We currently employ 50 full-time people and 10 to 15 part time 

people, depending on the season. And our territory includes a radius of about 65 miles of Fessenden. And some of the other locations that we serve, we have two facilities in Carrington, as Mayor 

Frye mentioned, we have Central City Grain and also Central City 

Marketing and Processing, which is a bird food plant. The other 

ones are primarily grain and agronomy. We have one facility each 

in New Rockford, Hamberg, Heimdal, and Esmond. We handle 

grain at all of these locations and agronomy products at most of 

them. We currently handle approximately 20 million bushel a year, 

40 percent of that is in spring wheat, 28 percent is soybeans, 10 

percent is corn, and the balance is sunflowers, pinto beans, black 

beans, flax, oats, canola and whatever the grower produces we handle. 

Highways 52 and 281 are vital to our member owners for allowing them to bring their products to market. We have more than 

800 active patrons in our Co-op and the majority of them rely on 

these two highways to some degree. We have approximately 350 

patrons who deliver to our Carrington location and require these 

highways to get here. The Co-op owns three semis that transport 

grain full time. We also have a couple others that we use occasionally to transport grain from our substations and also direct from 

the farms, either to Fessenden or Carrington to load out. We also 

have several independent truckers that work for us when needed. 

Most of the wheat and the beans are trucked into Fessenden or 

Carrington and loaded on 100 car shuttle trains to various points 

throughout the country. 

We truck corn across the State here to the ethanol plants, either 

Falkirk or occasionally at Richardton. We truck a lot of malt barley 

out of here to the—there’s different plants in the eastern part of 

the State. Sunflower production we handle is trucked into our 

Carrington bird food plant which is processed and marketed as bird 

food. We also sell some of that product to the local crushers in 

North Dakota, Enderlin or Fargo. We load about 700 trucks per 

year out of that plant of bird food. At Fessenden we have an edible 

bean processing plant. We do primarily pinto beans but we also a 

few black beans. The majority of these are shipped out in bulk hopper cars or boxcars, but we do still ship about 100 to 150 trucks 

a year, and the all leave town on highway 52. 

Our agronomy business is about 22 percent of our annual sales, 

and most of that, fertilizer and chemical come in by truck and 

leave by truck. So again, much of this product comes from the east 

therefore traveling Highways 52 and 281. 

These two highways are very important to all of us. Even those 

who are unaware of these roads are dependent on them. And, if 

these people eat bread, pasta, beans, drink beer, use soy products, 

ethanol based fuel, or feed the birds, chances are some of that product originated in central North Dakota and travelled down the U.S. 

Highway 52 to 281 corridors to the processing destination. 

So in conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I urge this committee to consider the maintenance of these highways a priority. I think the fuVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00301 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
296 

ture of our businesses and communities are dependent on good 

roads leading up to them. 

And I thank you for the opportunity to share our concerns with 

you today and we appreciate all you guys have done to help and 

maintain roads throughout the whole State. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Hovland follows:] 


58154.205
297 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mark, thank you very much. 

And now we’ll go to our Towner County Economic Development 

Corporation Board of Directors Member, J. R. Gibbens. 

Welcome, J.R. 

STATEMENT OF J.R. GIBBENS, BOARD OF DIRECTORS, 

TOWNER COUNTY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION 

Mr. GIBBENS. Thank you, Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy for the opportunity to testify here today. Obviously, I can appreciate what happened to Don, there. Don and I were both mayors 

of the towns for 8 years. Don, the one thing that I did, I found and 

able bodied replacement to replace me. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GIBBENS. You should have done a little—worked a little 

harder, you wouldn’t have ten roped in, there. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GIBBENS. But, we all do appreciate the opportunity to serve 

our cities and our communities. I’m obviously from Cando, Towner 

County is the County that—Cando is the County Seat of Towner 

County. Highway 281 is vital to the transportation needs for 

Cando. 

Obviously, one of the big concerns that we have in the Cando 

area is, what’s going to happen to 281 from Cando to Church’s 

Ferry. Obviously, I see Joe Belford out here in the audience. We 

all saw what’s happening to Devils Lake, you know, Cando’s becoming—it’s—we’re getting closer to the lake all the time, and 

Cando’s not moving. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GIBBENS. We all know—— 

The CHAIRMAN. J.R., I don’t know if we should really allow you 

to continue to testify—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Because we need to get you down to one of the 

shows, you know? There’s absolutely no reason you shouldn’t be 

hosting one of those late-night shows. You’d have a huge market 

share. 

Mr. GIBBENS. Anyway, we do have—we do think that it’s important to keep 281 viable. If we don’t do anything, we know what’s 


58154.206
298 

going to happen to the thing. We do appreciate what the State and 

Federal Government’s done relocating 281 west of Minnewaukan. 

We do need to do some grade raises north of Church’s Ferry to preserve that. We also need to consider that the railroad is going to 

go underwater there, and without a transportation system, you 

know, we can’t do any economic development. 

I’ve been fortunate to be involved in a lot of economic development issues around the Cando area. We’ve created between 40 and 

50 new jobs in last eight or 10 years expanding our agricultural 

businesses, and we’re very dependent on, you know, all of the—not 

only the pork products to move south out of 281, we have to bring 

a lot of the corn and stuff comes up that corridor. We use the 

equivalent in our flying operation, 9,000 acres of corn a year to feed 

the pigs and the other thing is as I drive up and down the 281, 

I would assume that there must be some plan where you share the 

common road bed between Carrington to Jamestown to four-lane, 

that thing—is that in the works, Francis? To four-lane between 

Jamestown and Carrington? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, at this time, it is not. 

Mr. GIBBENS. What is the traffic out there? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. The traffic count, as I said, and I have to go back— 

and the truck traffic is between 600 and 700; 650 and 700, I believe, was my testimony. 

Mr. GIBBENS. OK. 

The, we know that whole transportation, it’s important to have 

these roads in place, particularly in Central North Dakota, we 

think that it’s important to maintain them, and we know that this 

whole lake problem is a unique 17-, 18-year problem, that we have 

to solve that problem, and we’re very appreciative of all of the 

money that’s been spent on the roads by there, but at some point 

we have to pull the plug on this whole deal and do something different. 

I really don’t have anything else to add to the testimony that we 

haven’t all—that we aren’t all aware of right now, and I’d be more 

than happy to answer any questions. I appreciate the opportunity 

to testify. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Gibbens follows:] 

299 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you so much. 

And next we’ll go to Dave Irmen from the North American Bison 

Cooperative. Let’s say—it’s almost 10, I think we should do this, 

because, I apologize to you, we have arranged a call with the family 

of our soldier who was killed in Afghanistan, and I think what we 

should probably do, because that’s supposed to be right at 10:00— 

that we take a brief recess for—let’s try to be back at, let’s say, 10 

minutes after 10 and then we’ll go to questions of the whole panel. 

All right? The committee will stand in recess until 10:10 a.m. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come back to order and we’ll go 

to Dave Irmen, representing the North American Bison Cooperative. 

STATEMENT OF DAVE IRMEN, NORTH AMERICAN BISON 

COOPERATIVE 

Mr. IRMEN. Thank you, Senator Conrad Congressman Pomeroy 

and to your fellow committee members for holding this hearing 


58154.207
300 

today and for continuing discussion on the importance of U.S. 

Highway 52 and U.S Highway 281. 

My name is David Irmen and I work for and represent North 

American Bison Cooperative and North Dakota Natural Beef, LLC. 

North American Bison Cooperative was established in 1993 and 

today harvests approximately 700 head of bison and cattle per 

week. We sell our products internationally and have sales in most 

states of the Union. 

North Dakota Natural Beef, LLC was established in 2007 and 

currently has Whole Foods Midwest as its major customer. We 

proudly represent our North Dakota Heritage in both our bison and 

beef products. Many of you know, the North American Bison plant 

in New Rockford and the North Dakota Natural Beef plant in 

Fargo are the largest beef and bison harvesting and processing facilities in North Dakota. As such, they provide not only North Dakota feeders the ability to market their cattle and bison in North 

Dakota but also feeders from surrounding states and provinces of 

Canada. For every dollar in cattle and bison retained in North Dakota, $4.50 of economic activity is generated for the state of North 

Dakota. 

As major a transportation route, U.S. Highway 281 and U.S. 

Highway 52 are critical routes to the North American Bison Cooperative and North Dakota Natural Beef. First, they are the primary 

highways that are utilized to bring bison and beef animals to our 

plant in New Rockford. U.S. Highway 52 is the main artery, and 

is used by our bison and beef producers from the western regions 

of North Dakota, Montana, Saskatchewan and Alberta allowing 

them to bring their animals to the New Rockford plant with excellent highways and with greater speed than other routes. 

We currently have over 65 trucks per month delivering animals 

and another 50-plus trucks per month picking up at our New Rockford plant. That is 115-plus trucks per month using the highway. 

Additionally, U.S. Highway 52 and U.S. Highway 281 are the primary corridors that allow the New Rockford harvested animal carcasses to be transported to Fargo. These highways are used daily 

by our trucks which a fellow employee and I personally drive every 

day. They are critical to the profitable and productive functioning 

of North American Bison Coop and North Dakota Natural Beef. 

The ability to count on the maintenance and functionality of 

these highways is critical to the operation of NABC and NDNB 

who, combined, will generate a sales revenue in excess of $40 million this year. 

On a personal note, many of my friends and I rely on these highways for travel to and from shopping at grocery stores to clothing 

stores in Devils Lake and Jamestown as well as using the recreational areas in Devils Lake. To understand the impact of these 

highways for recreation, just count the number of commercial vehicles, hunters, motor coaches, trailers, and fishing boats that travel 

this highway and you start to realize how critical these highways 

are to the State of North Dakota’s economy. These highways are 

major arteries that are relied upon by literally thousands of people 

and businesses, not the least of which are the two companies I represent. 

301 

It is critical to the economy of this region and North Dakota that 

the roadway system supports consistent and reliable transportation 

for businesses. This requires a roadway system that is in good condition, has adequate capacity and is well-maintained, even in inclement weather. On a personal note, this makes my family feel 

much better when I am driving during the winter months, and we 

know we can count on these highways being maintained. 

As a taxpayer and local resident, I know that investments in the 

public roadway system support the economy through, one, direct 

job creation through construction activities; two, indirect and induced job support; and, three, productivity gains. 

In summary, from both a personal and business perspective U.S. 

Highway 281 and Highway 52 are critical to the success of our 

companies and to the success of the region of North Dakota to compete effectively. Driving these highways daily makes me appreciate 

the diversity of their use. I see farm machinery, buses, commercial 

trucks, tourists, and recreational vehicles every day. Without maintenance and continued support, this region would stand to lose 

business, tourism and farming revenue. 

Thank you for allowing me to testify today for a highway system 

I depend on for my livelihood. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Irmen follows:] 

302 


58154.208
303 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for that very excellent testimony. I don’t think anybody could hear that and not realize how 

important it is to people’s lives. And that’s really what this is 

about. 

I’d like to go back to Francis Ziegler, Director of the North Dakota Department of Transportation and clarify a few things, if I 

could, for the record. 

First is, the Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials have called on the new Transportation Bill to be funded at 

a level of $468 billion over 6 years. Is that correct, Francis? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And, if it’s a 6-year bill that would be $78 billion 

a year? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the Trust Fund is—to fund transportation 

legislation is only providing $31 billion a year. So, by my math, 

that’s a $47 billion a year shortfall. And so, obviously, we’ve got a 

problem. And we all understand that the United States has a debt 

that has been growing very dramatically for the last 10 years. In 


58154.209
304 

fact, the debt doubled the previous Administration, it’s set to double again in this Administration if we don’t take action. I’ve been 

asked to serve as a member on the Debt Reduction Commission 

that the President has put in place, some 18 member, and if 14 of 

the 18 of us can agree by the end of this year, Congress will vote 

on our plan. And I can tell you this Commission—we meet every 

week, we’ve been spending hours and hours and hours. Last week 

we had a meeting that started at 9 in the morning and went until 

7 at night. So, the debt has to be a focus, because it threatens the 

long-term economic security of the country. 

So, when we look at this transportation need—and I’m not disputing the number that your colleagues have come up with, it is 

a stunning number, $468 billion over 6 years is a tremendous 

amount of money. But, if we look at the need across the country, 

we see what needs to be done with highway and transit, it’s not 

a number that is an unreasonable one in terms of the need. 

But, I think it’s very important for people to understand, if the 

need is $78 billion a year and the funding that is available is only 

$31 billion a year, there are only two options. One is to cut the 

spending dramatically, cut it more than 50 percent, the other—the 

only other possibility is to raise revenue. And I don’t see many people volunteering to pay a higher gas tax, and that’s the funding 

that we have. 

Frankly, I don’t think that funding source makes as much sense 

now as it once did, because now we’re moving to vehicles that 

aren’t going to have a gas tax. We’re going to see a tremendous explosion in electric vehicles, it’s forecast, over the next 10 years. We 

have other types of fuels that are being used, so this approach 

clearly has to be faced up to. 

I just wanted to ask you, Director Ziegler if, as some of my colleagues are saying—I’ll just be very blunt, some of my colleagues 

are saying, ‘‘Cut it by the amount necessary to get down to the 

Trust Fund revenue level,’’ that would be a cut of almost 60 percent. What would be the affect, Director Ziegler, if the Federal 

funding was cut by 60 percent? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, the outcome of cutting our revenues, or Federal aid by that much would be devastating to the 

State of North Dakota. That would mean that our program that’s 

been laid out over the next four or 5 years would have to be cut 

in excess of 50 percent to make it happen. That then we have to 

reprioritize and work within that system. 

But, as we hear about the needs, when we go out to our regional 

meetings, and as we hear about the needs at these hearings, Mr. 

Chairman, it’s pretty obvious the needs are there, so reprioritizing 

would be a very difficult task to say the least, and a lot of our work 

would not get done, and our transportation infrastructure would 

start crumbling. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think that’s the truth of the matter. In 

many ways I wish it weren’t the truth of the matter, because this 

funding gap is enormous—$78 billion of needs that are identified, 

$31 billion of funding, that’s a $47 billion a year difference. Over 

6 years, that’s 240 and 42—that’s $280 billion dollars. That’s a big 

hole to fill. 

305 

And so, my hope is people think about the need that exists across 

the country, certainly in our State. I think these hearings we’ve 

held, Director Ziegler, you’ve been at every one of them, I thank 

you for that. The need that’s been documented is about as clear as 

it can be. Certainly this hearing today has been, I think, quite persuasive on the need on 52 and 281. What we heard in New Town, 

very dramatic testimony, certainly we saw that further west of 

North Dakota in an earlier hearing, a hearing we did in Jamestown last year, it’s just very important that we communicate directly with people the reality that we confront here, and it’s going 

to have to be dealt with. Just tacking it on the debt is not an answer. I can tell you, as a member of this debt Commission that 

have been meeting now for months, the threat to our country’s economic security of just adding to the debt is a very serious matter. 

Because, at some point, people won’t loan us the money to finance 

this debt. And where is this money coming from to finance this 

debt today? It’s coming, primarily, from the Chinese and the Japanese. In fact, the Chinese have now become our No. 1 creditor. We 

owe them over a trillion dollars. 

And so, we’ve got to face up to the reality that we can’t just keep 

putting it on the charge card, that option’s running out. We’re 

going to have to pay for this. 

And, does that mean that we can’t cut anywhere? No. We’re 

going to have to cut. I don’t think there’s any way that we’re going 

to fund $468 billion over the next 6 years. I mean, I’ll be very direct with you, I don’t think that’s in the cards, because I don’t 

think anybody’s going to come up with the revenue of $47 billion 

a year difference between what the Trust Fund is currently providing, and what the needs are that have been identified. 

So, it’s pretty clear to me we’re going to have to work both sides 

of this equation—we’re going to have to find some other revenue 

source, and we’re going to have to make cuts. And that’s going to 

be painful, painful business. 

Let me—one other question and then turn it over to Congressman Pomeroy and that is, Francis, you’ve indicated that 52 percent 

of the program in North Dakota is from the Federal program, 57 

percent if one counts the Stimulus funding for the several years 

that that’s operative, and then what would the figure be with emergency funding figured in? Because on the emergency funding, as we 

discussed yesterday, there the funding is 100 percent Federal. Do 

you have a calculation on what that would take us to, in terms of 

the Federal share? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, unfortunately I don’t have that, but 

I can tell you where we’re at with the ER Program. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. This year alone, we’ll be spending approximately 

$80 million in ER, that’s Emergency Relief, that’s raising the 

grades in Devils Lake and in other parts of the State where they’re 

flooding and the snow melt has caused potholes to rise to where 

they’re inundating our roads, but in total, we are expecting $150 

million in ER Program in the 2009 disaster and the 2010 disaster, 

combined. So, add $150 million to that equation and do the math, 

and that’s what it would amount to. I shouldn’t guess, here, as a 

306 

witness, but if I—I could do the math and get back to you with the 

exact number. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Would you do that for us? Because I think 

for the purposes of the record, I think we need to clear what percentage is Federal when we take all sources, and we look at the 

expenditure. I think it’s fair to say, if we’re talking $450 million 

this year, and $80 million of that is emergency, 100 percent Federal funding money, that would add not quite 20 percent, but getting close to 20 percent—16, 17 percent, to 57—we may be approaching 70 percent Federal share, when we stack everything up. 

But, if you could do that for me, I think it’s important that we 

have that for the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Congressman Pomeroy? 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, recognizing your role as Budget 

Chairman and then also on the bipartisan Deficit Reduction Commission, your comments on the funding straits facing our country, 

the need to deal with these extraordinary deficits are very well 

made. 

I also think, though, the other side of the coin well-presented by 

the panel, investment in infrastructure is basically growing, directly related to growing and diversifying the economy, we’ve seen 

it in the west with the energy explosion in North Dakota, but we’ve 

seen it through the panel today, relative to creating new jobs, making new opportunities relative to our own agriculture—tremendous 

ag output capacity. 

The Commissioner’s comments note that we ship 30 percent more 

as a nation in agriculture, being one of the areas of our economy, 

16 percent of GDP where we actually run a favorable trade surplus. 

If you look at North Dakota in that equation, we pay an enormous role in terms of contributing export and growing the economy. It’s important to North Dakotans, it’s important to the country as we look at trying to have a healthy mix of exports relative 

to imports. 

Mayor, I would just—I’m impressed with the additional projects 

you outlined that Carrington is seeking, and even in the face of 

that, you’ve seen pretty substantial truck growth going through 

your community, what would you attribute this growth in traffic to 

and what are your prospects relative to the projects you told us 

about? 

Mr. FRYE. Well, in regards to the projects it’s pretty high that 

they’re going to happen, specifically the feed project, the likelihood 

of that happening, extremely high. 

Mr. POMEROY. Great. 

Mr. FRYE. The ethanol project, they’re doing a test in Iowa today 

with test plot beets that were grown right here at the research center at Carrington, and that’s being shipped to Iowa, so I would say 

that that’s moving forward rather quickly. The equipment is designed and coming from Europe, I would highly expect that project 

to happen at some point in time. 

We talked about a couple of projects, but we have a new dairy 

operation that has nearly 1500 cows, that those vehicles are being 

added to the highway, I talked about the New Rockford elevator, 

and we have a farmer in town who presently exports all of his flax 

307 

to South Africa and several other countries, and he’s using the 

transportation system, it’s growing. 

And I think the reason is, it’s because of our city’s name. Our 

nickname is ‘‘The Central City,’’ and if you look at a map, 70 percent of the State’s population is within 125, 130 miles of 

Carrington. 

When you look at another map, and a little brochure I’m going 

to give you today, Congressman, there’s a map in there that shows 

you where all of the processing plants are. Again, nearly 70 percent 

of those are within that distance. So, Carrington obviously makes 

sense when you’re looking value-added food processing. 

Mr. POMEROY. I would reckon that the Chieftain is one of the 

most recognizable landmarks in the State. 

Mr. FRYE. That’s right. 

Mr. POMEROY. Reflecting traffic that continually goes through 

here. You talked about your miles while I’ve got a wife in Grand 

Forks, kids in Bismarck and I work in Washington, I’m an at least 

twice a month fixture, maybe more, at the truck stop I referenced 

earlier, fueling up as I head across the State, so I personally have 

seen the tremendous growth of truck traffic in this area. 

Mark, that co-op of yours has come a long way. Your growth trajectories continue positive as you continue to diversity the products 

you’re bringing to—collecting from your farmers and bringing to 

market? 

Mr. HOVLAND. Yes, we do. This plant here, when we—we purchased this from Carhill back in 2002 and we’ve actually doubled 

the handle that they had for the previous 5 years. Now with the 

new one coming on board, we’re probably going to struggle to take 

that up any higher, but yes, we continue to handle whatever our 

patron base wants to produce. 

Mr. POMEROY. Terrific. 

J.R., I was looking at Minnewaukan, here, a couple of weeks ago, 

and I could not believe that this 281 that we talked about over the 

years, we’re going to have to move it, we’re going to have to divert 

around the town. And Good Lord, that old 281—— 

Mr. IRMEN. It’s gone. 

Mr. POMEROY. It’s gone. And it is well under water. You can see 

where the road line is, but it’s gone. You see changes like that, obviously, continuing really throughout the infrastructure of that 

area, not quite reaching to Cando yet, but—— 

Mr. IRMEN. Well, you know, we need to fill the roads up or stabilize the lake, something’s got to be done. 

Mr. POMEROY. And that itself has added a traffic dimension. I 

don’t know that we’ve talked about that as much as the ag dimension, but, you know, when you’ve got a national disaster area, like 

the Devils Lake flood has turned into, you’ve got an awful lot of 

responsibility continuing for some years on that. 

Mr. IRMEN. That’s correct. 

Mr. POMEROY. Dave, in conclusion, this plant of yours have seen 

good times and bad times. Your numbers reported today looks like 

a very strong operating demand and good things for the future. 

Mr. IRMEN. Yes, it does. 

Mr. POMEROY. Congratulations. 

308 

Mr. IRMEN. When we started up, we were built to do 25 head a 

day, now we are doing anywhere’s from 80 to 140, sometimes 150 

a day, slaughtering. And that’s a lot of animals we have to move 

between here and Fargo. 

Mr. POMEROY. Seven hundred a week, I must say that was beyond what I knew was occurring and I congratulate you for the 

success and do understand the point relative to infrastructure, 

again—we’re growing the economy, here. We’re growing jobs for 

people, people’s kids are going to be able to grow where they grew 

up, that’s a North Dakota dream, but we’ve got to have the infrastructure. 

And so, we got the message, Senator Conrad. I really appreciate 

you allowing me to participate in this hearing. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’m delighted that you did and I’d say this. When 

we had the debate on Stimulus, I argued strenuously for at least 

$200 billion on infrastructure. So, we got a package on infrastructure in this Stimulus package that falls far smaller than what I argued for. I really believe the infrastructure investment is the best 

one. And the reason I believe it so strongly is, that creates jobs in 

America, there’s no leakage. You build an infrastructure in America, those are all jobs in America, and it improves the economic efficiency of America. Nobody can look around what’s happening in 

North Dakota, look, you come to the Washington Metro area, everything at 4 is stopped dead. You go out on 395, or 95, it’s stopped, 

dead. What is the economic cost of that to our country? Not being 

able to move goods and services as rapidly as we otherwise might? 

It’s got to be enormous. 

So, to me, not only would it provide stimulus to our economy, but 

it would have also improved the economic efficiency of the country, 

and it would have all been jobs in America, not jobs going to China, 

not jobs going to Japan, jobs here. 

So, I wish—and I’ll tell you, the other thing is, infrastructure investment plays out over a number of years. Not all of the money 

goes through the system in a year, and we’ve got continuing economic weakness. We’ve got almost 10 percent of our people unemployed, another 7 percent unemployed. That’s one in every six 

workers in the country is either unemployed or underemployed. 

And if we had greater infrastructure investment in the Stimulus 

package or the Recovery Act, as it’s called, those dollars would be 

hitting right now when you need another lift to the economy. 

So, you know, I regret that I was not able to persuade some of 

my colleagues that we should have done more on infrastructure, 

but I believe it very strongly. And I think the evidence in our State 

is about as clear as it can be, from the hearings we’ve been holding—Francis, you’ve been at every one of them, wouldn’t you say 

the credibility of the presentations that have been made is very 

high, from the witnesses we’ve heard? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, I totally agree with that statement. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, any other witnesses, any final thoughts you 

want to register for the record before we close the hearing? Mayor, 

anything you want to add? 

Mr. FRYE. Well, Mr. Chairman, I would just want to emphasize 

the continued growth or success of our community is directly tied 

to the infrastructure, and specifically the highway, as we’ve talked. 

309 

And if something isn’t done in a positive manner in the next 5 to 

10 years, we’re not going to be able to continue the growth and success that we’ve had. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

Mark, anything you want to add? 

Mr. HOVLAND. I agree. For us to continue to grow and for our 

communities to thrive, we need to keep these highways working. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. J.R.? Any final thoughts? 

Mr. GIBBENS. One of the things, one comment I’d like to make 

is that our economies there in Towner County and Cando is kind 

of unique. We’re not plagued with the unemployment things that 

the east and west coast are. I can look everybody in the eye and 

go on record, the unemployment rate in Cando is zero, if you want 

to work. We need to have more improved infrastructure so we 

could—we’ve worked real hard to grow our economies and everybody that can work is working, and we need to import more people 

to work. What I do is recruit, train and retain people and that’s— 

but we need roads to do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yep. All right. 

Any final thought? All right, I want to thank all of the witnesses. 

[Whereupon, at 10:38 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(311) 

FIELD HEARING: DEVILS LAKE FLOODING 

DISASTER: A DOWNSTREAM PERSPECTIVE 

FRIDAY, JULY 9, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Valley City, ND 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m. in the Bridges 

Meeting Room, AmericInn of Valley City, Valley City, North Dakota, Hon. Kent Conrad, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to welcome everyone today to the hearing 

of the Senate Budget Committee. This is an official hearing of the 

committee, and therefore we will follow the rules of the U.S. Senate 

for hearings. 

One of the rules of any Senate hearing is that there be no open 

expression of approval or disapproval for the testimony of any witness. That is very important so no witness feels intimidated for giving what might be unpopular testimony. So, we will follow that 

rule scrupulously here. 

An official record of the hearing is being kept. And before we 

begin the hearing, I’d like to observe a moment of silence for Keenan Cooper, a North Dakota soldier who lost his life on Monday in 

Afghanistan. The Congressman and I were able to speak to his 

family this morning, and I think they would very much appreciate 

this sign of respect. 

[Moment of silence observed.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you to all of you. We appreciate, very 

much, the attributions of Keenan Cooper and the sacrifice, the ultimate sacrifice that he paid for our country, and we share in sympathy with his family the deep feelings they have at this. 

Let’s go now to this hearing. The title of this hearing is, ‘‘Devils 

Lake Flooding Disaster: A Downstream Perspective’’ I want to 

begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. We have 

two panels. Our first group includes the Acting State Engineer of 

the Water Commission, Todd Sando; the Chief of Environmental 

Health for the North Dakota Department of Health, Mr. Glatt, 

David Glatt; and Valley City Mayor Bob Werkhoven. 

Our second panel will include Lisbon Mayor, Ross Cole; Barnes 

County Commissioner, Cindy Schwehr; and Secretary for People to 

Save the Sheyenne, Richard Betting. I look forward to hearing from 

312 

each of you on the steps that should be taken to address the flooding crisis in the Devils Lake Basin. 

I look forward, as well, to the participation of the Governor if he 

is able to arrive during the hearing. He was attempting to change 

his schedule yesterday so that he could be here today, and we’re 

hopeful that he will be able to be in attendance and participate. 

I’m going to start with kind of a brief overview of what we are 

experiencing and what the challenges are that confront this region. 

Since 1992, all of us know, that Devils Lake has risen nearly 30 

feet. Tens of thousands of acres of productive farmland have been 

flooded, and hundreds of homes and other structures have been 

moved. In fact, more than 600 structures have been moved. The 

transportation network, including roads and the rail lines has been 

disrupted and the local economy continues to be adversely affected. 

Last year the lake rose more than 3.5 feet. Recent heavy rains 

have pushed it to a record elevation this year. Devils Lake is now 

within 6 feet of the natural outflow overflow that would have an 

uncontrolled release of water into the Sheyenne and beyond. Finding solutions to prevent an uncontrolled outflow is in everyone’s 

best interest. It is particularly important for those who live downstream. 

Experts tell us the wet cycle in the basin is likely to continue for 

years. There’s no way to predict exactly when the normal cycle of 

drier conditions will return. But we have been told that there is a 

72 percent chance that the wet cycle will continue for 10 years or 

more. Let me repeat that—a 72 percent chance that this wet cycle 

will continue for more than 10 years; a 37 percent chance that it 

will continue for 30 years, and a 14 percent chance that it will conVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00318 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.390
313 

tinue for at least 60 years. No one knows whether these projections 

are accurate, but it gives us some idea of the threat of a continuing 

wet cycle. 

Simulations show a substantial risk the lake will reach the spill 

elevation of 1458 feet. Today as we meet, the lake is about 1452, 

somewhat less than that, but at about 1452 feet. An uncontrolled 

release of water would cause significant damage downstream. The 

quality of water released would be extremely high in sulfates, five 

times worse than if the water had been released out of the west 

end. This is one of the things that’s very hard to kind of get one’s 

mind around, but the quality of the water in that lake is not consistent throughout the lake. The water quality out of the east end 

is about 10 times worse than the water quality out of the west end. 

If we had an uncontrolled release of water out of the east end, 

where the water quality is many times worse, drinking water supplies could be impacted. The cities of Valley City and Lisbon would 

face river levels exceeding those experienced during the 2009 historic flood. Discharges from Lake Ashtabula could be twice what 

was experienced during 2009 and some properties could be flooded 

for an extended period of time, we’re talking weeks of very high 

water, making recovery extremely difficult. Some properties would 

likely not recover. 


58154.391
314 

When the flooding disaster began, we worked cooperatively on a 

three-pronged strategy—Upper Basin storage—increasing Upper 

Basin storage, protecting infrastructure—by raising the dikes, raising roads, and moving water off the lake. We had approved, in the 

2000 timeframe, provisions for a Federal outlet that would carry 

300 cfs of water out of the lake. That was approved, the initial 

funding secured, but at the end of the day, State and local units 

of government decided they could not afford their share, there was 

a Federal-State cost-share, State and local units would have to provide 35 percent of the money. Thirty-five percent of the cost of the 

Federal outlet would have been $72 million, and State and local officials told us they could not afford that amount. 

As a result, the State constructed an outlet with a capacity of 

100 cfs that has now been upgraded to 250 cfs, and that outlet is 

actually working today. 

We have pursued all of the elements of this strategy aggressively—Upper Basin storage, protecting infrastructure and an outlet feature. This chart shows the significant investment the Federal 

Government has made in mitigation measures in the Devils Lake 

Basin. In total, we have secured—ah, the Governor is here, welcome. Come join us. 

Governor Hoeven. Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good to have you here, thanks for coming. 

Let me just repeat. In total, we have secured $700 million just 

in Federal resources to protect the region. To keep the road network intact, over $400 million has been spent since 1995, to raise 

roads and address the roads acting as dams. As we know, we have 

roads in the Devils Lake Basin that were never designed as dams 

but are, in effect, serving as dams today. That is extremely risky, 


58154.398
315 

because they were never designed to act as dams, and under hydrologic pressure they could burst. And because there are people living 

behind those roads, you could have a loss of life. As a result, we 

have secured nearly $100 million to deal with those roads acting 

as dams, to upgrade them to prevent the danger of them breaking. 

FEMA has spent $84 million since 1993 in repairing damage to 

public infrastructure caused by the rising lake, relocating threatened structures, and buying out Church’s Ferry. As I indicated earlier, 600 structures have been moved. 

The Corps of Engineers has spent $200 million since 1993 on the 

levy and other protective measures. As you know, we’re in the third 

raise to the levy protecting Devils Lake. If that levy were not in 

place, and had not been raised, Devils Lake would be under water 

today. 

HUD has provided more than $11 million since 1997 to mitigate 

damages caused by the disaster. But the lake continues to rise, as 

I indicated, 3.5 feet last year. It is clear we are now in uncharted 

territory. 

We have always understood that only comprehensive solutions 

will succeed in the long run. The problems at Devils Lake can not 

be solved by simply flooding everything downstream. People downstream have a very significant interest in the decisions that are 

made upstream. In effect, we’re all in this together. There is much 

to be lost in the Devils Lake Basin by a failure to deal with these 

issues, there is much to be lost downstream by a failure to deal 

with these issues. 


58154.399
316 

However, this cannot be seen as only a Devils Lake regional 

problem. It is now far beyond the Devils Lake Basin. This really 

involves the entire eastern third of the State of North Dakota. 

Since the May Flood Summit in Devils Lake, the Administration 

has convened a working group to evaluate both short-term and 

long-term options. The working group has representation from all 

of the relevant Federal agencies including the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Department of Transportation, USDA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Environmental Protection Agency, the 

U.S. Geological Survey, and the State Department. The group’s recommendations are expected by September 9th. September 9th their 

full range of options is expected to be provided to us. And they are 

meeting regularly with people in the affected communities. There’s 

a group coming, as I understand, next week, to do soundings with 

relevant officials on the whole range of options being considered. 


58154.388
317 

But, the hard reality is, the Federal Government cannot control 

Mother Nature. The State of North Dakota can’t control Mother 

Nature. So, the critical question is, if the current wet cycle continues, what should be done to prevent the disastrous consequences 

of an uncontrolled overflow on the east end of Devils Lake? That 

is, from the perspective of those downstream, what options should 

the Federal Government be considering to deal with this potential 

flooding disaster? 


58154.386
318 

I’m particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on 

where they think the working group should focus its attention and 

I intend to share with the working group the results of the hearing 

here today. And I am delighted that the working group has asked 

Colonel Price, the new commander of the St. Paul District of the 

Corps to be here today. 

Colonel Price, if you’d stand so everybody could see you? Colonel 

Price is in the back, put up your hand. Colonel Price is the new 

man in charge of the St. Paul District. He has been designated by 

the working group to be here today to carry back the lessons 

learned as a result of the testimony that we will hear this afternoon. I am delighted that he is here. 

I should also indicate that the working group has been headed 

by now the Corps of Engineers. They have been put in place as the 

head of the working group to coordinate all of the other Federal 

agencies. 

I also want to indicate how much we appreciate the close cooperation we have had from the State of North Dakota and all of 

the local units of government—Mayors, County Commissioners, up 

and down the affected area have all participated in dozens and dozens of meetings. 

With that, I want to turn to Congressman Pomeroy who, of 

course, is a Valley City homeboy, raised and grew up here, and I 

know has a very deep feeling for Valley City and the people who 

reside here and in the area. 


58154.400
319 

STATEMENT OF HON. EARL POMEROY, U.S. CONGRESSMAN 

FROM NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you, Senator and thank you for bringing 

this hearing to Valley City. And I am pleased to be a part of it. 

Valley City, my hometown. And it’s good to be home. Growing up 

on the Sheyenne River, like I did, had so many events indelibly 

etched in my mind. Certainly among them, flood fights. And we’d 

build these dikes and we’d fight like crazy, and after awhile the 

water would go down and you’d take the dike down, and by the 

time you finally got everything cleaned up, a few more weeks go 

by, life back to normal. That’s happened just once, my growing up, 

it happened several times, in fact, the home ultimately the ownership of my sister, the family home, is a FEMA buyout and burned 

down. It just, under the circumstances, dealing with more water 

than we ever dealt with for decades in the life of this house, it 

didn’t make sense to have a house there anymore. 

Now, in performance of my present responsibilities as the Congressman from North Dakota I’ve gotten to work very closely with 

the people of Devils Lake. The fundamental difference between 

their flooding experience and the ones that I had experienced growing up in Valley City—that flood comes, and it stays. And then it 

gets a little worse, and it stays. It gets worse beyond what you 

could ever imagine, and it stays. So, foot by foot of a 28-foot 

vertical rise in Devils Lake has created the kind of flooding trauma 

for the people living there that I’d never seen the like of. I certainly 

had a—I can empathize because of the flooding experiences I had 

growing up along the Sheyenne, but I’ve never seen anything like 

this. 

We have, growing up as a North Dakota community, we view 

ourselves as a North Dakota community. So, I know because my 

mom’s here, my sister’s here, I’m in Valley City all of the time, 

there’s been a lot of concern in Valley City about what’s going on 

in Devils Lake and a lot of empathy for the extraordinary property 

damages taken, the homes moved, the lives disrupted, the economy 

impacted. But we are now moving to a very different component, 

a very different place in time in terms of evaluating what’s going 

on in the Devils Lake region. Events have materially changed the 

risk that the Devils Lake regional flood becomes an eastern North 

Dakota regional flood with Valley City first down. 

In—growing up in this town, growing up across Valley City, anyway, but across North Dakota anywhere, you’re raised with the 

value, you face your problems. You don’t wish them away, you don’t 

just pretend you don’t have to deal with things, you face your problems. 

So, Senator, I think the tremendous public response you’ve had 

in the hearings you’ve held on this topic show this is a North Dakota community facing its problems. We intend to evaluate what 

are the strategies to best mitigate what would be the catastrophic 

losses of uncontrolled spillover? There’s no getting around it; it’s 

time to face that question, and face it head-on. 

The risk has changed. Ten years ago we were talking about the 

uncontrolled spillover, looks like it’s happened a half dozen times 

over 6,000 years is what geologists tell us. But I will tell you, at 

that point, it seemed like, certainly within the realm of possibility, 

320 

but it seemed somewhat remote. That was many feet of lake rise 

ago. 

We’ve come up 30, we’ve got 6 more to go before spillover. Now, 

that means, again, a material change in the risk of uncontrolled 

flooding, and that risk has to be addressed. 

I’ve got a brother-in-law that farms one mile south of Ashtabula 

Dam. And his take on this is, better to proactively deal with the 

increased water flows than run an unacceptable level of risk that 

you could end up with uncontrolled water flows. I believe that view 

is deeply rooted in North Dakota common sense is largely found up 

and down the Valley as we look at this thing, and our task is now 

to try and find the strategies that effectively mitigate the risk. 

In this regard, I’m very pleased, Senator with the progress on the 

task force. We had a task force in the nineties and part of it was 

dealing with the realm of issues we had to deal with, creative ways 

to use flood insurance to proactively move homes, we moved 500 

homes using that strategy. A levy build around the city, we got a 

levy build really in no time flat when you consider a 9-mile levy, 

working the way—it would normally be a much longer proposition 

for the protection we were able to put in place there. Additionally, 

Rose’s Dams—many other facets of this issue were worked through, 

really, in record time. 

But given the present lake levels and the present new dimension 

of risk to all of eastern North Dakota it was time to reconstitute 

the task force, even at a higher level. The conference calls that I’ve 

been on with the Senators, with Vice President Biden, with the Office of Management and Budget Director Pete Rorsog, and the 

meeting we had with the senior representatives of the agencies 

have left me assured that we’re not on the track to another study, 

some kind of progress to some other study. We’re trying to get an 

action plan, we want an action plan by the end of the summer, in 

terms of a risk mitigation strategy for this problem. 

I believe that the record to be established today will be extremely 

helpful to this committee. I know there will be professional staff, 

high-level technical professional staff pouring over all of the testimony coming in today. 

You said it, Senator, when you—I think it kind of sums it all up, 

very literally, in light of the increased risk of uncontrolled flooding—this no longer is an upstream issue, it’s no longer a downstream issue—we’re all in this together, at this point. I absolutely 

believe, as a son of the Sheyenne, that we can find strategies to 

work through that will represent, in my opinion, acceptable up and 

down the river, up into the Devils Lake region—acceptable strategies to deal with this natural phenomenon that has presented numerous challenges, but challenges we can work through. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much Congressman Pomeroy 

and thank you for all of the time and effort you have dedicated to 

trying to find solutions to the challenge. 

Let me ask, is there any way to get additional chairs on the side? 

We have about 20 people, here, who I think are still standing. We 

have one chair that is available up front if one of the women who 

are standing back there, we invite one of the women to come up 

and take a chair. And if we could—there are about 20 people still 

321 

standing, it would be nice if we could get chairs for them. I think 

they’re going into the next room to do that. 

Right down the middle, here, if people could just scoot their 

chairs this way, and people who are on this side could scoot their 

chairs that way, we could get a line of chairs right down the middle. 

We’ll stand in recess for 5 minutes while that’s being done. 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. We are also joined today by our Governor, Governor Hoeven. We very much appreciate him rearranging his 

schedule to be here today and we ask the Governor for any opening 

observations he might have. And I welcome him to stay during the 

meeting today if he’ll have any final conclusion at the end of the 

hearing, I’d be glad to recognize him again at that time. 

Governor Hoeven? 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN, GOVERNOR, STATE OF 

NORTH DAKOTA 

GOVERNOR HOEVEN. Thanks, Senator. Good to be with you, and 

also Congressman Pomeroy, good to be with you. 

Homebody, huh? Was that the term? 

Mr. POMEROY. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. 

[Laughter.] 

Governor Hoeven. That’s pretty good. 

Good to see all of you here. I’m struck by the fact that we have 

people here both from Valley City and from the Devils Lake area 

and all parts in between. I think that’s a really good thing. I think 

that’s great. Because we’re all going to have to work together on 

this issue and so I hope that promotes some dialog between people 

from both the Lake Region and down here in the Lower Basin area. 

And we continue this effort to work together, because that’s how 

we’re going to get on top of this challenge. 

I contacted Senator Conrad when I heard that he was going to 

have these hearings both up in Devils Lake and down here in Valley City and asked if I could maybe be part of them, and he was 

most gracious and said absolutely. And I appreciate that very 

much. Because this is a partnership. We need to work together at 

the State level, with Mayor Werkhoven and all of the local officials, 

with the County Commissioners, they’re here, I know Commissioner Schwehr is going to testify, as well, but we need to be working together in partnership, all of the local officials, the local people, both in the Devils Lake region and here in the Sheyenne Valley, as well, it needs to be local, State, and Federal partnership. 

This has to be a partnership to deal with a challenge like this. 

And so that’s the approach we’re taking. And I’m going to start 

with this point, and end with this point—we need all of you working together. I mean, we really need you to work together, and 

that’s the way we’re going to solve this challenge, and that’s how 

we’re going to do the best job for everybody, whether you’re in the 

Lake Region, or whether you’re downstream along the Sheyenne. 

And so that’s what we’re working toward, and I think that if we 

come out of here with more dialog and people talking to each other, 

communicating and working together on these challenges, then 

that’s certainly a great result. 

322 

The approach that we’re taking from the State perspective in 

meeting this challenge is a three-part approach. And I know you’ve 

heard me talk about this before, but it’s a three-part approach, so 

we’ve doing it in partnership, local officials with the Federal officials. But the three-part approach is storing water in the Upper 

Basin, mitigation—meaning building up roads and dikes in the 

Lake Region area around Devils Lake, and working to move water 

out of the lake. All three. All three. And again, I go back to that’s 

why it takes all of us working together, OK? 

Now, the lake has gone up as both Senator Conrad and Congressman Pomeroy just mentioned, and you’ll hear from Todd 

Sando, our State Engineer and also Dave Glatt who’s our Chief of 

our Environmental Section for the Health Department. These guys 

know what they’re talking about, they’re very common sense oriented, they know the science behind this stuff, and they’ll give you 

more detail. 

But, from 1993 to the present, Devils Lake has gone up about 30 

feet—30 feet, OK? We’re about 6 feet from an uncontrolled flow off 

the east side, OK? So, that’s the situation. Now, let’s talk first 

about the first part of that three-part plan, storing water in the 

Upper Basin. In 1993, the lack was about 49 million acre feet of 

storage—is that the right stat, guys? Forty-nine, excuse me, 49 million acres? Thousand. Excuse me, 49,000 acres, not acre feet. Let’s 

go back to acres, 49,000 acres, OK? And the guys will go through 

the numbers, here, but 49,000 acres of water stored in Devils Lake. 

It’s now 180,000 acres of water stored, OK? So, right there, in 

terms of storage, you’re talking over 100,000 acres of water that’s 

stored in the lake, all right? So, from 49,000 acres covered by the 

lake to 180,000 acres. That’s more than 100,000 acres inundated, 

and that’s water being stored, OK? 

Now, in addition to that, if you go up to the Upper Basin, you 

go north of the lake, you go west of the lake, you’ll see a tremendous number of sloughs, potholes, wetland areas, OK? Now, don’t 

just take my word for it, and these guys will go through some of 

the statistics; go up and take a look. Go up and take a look at the 

size of the lake, and realize how much water is stored in the lake 

now, from 49,000 acres to 180,000 acres, OK? And then go up north 

and west of lake, drive around up toward Akandu area and so forth 

and look at how many wetlands there are. And you’ll realize how 

many hundreds of thousands of acres of water is being stored in 

the Upper Basin, OK? That’s Upper Basin storage, it’s an incredible amount of water. 

You know, I fly from Bismarck to Grand Forks and so I see it, 

and you look down and I think both the Senator and Congressman 

will tell you the same thing, it’s just endless numbers of wetlands, 

in addition to this incredible expansion of the lake. So, there’s a 

tremendous amount of water being stored in the Upper Basin. So, 

that’s the first part, storing water in the Upper Basin. 

Next thing let’s talk about for a minute, is mitigation, OK? 

Building up roads and dikes around Devils Lake area. Now, here 

again, the numbers will vary, our numbers are about $650 million 

has been put into building up dikes and levies, and building up 

roads. Now, I don’t think that counts some of the BIA dollars and 

323 

some others, so the numbers may be even bigger, depending on 

what’s included and what isn’t. 

But, so far, we have numbers that show $650 million that have 

been put into building up roads and building up dikes to protect 

the city of Devils Lake to protect homes, to make sure that we can 

continue to travel on roads up there. And highways like 281 have 

been completely rebuilt and moved, because Old Highway 281 is 

underwater, it’s now under the lake, and there are many, many 

other roads in that same situation. Right now, the main highways 

up there are Highway 19, Highway 20, and Highway 57 and we are 

working on all of them, trying to protect them from the higher levels of water, and we’re even working on Highway 2, right now, as 

well as raising levies to elevation about 1460 to 1465, OK? So, 

that’s $650 million-plus going into the second part, mitigation, 

building up roads and dikes. So, storing water, building up roads 

and dikes, and now we come to the third part, moving water out 

of the lake. 

Now, as I said, we’re up 30 feet since 1993. Thirty feet since 

1993. We’ve inundated hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland 

and we’re 6 feet from an uncontrolled spill on the east side. So we 

need to move water out in an orderly and a managed way, instead 

of having an uncontrolled flood. And that’s exactly what we’re 

doing. 

We’re now running 250 cfs out of the lake, and we are going to 

continue to need to move water out of the lake to prevent an uncontrolled overflow. And again, these guys will go through some of 

those statistics. And so that’s what we’re trying to do in an orderly, 

in a managed way, where we make sure we’re protecting downstream interests here in Valley City and other places, as well as 

working to mitigate the flooding up in the Lake Region. And that’s 

the approach we’re taking, and that’s where we really need people 

to come together, and to work together to make sure that they understand that we’re doing this in a way that benefits everybody, 

rather than, you know, one group, the upstream group versus the 

downstream. Or the downstream group versus the upstream group. 

So, our objective is to make this work for everybody as well as 

we possibly can. And when it comes to moving water out of the 

lake—which is part of this, which needs to be part of this solution—it’s doing it in a managed, orderly, and controlled way. 

That’s why, for example, when it comes to sulfates, we’ve already 

worked with the community, here, in Valley City to provide between State and Federal, $14 million of the $16 million cost to help 

upgrade the water treatment facility, including reverse osmosis, 

which will ensure that the drinking water is actually—not only will 

it provide more drinking water for your community to grow, but 

also even improve the quality. And again, to make sure that we 

manage sulfates or any other aspect of the water, both in terms of 

water quality and water quantity, again, so that it works for everybody and addresses the problem. 

That’s the approach we’re taking, we welcome the task force, the 

cooperation of the Corps, the EPA and the other Federal agencies 

in this process but ultimately, again, it comes back to all of you, 

the good citizens of North Dakota and finding ways to work together on this common challenge. 

324 

And I look forward to the testimony today and I look forward to 

visiting with you, and I very much look forward to, again, a good, 

meaningful dialog between people both in the Upper Basin and in 

the Lower Basin. 

Thank you, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor. Thank you, again, for 

being here. 

And I’m going to ask Congressman Pomeroy to introduce the 

State legislators who are here, the local State legislators who are 

with us today. 

Congressman Pomeroy? 

Mr. POMEROY. This is Senator Mary Robinson and Representative Phil Mueller. Is Ralph here? Oh, yeah, Ralph Metcalf also, he 

was lucky to get a chair. 

Would you introduce yourselves, please, you guys? 

Mr. POMEROY. Thanks for joining us. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. 

Now, let’s go to the first panel, and we’ll start with Todd Sando, 

the Acting State Engineer. And again, I’d like to remind everybody, 

if you have a cell phone, please turn it off so the hearing is not interrupted. 

Welcome, Todd. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF TODD SANDO, ACTING STATE ENGINEER, 

STATE WATER COMMISSION 

Mr. SANDO. Thank you, Senator. Yesterday I was able to testify 

in Devils Lake, too and I submitted six pages of testimony, so I’ll 

be submitting the same testimony today and what I’ll do is just 

summarize. 

The CHAIRMAN. Could you just speak directly into that. 

Mr. SANDO. OK, can you hear me better now? 

I’ll just try holding it here. 

Yesterday, I was able to speak about the wet cycle and the risk 

and some of the issues, and I’d like to kind of cover that to begin 

with today when we talk about the outlet and how it’s operating 

and some of the things that we think the Federal Government can 

do to help the situation. 

So, first off, regarding the wet cycle, there has been a lot of work 

done by the National Weather Service and the USGS and they’ve 

been tracking the water patterns and the lake has been continuing 

to rise ever since the 1930’s drought, so its been marching upward. 

The big issue is, things really changed in 1993. From 1950 

through 1992, the inflows into Devils Lake averaged 33,800-acre 

feet. So, 33,800. And we got this big summer rain event that took 

place in the summer of 1993 and it filled up all of the Basin, the 

watershed and the wetlands in the Basin and we had a lot of inflow into Devils Lake and from that point forward, Devils Lake has 

been—the Basin has been generating a lot more runoff and it’s 

been due to the increased precipitation and the, you know, the storage being occupied by water across the watershed. In fact, I want 

to put this map up. 

This is a map of the land setting from May 15th of this year, and 

just to point this out, this is Devils Lake here, here’s the chain of 

lakes to the north and this is—all of the blue is just water within 

325 

the watershed, so you can see that a big portion of the watershed 

is under water and the lake, as the Governor mentioned, is up to 

180,000 acres. 

Since 1993, the inflows into the lake have really changed, and 

the amount of runoff coming into the lake now has been averaging 

these last 16 years 243,700-acre feet. That’s more than 200,000- 

acre feet more than the average for four decades from the 50’s, 

60’s, 70’s and 80’s. So, the inflow is seven times greater now during 

this wet cycle than the last 16 years. So, I really want to point that 

out, that the conditions have really changed, and the climate hasn’t 

been stationary, that’s changed, and the inflows have gone up dramatically. 

As you heard, the lake’s gone up 30 feet since the spring of 1993, 

and there’s only 6 feet to overflow. The storage in the lake, what’s 

remaining is only 1.3 million acre feet of storage is remaining in 

the lake before we overflow, so there’s 1.3 million acre feet. I just 

want to point out the event that took place in 2009. The inflow 

event, it was the No. 1 runoff event for the Devils Lake area, and 

it was 590,000-acre feet of inflow. And that added 3 feet to the lake 

last year. 

To put it in perspective, if we would have back-to-back 2009s, we 

would be at—basically be at the overflow elevation. So, what I’m 

trying to point out, the risk is really high. The USGS has being 

doing some spill castic modeling for us, and they’ve been trying to 

figure out—if this wet cycle continues, and there’s a lot of scientists 

out there thinks that this wet cycle could continue for another 10 

years before it’s to its peak, and then on—as it’s on its way down, 

it’s still really wet. And based on spill castic modeling and looking 

at the period of record, the USGS has estimated that there’s a 13 

percent chance risk of Devils Lake overflowing over the Tolna coulee to the Sheyenne River. And this could take place within the 

next 20 years. 

There’s so many different ways this could play out, it depends on 

what type of winters we have and the fall rains, but based on these 

traces, there’s a 13 percent chance that the lake could overflow 

within the next 20 years. 

One of the things we’ve been doing to combat that is trying to 

get water out of Devils Lake, and we feel it’s very important to get 

as much water out of Devils Lake as we can. And the last 5 years, 

we’ve had an outlet in place, the first several years the outlet was 

designed—it was a temporary emergency outlet that was designed 

for 100 cfs. And for the first number of years, the releases were 

rather low because of constraints due to the water quality. In fact, 

in the summer of 2006 came, that was one of our really hot summers, June was over 100 degrees 11 days, the Sheyenne River basically became really low, and there wasn’t much flow in the river, 

so the outlet didn’t even run in 2006. 

In 2007 we got some water out, 2008. And then things took place 

that we tried to get an emergency rule to change the sulfate standard in the Upper Sheyenne River, so we put in an application with 

the Health Department to try to change that so we could try to get 

some more water out, because the lake was continuing to rise, and 

we just weren’t getting much water out. 

326 

And so last summer, we were able to get an emergency rule to 

change the standard in the Upper Sheyenne, so it’s the Upper 

Sheyenne, one mile downstream to Baldhill Lamb, and the standard was changed from seven—450 parts per million to 750 parts 

per million, and it’s basically equivalent to mg/liter, too. And at 

that point, last year in July we were able to start operating the 

outlet nonstop at 100 cfs, so we were starting to get 200-acre feet 

a day off, and we started moving a fair amount of water at that 

point. 

At the same time we decided, the Water Commission approved 

additional design of an outlet, to increase it to 100 cfs outlet to 250 

cfs outlet. So, we’re looking at trying to increase the capacity of the 

outlet by two and a half times. So, we got the design done last fall 

and we actually, we were in construction the entire winter. We had 

several contractors working all winter long, and you know it’s very 

difficult working in 20-degrees below weather, but the contractors 

worked all winter long and all spring. They were able to put in new 

pumps, so we upsized our pumping stations at Round Lake and Josephine and made some modifications. 

And we’re—as of about 10 days ago, we’ve completed the construction of the upsizing of the outlet. So, the outlet’s starting—not 

this past Monday, but the Monday before—we increased the discharge from 100 cfs to 250 cfs. So, for the last 11 days or so, we’ve 

been running at 250 cfs. 

So, as the summer goes along, here, we’ll continue to operate. We 

do have some of the issues are still related to the standards in the 

Sheyenne River. One of the issues as the water—the water moves 

down to Lake Ashtabula, I did discuss yesterday the travel time, 

it takes a couple of weeks for the water to get from the Devils Lake 

outlet to the head waters of Lake Ashtabula. I also put in the testimony, it takes another 60 days for that water to move through 

Lake Ashtabula to make it to Valley City, here. 

So as the summer goes along, we see more Devils Lake water 

added to Lake Ashtabula, and we’ve been—we have monitoring 

points up and down the Sheyenne River and in Lake Ashtabula, so 

we’re keeping a very close eye on the water quality and how that 

reacts. And as the water quality does change, if it starts approaching—the way we have it set up right now, as Lake Ashtabula approaches 400 mg/liters sulfate, we’ll start cutting back the discharges on Devils Lake to make sure that we stay within the water 

quality criteria for the Lower Sheyenne River. 

So, that’s where the outlet’s at right now, so we’re probably—it’s 

probably going to be running at 250 most of the rest of this summer and fall, and this all depends upon tributary inflow. It, you 

know, you could operate anywhere from 60 days all the way up to 

freezeup at 250 cfs, but it’s all going to depend on how the tributary inflow that comes in to blend with Devils Lake water. 

Some of the other issues—we’re very close to keeping up, now, 

with the average—average inflow of, say if we get 240 to 3,000 acre 

feet next year, and all the outlets we can pump at a rate of 250 

cfs, we could get at least 100,000 a year out. And that is a significant amount of water. As I explained to you, from 1950 to 1992, 

we only averaged 33,000-acre feet of inflow. We will be able to disVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00332 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
327 

charge three times the amount of the inflow that occurred during 

those four decades. So, it is a significant amount of water. 

But, during this wet cycle, now that the average is up to 243,000, 

we’re still, you know, we can’t quite keep up with the amount of 

water coming in, so it’s—evaporation can take, on average, 8.5 

inches off the lake. The outlet, under operation now at 250, can 

probably take anywhere from 6 to 8 inches off the lake. 

So, we can probably take a foot, 14 inches off the lake. And looking at this average inflow of 243,000, that’s—with an 180,000-acre 

lake, that’s, like 16-inch rise, on average, every year. So, we’re getting close to keeping up. So, if we had the weather patterns the 

same from 1993 to 2010, with a 250 cfs outlet, if we could run it 

all of the time, we’d be really close to keeping up with the lake. 

We might need another 150 to 100 cfs to keep up. 

So, some of the things that we’d like to try to do and have the 

Federal Government help out is trying to increase the number of 

days we can operate, and possibly winter operations. Trying to 

upsize the outlet even larger, so we can get more water out the 

west end. 

The other thing we would like help with is an east end control 

structure, outlet, maybe we can come up with some game plan that 

we can blend west end water with east end water and move some 

more water out that way. So, if we could get some assistance there 

from the Federal Government to try and help it get through the 

NIPA and some of the permitting issues, then that would be really 

beneficial, and funding. 

So, you look at, you know, what you’re talking about for other 

things to help—the other big area would be trying to reduce the, 

you know, relax the standards on the Lower Sheyenne River and 

the Red River, too, that would be the other thing. So, there’s, you 

know, three key areas, trying to get, you know, additional funds, 

help with permitting and have the Federal Government take a look 

at ways to modify the standards downstream from the lower—in 

the Lower Sheyenne and take a look at the Red River, too. 

So, that’s the basically the three main areas that, you know, the 

State Water Commission based on the situation that’s in Devils 

Lake. Those would also be the areas of assistance that we’d be 

looking for. 

Let’s go next to the Chief Environmental Health for the North 

Dakota Department of Health, Dave Glatt. 

STATEMENT OF L. DAVID GLATT, CHIEF, ENVIRONMENTAL 

HEALTH SECTION, NORTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH 

Mr. GLATT. Good afternoon, Senator and Congressman, first of 

all thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify today. 

As you had indicated, my name is Dave Glatt and I am Chief of 

the Environmental Health Section for the North Dakota Department of Health. Our Department is responsible for implementation 

of many State and Federal environmental programs. Through primacy agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 

we implement major elements of the Clean Water, Clean Air, Safe 

Drinking Water and Hazardous Waste Acts. I’m here today to address your questions regarding what steps the Federal Government 

328 

can take to assist in providing additional flood protection for the 

Devils Lake region. 

I’ll address your inquiry from a water quality perspective, but 

please note that my comments are not meant to be inclusive of all 

of the issues associated with the Devils Lake flooding. 

From a water quality perspective the Department of Health is 

well-versed in the issues and in cooperation with other local, State 

and Federal agencies has developed an extensive water quality 

data base of the Sheyenne and Red Rivers, as well as Devils Lake. 

This ongoing data collection effort has enabled the Department to, 

one, anticipate potential downstream water quality changes in cooperation with the Devils Lake outlet, and two, estimate downstream impacts from various other proposed flood control options. 

The State’s water quality data has proven extremely valuable in 

the Department’s decision to pursue modification of the sulfate 

water quality standard for the Sheyenne River from the head waters to just below Baldhill Dam. This modification protects the 

downstream designated uses of the river. 

To address the issues relating to areas of Federal participation 

and cooperation, I propose the following: One, the Health Department has recently completed a triennial review of the water quality 

standards for the State of North Dakota. This effort seeks to make 

a permanent change in the sulfate stream standard for a portion 

of the Sheyenne river, as previously noted. In proposing the 

change, an extensive record was developed which includes an examination of the Sheyenne River, and Devils Lake water quality 

trends, evaluation of other State EPA-approved and Canadian 

water-quality standards and review of technical documents including the Centers for Disease Control report regarding sulfate in 

drinking water. 

In addition to the Department’s solicited public input from three 

public hearings and review from the water—North Dakota Water 

Pollution Control Board, the North Dakota State Health Council, 

the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office and the Administrative 

Rules Committee. Our record shows a transparent public process 

following applicable science and the law. The State has completed 

its review process and has submitted the rule-change package to 

the U.S. EPA for their review and potential approval. We ask your 

assistance in ensuring that EPA expedites it through due process 

under the timelines established in law. 

I say this, Senator, because under the law it says the EPA has 

60 to 90 days to approve or disapprove the standards. After talking 

to EPA, their comment was, ‘‘Well, we never get that time limit.’’ 

I think, because of the issues associated with this, they should get 

that time limit. And we would be more than willing to provide any 

assistance in that area. 

Two, if additional changes warrant all of these standard, they 

should be considered to assist with Devils Lake flood relief, they 

should continue to be based on the best science. Because the Red 

River is a shared water source, any modifications to the existing 

standards will require consensus with the State of Minnesota, two 

EPA regions, Region 8 and Region 5, and EPA headquarters. Additional consideration may also be required in relation to the Bond 

Waters Treaty, a potential State Department issue involving CanVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00334 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
329 

ada. I believe that the water quality issues associated with a temporary, moderate change in the Red River sulfate standard can be 

addressed while still protecting existing, designated uses. 

Finally, as a final request, we would ask for expedited review 

and approval of the most cost-effective flood relief option that acknowledges downstream impacts. This may include finding ways to 

move better water quality out of the western lake, or other areas 

in the lake located in the upper portion of the basin, expedited Federal review of these alternatives, as needed. 

As you said earlier, there is a very marked change in the water 

quality as you go from the west portion of the lake to the east, and 

while we’re trying to balance all of the concerns and the needs, I 

think it’s prudent that we take a look at how do we get water out 

of the west end so that minimizes downstream concerns and impacts. I know that’s a concern for people in the Devils Lake Basin, 

because they’re concerned that you’re taking the better water quality out of that lake. But if it’s truly about flood control, and about 

getting some relief in the Basin, I think we need to take a look at 

and try to balance all of the concerns and, from my perspective, 

getting water out of the west end is the best way to do it. 

As noted earlier, the State has generated significant data and 

gained considerable knowledge of the water quality associated with 

Devils Lake flooding. From our perspective, there may be further 

flood relief opportunities that could be explored to balance Devils 

Lake flooding and downstream concerns. Local, State, and Federal 

entities should pursue all options in the true spirit of cooperation 

to ensure the selection of the most balanced remedy. 

I will say that the State does have an Outlet Advisory Committee 

that is staffed by people in—from the Lake Region area, and also 

from people that live downstream. I think that is a good opportunity to get those people to the table, and really talk about what 

we can do to find solutions, and what’s the best way to operate the 

outlet. 

This concludes my testimony, Senator, and I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Glatt follows:] 

330 


58154.216
331 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you very much for being here. 

Next we’ll go to Valley City Mayor, Bob Werkhoven and then 

we’ll have a chance for questioning of the entire panel. 

Welcome, Mayor, it’s good to have you here. 

STATEMENT OF HON. BOB WERKHOVEN, MAYOR, CITY OF 

VALLEY CITY 

Mr. WERKHOVEN. Good afternoon, Senator Conrad and Congressman Pomeroy and Governor Hoeven. I’m Bob Werkhoven and I’m 

the Valley City President of the Valley City Commission. 

I’m honored to speak today on behalf of the citizens of Valley 

City and the entire city Commission regarding the Devils Lake, its 

impact on the city of Valley City and what can be done to protect 

Valley City and the entire lower Sheyenne River Valley. 

In an ideal scenario, those of us in the Sheyenne River Valley 

would prefer not to have Devils Lake water in the Sheyenne River 

or have to deal with, as has often been referred to as the Devils 

Lake’s problem. We’ve heard arguments and theories from many 

sources on what caused us to be where we are today, and while 


58154.217
332 

many—if not all—of the arguments and theories have some merit, 

we are beyond the point where we can look backward and talk 

about what-ifs, and we now must look at the present and to the 

future. 

One cannot go to the Devils Lake area and not be overwhelmed 

by the enormity of the situation. Unfortunately, the massive increases to the Devils Lake region over the past 17 years prevent 

us from considering many options and we must now acknowledge 

that this is no longer a ‘‘Devils Lake problem’’ but is now an eastern North Dakota problem. The only way to solve this problem is 

for everyone in North Dakota, especially those of us in eastern 

North Dakota, to work together. 

With information from the National Weather Service that our 

current wet cycle will not end for several more years, it is imperative that a comprehensive solution be devised that no only mitigates the effects of the flooding in the Devils Lake Basin itself, but 

also protects those downstream on the Sheyenne River from the effects of the increased sulfate levels from Devils Lake and provides 

mechanisms to protect the downstream citizens from flooding. 

The Sheyenne River Valley experienced record flood levels in 

2009 as a result of snow melt, none of which was due to Devils 

Lake issues. So, while we not have additional spring runoff, floodrelated problems from Devils Lake water retention should be 

planned for the Devils Lake Basin. 

Valley City is the only city on the Sheyenne River that uses 

water from Devils Lake from the Sheyenne River as a primary 

source of drinking water. Through utilization of the river as a surface water source and groundwater from Valley City Aquifer, which 

is under direct influence of the river. Due to concerns about the impact of additional sulfates in the water, the city of Valley City is 

in the design phase—and I want to emphasize design phase—of a 

project to convert our 38-year-old water treatment plant from a 

lime-softening treatment plant to a reverse osmosis or membrane 

treatment facility. We are very pleased for the assistance that has 

been provided through the efforts of Senator Dorgan and the U.S. 

Congress and also Governor Hoeven to assist with the funding of 

this plan. 

Through the U.S. Congress, we received two State and Tribal assistance grants of $400,000 each for a total of $800,000; $4.6 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds were received in the form of a $2.6 million forgivable loan, and a $2 million loan repayable over 20 years with a 1-percent interest rate. 

Though these efforts of Governor Hoeven and the North Dakota 

Water Commission has provided a grant of $8.2 million to the 

project. We are currently working with the North Dakota Department of Health resolving issues relative to the discharge of the 

wastewater from the treatment process. Construction on the project 

should begin in late 2010 with a projected completion date of the 

end of 2011, which is quite a timeframe. 

The recent proposed rule change allowing sulfate levels to reach 

750 mg/liter in Lake Ashtabula and up to 1/10th of a mile below 

Baldhill Dam is of concern to us in Valley City. Even though the 

rule states the sulfate levels will not exceed 150 mg/liter in Valley 

City, we are concerned that the level could increase. If this were 

333 

to occur prior to the completion of our membrane treatment plan, 

we are concerned about the potential health risk to our elderly population, first, students in Valley City State University who are 

transitory throughout the year and would have a difficult time adjusting to the increased sulfate levels. 

We are encouraged by the commitment of State officials that 

they will reduce the flow from the emergency outlet on the west 

end of Devils Lake when the sulfate levels exceed 400 mg/liter in 

Lake Ashtabula and we’re hopeful that commitment will continue. 

For catastrophic failure in Stump Lake or a natural overflow 

through the Tolna coulee, we think a dike-type structure in this 

area to alleviate flooding downstream in the Basin is critical. Our 

efforts to make this a reality are of paramount importance. A catastrophic failure through the Tolna coulee would result in water exceeding 1200—12,000 cubic feet per second, which we are advised 

would bring the water levels in Valley City to 10 feet higher than 

our historic levels in 2009. 

A recent letter to Lieutenant General Robert Van Akron from 

Governor Hoeven outlines these concerns and we encourage immediate action on this request. Any effort the Senate Budget Committee can bring forth to fund the next protected measure is critical 

to the protection of the Lower Sheyenne River Valley. 

We, in Valley City are appreciative of the combined efforts of the 

U.S. Congress, State officials and local efforts to help Valley City 

to respond to the water treatment issues in a manner that will resulting a treatment plant that will meet all present and all future 

water treatment requirements, while at the same time, minimizing 

the long-term cost to the local taxpayer. 

Providing a comprehensive solution to the flooding concerns more 

than the Devils Lake Basin and the Sheyenne River Valley must 

begin immediately with representatives from the Federal and State 

agencies and local communities working hand-in-hand. 

And, Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, and Governor 

Hoeven, on behalf of the citizens of Valley City, I thank you again 

for the opportunity to present testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Werkhoven follows:] 

334 


58154.214
335 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Mayor. We appreciate, 

very much, your being here and your testimony. 

And let’s go to questions of the panel. I’d like to start with Mr. 

Sando, and to help us understand better, the situation that exists 

now on the east side of the lake in the Tolna coulee area, the lake 

is roughly at 1452, just below that level, the uncontrolled release 

would occur beginning at 1458, is that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. In regards to the outlet of the—to the elevation at 

Tolna coulee, it is 1458. Last year there was a project done, it was 

at 1459, they did some maintenance work and took the silt out, so 

the actual overflow elevation, officially, is 1458. 

The CHAIRMAN. 1458. One of the concerns that has been raised 

repeatedly to me by people in the Valley City area and everybody 

downstream from Devils Lake has been, is there a possibility, is 

there a danger that because of the hydraulic pressure there might 

be a blowout of that area in the Tolna coulee below 1458? 

Mr. SANDO. To answer that question, the Tolna coulee, the material in the coulee has varied, the soil conditions are—they’re weak 

soils, they’re blowing in either by blowing in sediment or waterVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00341 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.215
336 

borne sediment, so the materials are not very strong. So, there— 

there could be a potential that the water could come out of the lake 

before it reaches an elevation of 1458. So, it could blow out at a 

lower elevation. 

We do have observation wells in place, so we’ve got wells all 

along the divide in Tolna coulee and we’ve been monitoring that 

real closely to see if there’s a gradiance setting up, making it looks 

like water is starting to move from east Devils Lake into Tolna coulee. And right now, the observation wells are showing that it’s just 

the ground water level, so there isn’t a gradient right now, so it’s 

just following the level of that. 

The CHAIRMAN. So that’s the good news. 

Mr. SANDO. So that is good news right now. 

The CHAIRMAN. And, do we have any sense of, at what level that 

we could face a blowout at the Tolna coulee? For example, have 

your scientists done any analysis of where we reach a level of 

height and risk? Is it 1456? Is it 1457? Do we have any idea based 

on scientific analysis? 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah, we have no scientific analysis that has determined where it could possible start exiting at an early elevation. 

Some of the things we’ve looked at, the outlet for Tolna coulee 

comes out the southwest corner of east Devils Lake. So, on this 

map, here, it comes—it works its way out—out of west Devils Lake, 

I’m sorry, it comes out around this way and it’s tucked in this corner over here, so all of the water in Devils Lake is driven from 

Mauvais coulee and coming in from the west, northwest, and moves 

this way. So, when the water moves through east bay and east 

Devils Lake through Jerusalem all the way into the west and east 

Stump Lake, the water would have to take a big curve and come 

out this way. 

So, in a way, it’s tucked in a corner, and it’s protected. Because 

if you get a northwest wind it’s right—some of the big problems in 

Devils Lake is related to wave action and—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. That’s one of the grave concerns that’s 

been raised to me by people in Devils Lake that—and in Valley 

City that, what if you have wave action against that area and that 

erodes the plug that is there now, and could we have catastrophic 

failure at 1456, or—but what you’re telling us is, the way it’s located in a corner, it’s less exposed to that kind of wave action? 

Mr. SANDO. Yes, it’s—that’s correct. It’s less exposed. You have 

to have more of a east wind or a northeast wind for the setup and 

the waves to go out toward Tolna coulee, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Let me go to the next question which is the question of inflows 

to the lake, because there is, you know, I’ve received many letters 

from people in Valley City, suggesting that the answer to this is 

to have more Upper Basin storage. And I must say, flying over the 

Upper Basin, it’s hard to see how there’s much more storage that 

could be had there. Wetlands that had been previously drained 

have been pretty well filled by Mother Nature. I mean, you fly over 

that, which I did, at the time of the summit in May, we flew north 

for quite some distance, and it is extraordinary what has happened 

in that area over the last 6 years. That area is chock-a-block filled 

with water. That’s what your review shows, as well. 

337 

Mr. SANDO. Yes, that’s correct. We’ve been monitoring the situation in the Basin, in fact, we put up a different map, here. This 

is the Devils Lake Basin, that’s 3800 square miles. And we have 

this land-sat image—I had it up before—you know, this is just, I 

just have a layer of showing water. And this is the purplish color, 

here, that is Devils Lake, the different color purple is Stump Lake 

and the green is the Chain Lake, so it’s Lake Ervin, Mike’s Lake, 

Dry Lake and over here, Sweetwater-Morrison lake, and all of the 

other blue is just water within the watershed. 

Like I was pointing out, most of the water comes in Mauvais coulee, works its way this way. A lot of water mixes from the eastern 

part through Edmoor coulee and comes in through SweetwaterMorrison and works its way through Dry Lake and over through 

Mike’s Lake, Chain Lake, through Lake Alice, Lake Ervin. 

So, what we’re depicting, what we’re seeing, and especially dealing with the issues north and east of Devils Lake and over into 

Nelson County, if you look over here, we’ve got huge issues with 

Lake Loretta, issues over in Michigan and Petersburg, just acres 

after acres under water, it’s like mini Devils Lakes up in this portion of the watershed. 

So, as you can see here, we do have water covering a big part 

of the watershed. In fact, I have a land-sat map, too, that depicts 

what the—I can show you a comparison. OK, this little figure, here 

is this bigger map right here. The map over here is before the wet 

cycle started, so this is a land-sat image from 1991. So, it shows— 

all of this yellow is just land, and there’s—none of it’s under water. 

So, now, in comparison, the amount of water in the basin, just in 

the Upper Basin, if you exclude Devils Lake and the chain of lakes, 

there’s 10 times the amount of water in the watershed now compared to 1991. 

The CHAIRMAN. Ten? 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. Ten times. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is very hard to get your mind around—I mean, 

unless you go up and go in a helicopter and see for yourself, it is 

staggering, the amount of increased water being stored in that 

Upper Basin now. 

Now, with that said, if we go back to the most recent study by 

the Corps, full study, 2001, and you look at what they said was 

wetlands that had been possibly drained up until that point, they 

came up with 92,000 acres, with a capacity for storage of water of 

132,000-acre feet. 

Would they, then, recognize, once you fill up that amount of storage, you know, there’s no more to be had. I suspect, if we go back 

to this study, we’d find much of this has already been filled by 

Mother Nature. But let’s just base—based on this study. 

They, then, did an analysis based on a 50 percent restoration, 

and they came up with reduction of inflow into the lake by restoring wetlands of 15,643-acre feet. 15,643-acre feet. That would be 

the reduction in inflow with the restoration of half of the wetlands 

that have been previously taken out. 

Let me ask you this. Fifteen—if they reduce the inflow by 15,643 

feet, your testimony, as I read it, is that the inflows have been 

averaging 240,000-acre feet, is that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. That is correct. 

338 

The CHAIRMAN. So, 15,000—a reduction of 15,000 would certainly 

help, but it doesn’t come anywhere close to solving the problem, is 

that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. Right. For every foot of rise it would be, like 180,000- 

acre feet, so you divide that by 12, that’s not much of a reduction 

off the lake. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s not much of a reduction off. That is the hard 

reality, as I see it. 

Let’s say the Corps was wrong in their assessment, because some 

people have said they’ve underestimated the wetlands that have 

been drained previously, so they did an update to their study and 

they doubled the number. That would still leave you with only reducing the inflows by 31,000-acre feet—31,000, and the inflows 

have been averaging 240,000. So, that would only solve 13 percent 

of the problem if my math is right, and I think my math is right, 

is that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. One of the things you point out, too, 

that’s a first-time filling. The next go-around the next year, some 

of that storage is used up, it doesn’t all evaporate down, so you 

don’t have that available storage the next year. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, now, if it was possible to have additional 

Upper Basin storage, all of the studies that have been done so far 

by the relevant Federal Government agencies and by your agency, 

because you have looked at this previously, is that while it would 

help us, it doesn’t come anywhere close to solving the problem, is 

that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct, yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Congressman Pomeroy? 

Mr. POMEROY. Mr. Chairman, I just have one question of the 

panel, and I would start with the—just affirming their suggestion 

that folks go up to that Upper Basin and drive around—there is 

water, water, everywhere. I, for one, would absolutely wish that 

there were vast amounts of potential water storage capacity and 

landowners interested in participating with the programs we might 

develop that would elicit a paid response for the purposes of storing 

more water, I don’t see it. I absolutely don’t see it. 

And I’m not a technician, but I think the information just put 

into the record affirms the water storage dimension of this is unfortunately limited. The wet cycle has been punishing the region, 

throughout the Upper Basin. A million acres of prevent plant along 

the northern tier of North Dakota this summer show you that not 

just the sloughs are full, the fields are full. So, they had to pay off 

a lot of crop insurance to folks that couldn’t get their crop in. 

The question I have, Mr. Dave Glatt, the water quality issue that 

the Mayor speaks to, building the water treatment plant’s going to 

have an additional capacity and can handle sulfates and other 

issues in the water, and right now that’s in the design phase, 2 

years out from coming online, your testimony talked about the ability to use the dam, use the lake in ways that addressed water quality issues south of Ashtabula Dam, I’d like you to speak to that a 

little bit. 

Mr. WERKHOVEN. Thank you, Congressman. What I meant by 

that is, by knowing how the river reacts and the influence from 

339 

Devils Lake and also the natural conditions from the recent weather we had, we feel that there is a way we can operate the outlet 

and the dam to minimize downstream impacts. 

I’m not going to say that the water quality isn’t going to shift, 

but I think you can minimize that shift to where the designated 

uses such as municipal supply and agricultural uses can be protected and still maintained. So, it’s just getting the people who operate the dam, people who operate the outlet knowledgeable of how 

the system reacts so they can operate it in a manner that minimizes the downstream impacts. 

Mr. POMEROY. And as the—as Mr. Sando testified, the permit 

was granted for emergency change to the level of solids in the river 

system. And so, at that time you made that decision, the summer 

of 2009, this was substantially evaluated by the Health Department? 

Mr. GLATT. Congressman, yes, we did have an emergency rule 

change as it related to the sulfate concentration in the upper portion of the Sheyenne. We felt comfortable with that from the 

amount of water quality and the testing and the studies that have 

been done on the river. So, we felt that portion—the upper portion 

from the headwaters down to basically Baldhill Dam, we were still 

able to protect all of the beneficial uses and designated uses at that 

point. 

Where we ran into a little bit of a roadblock is that because the 

designated use downstream of Baldhill Dam that, right now, is Valley City is for municipal use, we were not able to make any 

changes further down, and that’s where EPA has to get involved 

and make a determination whether or not they would allow that 

to happen. 

Mr. POMEROY. OK. 

Thank you, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. I would like to go back to this water quality 

issue, because this has significant implications for everybody. It’s 

got significant implications for people in the Devils Lake area, it’s 

got significant implications for everyone downstream—not just Valley City, but right on down, Lisbon over to West Fargo, Fargo, 

right up to Grand Forks. So, all of us have a lot at stake with respect to this water quality issue. 

The water quality as I understand it in Devils Lake goes roughly 

from, on the west side, about 500 parts per million to, on the east 

side, up to 2500—is that about correct? About 550 to 2500 from 

west to east. This is a lake that, in a way is like a river in that 

it has a flow to it. Most lakes, you know, when you say to a person, 

‘‘This lake has different water quality in one part than another 

part,’’ it seems odd to people, because most people don’t think of 

a lake having a flow to it. This lake does have a flow to it, from 

west to east, is that correct, Todd? 

Mr. SANDO. Yes, that’s correct. In fact, the west end had a water 

quality last year, 2009, for sulfate levels, averaged between 550 

and 600 parts per million or milligrams per liter. As you move 

across from west to east, main bay, to east bay to east Devils Lake, 

the salinity levels of TDS and sulfate levels go up. In fact, east 

Devils Lake the sulfate levels are 1,000 parts per million, and as 

you said, Stump Lake is 2600. 

340 

The CHAIRMAN. And I’m told that at some point in the past, before Stump Lake got freshened by the overflow from Devils Lake 

that it had as high a levels as 5,000, is that correct? 

Mr. SANDO. To my knowledge, I think it was in the tends of thousands, actually. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. And no fish could live—— 

Mr. SANDO. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Do we know at what point we’d face a fish kill? 

What levels of dissolved solids we’d face a fish kill? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, I don’t know the exact number. I mean, 

there were some fish, you know, fish are surviving now in Stump 

Lake and you know, but I think significantly, the higher you go 

with the sulfate concentration, the more stress it puts on the fish, 

it makes them more susceptible to other type of diseases. 

One thing I’d like to point out to you is that as you from the west 

to the east, it’s more than just sulfate. And then you’re going to 

have issues with things such as arsenic, trace metals in the west, 

but as you go to the east, those concentrations also go up and those 

remain, and in addition to sulfate they may be of concern, as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK, so, there are other issues than sulfates as 

you go west to east. Not a problem in the west, but a growing problem as you move east in the lake. 

Here’s another thing I got thinking about after yesterday’s hearing. If we’re taking waters out of the west in order to reduce affects 

downstream, what is the potential that the sulfates levels in Devils 

Lake will rise to levels that are unacceptable? In other words, if 

we’re taking the better water out the west side, what is the possibility, over time, that the sulfate levels in Devils Lake will rise to 

levels that are unacceptable? 

Mr. SANDO. I’m trying to figure out what order to talk about that 

issue. 

Right now, during this wet cycle, actually Devils Lake has been 

freshening every, you know, because of the inflows and we’re averaging this 243,000-acre feet of inflow, it keeps getting better, and 

better, and better. So, as the lake rises, it has been improving but 

if the lake starts to become stable or starts to decrease in elevation, 

then the sulfate concentrations and TDS levels will start to rise. 

The CHAIRMAN. And do we have anything that would tell us at 

what levels those sulfate concentrations would become a problem? 

Mr. SANDO. Senator, I don’t think we have anything such as 

that. I think it’s good to keep in mind that we are looking at taking 

enough water out to avoid an east end outlet. And so it’s not like 

we’re—so, we’re not going to be, like, pumping all of the water out 

of lake. So, that tells me—and I think we can find the science to 

back this up, is that the amount of water that we would be taking 

off to avoid the east end outlet wouldn’t create a major shift in the 

water quality in Devils Lake. Not—especially from what they’ve 

seen historically in Devils Lake. I don’t think we’d be beyond any 

of those things. So, I think we’d still be within an area where we’d 

see—we’d see a good fishery and a good recreational system, but 

getting that flood relief and that concern, take that concern off the 

east end outlet. 

341 

The CHAIRMAN. OK, final question, and that is, when we talk 

about sulfates, dissolved solids representing a threat to human 

health, precisely what is that threat? 

Mr. GLATT. Well, Senator, we take a look at what other States 

do allow, and what Canada and also the Centers for Disease Control—they did a study looking at what is the concerns regarding 

sulfates? And their conclusion, basically, was, there was no relationship between health effects and sulfate concentrations. 

That being said, States such as Minnesota said they’d put 400 

milligrams per liter of sulfate concentrations for baby formula. 

Manitoba has a 500 milligrams per liter concentration for drinking 

water. South Dakota has, I think it’s 500—not in, for a 1-day event, 

not to exceed 850. So, it’s kind of—because there isn’t a bright line 

or there doesn’t seem to be any relationship between sulfate and 

health effects, the numbers are higher, and can be seen higher in 

the river, without adverse health effects. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, when I asked a gentleman for the 

Corps of Engineers a number of years ago, I asked him this question because he kept saying to me, we’re concerned about health effects downstream. And I asked him, ‘‘What health effects?’’ And at 

some point he said to me, ‘‘Well, Kent, the thing is, at some level, 

people get diarrhea because of elevated sulfate levels.’’ Is that correct? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, from the CDC report, they weren’t able to 

do that. And kind of in an odd way, they had people drink highsulfate water and they’d sit around and watch them and see how 

long it took before they ran to the can. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GLATT. A real scientific study, but they got the point across. 

I will tell you that in the State of North Dakota we have several—I think we’re in the 30 to 40 public water systems that drink 

significantly higher sulfate concentrations with no health effects. 

And we have some systems that are above 1,000. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just tell you that I had recommended Senator Dorgan for that test? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. GLATT. I’ll take note of that, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Any other questions? 

All right, let’s go to the next panel, if we can. 

Thank you very much to this panel. Appreciate very much your 

hard work. And if I could ask you, Mr. Glatt, if you could bring together any of the information that you have that would bear on 

this question of mine with respect—yeah, at what point does the 

reduction in the freshest water coming in pose a challenge or a 

problem, I think that’s going to be a very important question for 

us to get answered. That affects everybody—that affects people in 

Devils Lake, it affects people downstream. 

All right, let’s go to the next panel, if we can, again, thank you 

very much. 

Let me invite the next panel up, Lisbon Mayor Ross Cole; Barnes 

County Commissioner Cindy Schwehr; and Secretary for People to 

Save the Sheyenne, Mr. Richard Betting. 

Welcome, all, good to have you here. 

342 

As they’re coming, let me just provide this other piece of information because one of the questions that’s been raised is, what is our 

evidence that this lake has ever had an uncontrolled released? And 

the USGS did a 4,000-year study of the Devils Lake Basin. And 

they concluded that, as I read their information, and it appears to 

me, at least three times in that 4,000-year history, we’ve had an 

overflow to the Sheyenne. I know that others have read this data 

and concluded that it’s only twice that there’s been an overflow to 

the Sheyenne, but as I look at this chart, it appears to me that 

three times in 4,000 years, Devils Lake has gone through this cycle 

and had an uncontrolled release to the Sheyenne. 

It appears to me that seven times in that 4,000 years, there has 

been an overflow into Stump Lake. At least seven times, there’s 

been an overflow into Stump Lake, which of course has occurred 

this time. And if you look at the trajectory that we’re on, only four 

times in that 4,000- year history have we been as high at the lake 

as we are today. Only four times in 4,000 years have we been as 

high as we are today, and it appears to me that three of those four 

times, it has gone over into Sheyenne. 

So, I’d just say, to those who have been hoping against hope that 

this is not going to keep going up, the odds don’t look to me like 

that’s a very good bed. 

Let’s go, next, to Lisbon Mayor Ross Cole, welcome. Obviously, 

Lisbon has a lot at stake, here, as well. They faced very serious 

flooding in 2009 and they would face very serious flooding—threat 

of flooding—if there were an uncontrolled release in the future. 

Welcome, Mayor, please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSS COLE, MAYOR, CITY OF LISBON 

Mr. COLE. Thank you for asking me to testify today, this is an 

honor for me to be here and I feel that you guys are behind us on 

this, coming down the stretch. It’s definitely a disaster. 

As everybody does know in this room that in 2009 we had the 

worst flooding we’ve every had in the history of the Sheyenne or 

the history that they could keep records. And that was a tough one 

and that was 30 day’s worth. Well, they tell me now that if this 

water comes uncontrolled from Devils Lake, we’re looking at an additional, you know, a cfs coming down the river, and how do we 

prepare for that without the people sitting up here? 

We are very much, as a city, we are in favor of a controlled outlet 

of Devils Lake. We’re lucky enough, we get our drinking water out 

of wells, so the river water itself isn’t a real—the quality of the 

water doesn’t bother us quite as much as it does Valley City and 

some of these other places, West Fargo, that has to use the water 

out of the river. 

But, we are—have to get along well with our neighbors, too, so 

whatever it needs to do to get to the point, getting a controlled outlet, and then we also are going to need some help with flood protection. As these guys know up here, Lisbon—the river goes right 

through the center of our city, and I don’t know how we can build 

dikes high enough to save the city, but hopefully we can. And with 

the help of the Corps of Engineers and other people, we’ve done it 

in the past, and I think we can do it in the future. 

343 

I—right now we are in the process of doing a dike, or a levy 

study with the help of the Water Commission and Governor 

Hoeven, he got us some dollars to do some core sampling, and we 

appreciate that very much. It’s a start. We need some help with 

some mitigation, as everybody knows in this room, also, that 

FEMA isn’t real nice to deal with when it comes time to build permanent levies. I don’t see the reasoning in that, but nobody can 

seem to tell me what the reasoning in that is, but we’re going to 

need help. 

So, that’s all I have, I want to thank you for having me come 

today, and I appreciate it. If there’s any questions, I’m happy to try 

to answer them. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cole follows:] 


58154.210
344 

The CHAIRMAN. Great. 

Next we’ll go to the Barnes County Commissioner, Cindy 

Schwehr, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. CYNTHIA SCHWEHR, COMMISSIONER, 

BARNES COUNTY 

Ms. SCHWEHR. Thank you, Senator Conrad, Congressman Pomeroy, Governor Hoeven. and all of the visitors to Valley City and 

Barnes County, welcome and thank you for being here. 

On behalf of the Barnes County Commission we want to thank 

you for asking us for the County’s perspective on the Devils Lake 

issue. As we’ve discussed it, as a group, we feel, in our opinion that 

Devils Lake needs to be stabilized as much as possible through 

maximizing the west end pumping station or some other type of a 

structural solution to control the discharge year-round, if need be. 

Best case scenario, of course, would be if the water were to be filtered before pumping it into the Sheyenne. We feel water from the 

east end, if at all possible, shouldn’t be considered as an option to 

be pumped into the Sheyenne. Even though millions of dollars have 


58154.211
345 

been pledged and committed to a reverse osmosis water treatment 

plant Valley City, we yet don’t know the possible negative affects 

that the higher sulfates may have on the life in the river, Lake 

Ashtabula and all of the livestock that drink from these bodies of 

water, and the reverse osmosis system—from what we understand—are expensive to operate and we feel the citizens of Valley 

City will be bearing the expense of that system, possible until the 

end of time, even if Devils Lake does—is brought under control. 

As a group, we feel that finding and knowing the elevations 

where things must be done is a critical piece of what has to go on 

here. We have a lot of numbers and a lot of elevations but would 

ask that the Federal Government pinpoint exactly where are things 

going to start to happen. 

And as this is all happening, there’s no doubt in our minds that 

planning, concurrent planning needs to take place in the armoring 

of the Tolna coulee to prevent any natural release, needs to be done 

as soon as possible. 

From some of the information I’ve heard and obtained, it appears 

that through the releases into the river and the natural evaporation, it seems as if that won’t even quite stabilize or equalize the 

situation, and that’s not taking into consideration the natural moisture we may get through summer rains or winter snow. 

A serious concern for the County is, with the increased flows into 

the Sheyenne no matter what level they are, right now we are seeing very serious bank erosion, and those additional flows, possibly 

year-round, could be a serious, serious issue for the County. We 

have many rural homes in Barnes County and farms that have 

been here for generations that are in danger now, and the additional water moving will expedite the erosion, and we do fear that 

it would cause near-disaster situations in the county. As a County, 

we have moved one road in the last couple of years in the Valley, 

because the river was taking the bank and was going to take the 

road right with it. 

Upper Basin retention, as I’ve listened today, it doesn’t sound 

like there’s a lot of room, but I think it has to continue to be studied. And as a Federal or local government, we can’t reasonably expect any landowner to bear the expense of retaining water that 

they legally drain without being compensated to do so. And we all 

know taking of private property for public use is an uncomfortable 

process, and hopefully one that we don’t have to look at. 

At the beginning of this year, the Barnes County Commission 

asked the State Health—the North Dakota State Health Department for a comprehensive study as to what’s—the effects of the sulfates and everything that comes down the river with that water. 

And I don’t know yet if that’s been completed, the actual request 

for it was for an out-of-State, non-partial firm. 

I guess we ask that as you—as we—work to solve the problems 

of the Devils Lake Basin that we continually keep in mind the potential problems this is going to create for the downstream communities, and I believe that you are. You’re here today, that means 

you’re—you are concerned about what’s happening downstream. 

A common thread between everyone, we all know, would be a 

Godsend and right now I don’t think it’s happened, but I think together we can find a common thread and word as a region to solve 

346 

the Devils Lake issue, because as you said, it is an eastern North 

Dakota issue, it’s not just a Devils Lake issue any further. 

Again, thank you for allowing us to be here, and welcome. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Schwehr follows:] 


58154.212
347 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony. 

And now we’ll hear from Mr. Richard Betting, Secretary for People to Save the Sheyenne. 

Welcome, and please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF RICHARD BETTING, SECRETARY, PEOPLE TO 

SAVE THE SHEYENNE 

Mr. BETTING. Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to speak 

on behalf of the downstream Sheyenne River landowners, water 

users and of all those who are concerned with—and affected by— 

the methods that will be chosen to deal with high water on Devils 

Lake. 

There are a number of aspects of this issue that I’d like to talk 

about, and I have handed in some data and so I’m going to skip 

around and try to cover as many as I can in a short period of time. 

The three-legged stool has been mentioned, and water retention 

is what we would like to advocate, primarily. We define water storage as a restoration of wetlands, not water already in the lake, and 

so we think that the drained acres in the Upper Basin, which are 

extensive, in some cases would be—could be used for water storage 

so that the water would be prevented from ever getting to the lake 

in the first place. Now, I’ll come back to that one in a second. 

One, I want to start with, here’s the subject how to deal with 

water and do it in the best possible way and hurt the fewest number of people. It seems to me that one has to wonder why Federal 

agencies were asked to come up with an answer to the water problem on Devils Lake when the best engineers in North Dakota, as 

well as the U.S Army Corps of Engineers and others, could not proVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00353 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.213
348 

vide one. Could it be because some people are looking for a political 

solution to an environmental problem? 

The ‘‘solution’’ water managers and politicians seem to be seeking is divine intervention, or at least an ‘‘executive exemption’’ from 

EPA, Corps, State and Federal rules. With some kind of administrative approval, someone could put as much water as they wanted 

into the Sheyenne River through both east end and west end Outlets. 

The irony is that they want to destroy the Sheyenne River in 

order to save it, and they want us to agree to its destruction. And 

afterwards no one would be responsible for the destructive downstream ecological impacts that resulted. 

Can outlets solve the problem? We don’t think so. Last year 

587,000-acre feet came into the lake. If the outlet pumps at 250 cfs. 

It will take 7 years to remove that. Evaporation will take off thirty 

inches a year, that helps. A little over thirty. I believe Mr. Sando 

used the No. 8, that’s another difference in definition. He was talking about net evaporation. Evaporation always takes off thirty or 

so inches. Net means subtract precipitation, and then you get eight 

inches net, because precipitation from 1993 to 1999 in the Upper 

Basin of Devils Lake averaged about 21 inches, about four more 

than it had prior to 1989. But evaporation takes water off every 

year, year after year. 

We think, before I get into restoring drain, wetlands—another 

issue is that, is there a crisis? If you look at the last chart of the 

Devils Lake Heights—I don’t have enough to hand all of these out 

to everybody, but I handed out some, you will see that in 2004 the 

lake rose to 1449, for the first time, 1449 feet, 2004. This year it’s 

1452. In effect, it went up three feet in 6 years. It was at 1448 in 

2001. In other words, it went up four feet in 9 years. It was at 

1447.5 in 1999. In other words, it went up 4.5 feet in 11 years. 

So, be careful with numbers. If you make the jump from where 

it used to be in 1993 all at once, it sounds like a lot more than 

looking at it just in the last few years. 

Where do we think that came from? We think that as many as 

358,000 acres have been drained in the past 50 years. That means 

that many of those drained acres, when they got precipitation on 

them, the water flows and collects in the coulees, as someone had 

the map up earlier, the coulees all across the Upper Basin of Devils 

Lake from Edmore Coulees, over the Starkweather Coulee, the 

Mauvais Coulee to the west, in the spring flow higher than the 

Sheyenne. Last year, inflows from the Upper Basin totaled 587,000 

acre feet, and the coulees flowed at two to three thousand acres— 

acre feet—or cubic feet per second, while the Sheyenne, at the 

same time, was flowing less than that. So, they flow like rivers. 

Once they get to the basin, there’s nothing that you can do with 

them. People talk about managing water in the basin, once it’s in 

the basin, it can’t be managed. All you can hope for is evaporation. 

So, it seems to us that the only practical, long-term method of 

dealing with the rise Devils Lake is to prevent water from drained 

wetlands from reaching the lake in the first place. Once in the 

lake, water management is no longer possible. People in the Devils 

Lake Basin say that their water is everybody’s problem, now. If 

349 

that’s the case, we insist on using restoration of drained wetlands 

as the next approach. 

One of the reasons we object to West Bay water is, as has been 

mentioned, the water quality is very poor. That’s one of the reasons 

the outlets have not been able to operate, and did—they only began 

operating a year ago, in fact, in July, when they raised the standard from 450 milligrams per liter to 750 milligrams per liter of sulfate. Along with the other contaminants in West Bay are also bad, 

including total dissolved solids, calcium, magnesium, sodium, arsenic, phosphorous fluoride, and so on, which add to. One of the 

panelists was talking about, well, what will that do to the ecology 

of the river? We don’t think that all of the 53 species of fish in the 

river will be able to reproduce. Live? Maybe. But reproduce hasn’t 

been demonstrated. We don’t think that the eight or nine species 

of mussels in the river will be able to reproduce, because the fluoride is so high. Are there mussels in Devils Lake? So, the damage 

to the Sheyenne is, and could be, extensive. 

The U.S. Fish Hatchery is just north of town—I’ll find the right 

page. Concerning the U.S. Fish Hatchery north of Valley City, the 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service went on to say, ‘‘The hatchery’s 

water source from the Sheyenne River will likely be unusable, 

therefore the hatchery would need to obtain a source of fresh water 

in order to operate.’’ Furthermore, it’s unlikely that the hatchery 

will be able to maintain its ability to provide fish to the State of 

North Dakota. 

Mr. Glatt said the beneficial uses of the Sheyenne River will be 

maintained. In 1999, when Devils Lake was going to breach Tolna 

coulee and put it in the Sheyenne River, they asked the Health Department to tell them what the effects would be. At that time, 

Francis Schwindt was the water quality and he said the project of 

digging the ditch through the Tolna coulee would be extremely 

complex from a water quality perspective, the water quality parameters that are of concern would be total dissolved solids, sulfates, 

chlorides, copper, lead, arsenic, selenium, boron, ammonia and nutrients, and that he ended up saying, ‘‘The designated beneficial 

uses of the Sheyenne River would not be maintained; these include 

municipal water supplies, aquatic life, irrigation, industrial water 

supplies and recreational.’’ 

And so we would think that in order to decide what to do next, 

a thorough and scientific study of the number of, acres of, drained 

wetlands in the Upper Basin ought to be determined, first of all, 

probably using lieder. No one has done this yet, we don’t have 

those numbers. How much water comes into the lake, how much 

could be retained by restoration of Upper Basin drained wetlands 

and how much that would effect the lake’s total height. And so, 

until those things have been done, we’d prefer not to see water 

coming out of Tolna coulee and the east end outlet, and no more 

out of West Bay. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Betting follows:] 

350 


58154.401
351 


58154.402
352 


58154.403
353 


58154.404
354 


58154.405
355 


58154.406
356 


58154.407
357 


58154.408
358 


58154.409
359 


58154.401
360 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, thank you. 

Mr. Betting, if I could just go to you, you pointed out, correctly, 

that the lake has had very little increase from roughly 2002 to 

2008. But, isn’t it true that during that period that the reason 

there was no rise in Devils Lake is that it was going over into 

Stump Lake, and Stump Lake went up 43 feet? 

Mr. BETTING. Yes, that’s partly true. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BETTING. But, if you look at Stump Lake, you also see, in 

quantity, in terms of quantity, it can’t quite compete with the number of acre feet stored to West Bay. 

The CHAIRMAN. No, that’s certainly true. But, I think, you know, 

as we look at this, the reality that we confront, here, is while the 

lake didn’t go up for an extended period of time, in fact for 8 years, 

from 2000 to 2008 we didn’t see an increase, but a central reason 

was it was going over into Stump Lake and filling up Stump Lake. 

Here’s the question that is most on my mind that I’d like to direct to you, Mr. Betting. When we look at the USGS data and 

they’ve looked at 4,000 years, they have found that there was a release in the Sheyenne during that period of, it appears to me, three 

times. The first time, about 4,000 years ago, and the next time 

about 2200 years ago, and the next time about 1,000 years ago. 

And if you look at the trajectory we’re on, there was one other time 

that looks to be about five or 600 years ago that the lake was on 

the trajectory, went over into Stump Lake, but didn’t go into the 

Sheyenne. And the trajectory we’re on is the same as each of those 

times where it’s gone into Sheyenne, or at least filled up Stump 

Lake. That is, we are now higher than any of the times, other than 

the three times that it went into the Sheyenne, uncontrolled. 

And that tells me that we’re in a historic pattern, and that the 

odds are sufficiently high that it represents an unacceptable risk 

for everyone—not just the people in Devils Lake, but for the people 

here, the people in Lisbon, the people in West Fargo, the people in 

Fargo. Is it your belief that the lake won’t continue to rise? 

Mr. BETTING. The lake is influenced, now, by the results of 

drained—the water from drained wetlands which never had occurred in the past. And so when you get a half million acre feet 

of water coming into the lake in the spring of the year, you would 

have to ask, how much did the drained wetlands add that would 

not have been there in a normal year, or normal cycle and I believe 

that the addition of those drained wetlands is considerable, and 

that the lake would not have risen, as it has, in the last 25 or 30 

years, without it. The hundreds of thousands of drained acres that 

allowed that water to go immediately—if water falls in the Upper 

Basin today, there are no 300,000 acres of wetlands. They’re—they 

have a ditch out of them. No water stays there. Drained wetlands 

do not hold water. So, all of that water goes—collects in the coulees, goes in the coulees into the lake, very rapidly. And so that’s 

why, when you’re talking about flying the Upper Basin—please 

allow me to hand out four pictures that I’m going to submit to— 

I’d like them back at the end because I want to submit them as 

testimony—but if you look at those pictures, no, go ahead and look 

at them as you pass them down, I don’t have any more. If you look 

at those pictures, and you can see, for miles, that the drained wetVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00366 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
361 

lands are now farm. Thousands and thousands of acres of drained 

wetlands are now farms. 

If you look at Google Earth, and I just found out how to do that, 

if you look at Google Earth and you go up in the Upper Basin, and 

you enlarge the sites so that you can see every section of land— 

every one—you can see the drains. If you go up along, from Highway 1 on the east over to Rowell on the left, the Mauvais coulee, 

you can go up there and see section after section, drained. 

And I’m not saying they’re illegal or anything. All I’m saying is, 

if the situation in the lower basin of Devils Lake is serious enough 

so that you ask—we ask, together, those people whose lands have 

been drained if they will retain water on that land with gated— 

with gates, to open and close them when the water is need it, let 

the water out, it’s kind of like a version of the waffle plan. When 

the situation in Devils Lake gets that serious, we should consider 

it. And I think we’ve reached that point. 

And so what I’m saying is, will it rise? The result of the drainage 

is almost inevitably going to mean that more water comes in, and 

it will rise faster, and sooner. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right, here’s the question I was trying to get 

at. Before there was any drainage of wetlands, 1,000 years ago, 

2200 years ago, 4,000 years ago, this lake went through a cycle, the 

scientists tell us, where there was an uncontrolled release of water 

out of the east end. That was before any drained wetlands. And 

when I look at the pattern from USGS of this current cycle, it is 

just closely matching what has happened in those three times, before there was any drained wetlands, that led to an uncontrolled 

release. 

So, isn’t it possible, I would say to you, that even though a 

drained wetlands—no question they contribute to the speed at 

which it may occur—but isn’t it possible that we are in a weather 

cycle—whether drained wetlands or no drained wetlands—we 

would have an uncontrolled release of water out of the east end? 

Mr. BETTING. I guess I’d have to agree, of course, it’s possible. 

The CHAIRMAN. The second point I’d make to you, in the most 

complete study that I’ve seen that has been done, it was done in 

2001 by the Corps, on the question of how much of a contribution 

do the wetlands, the drained wetlands make to the inflows to the 

lake? What they concluded is that 92,000 acres were possibly 

drained with a capacity of 132,000-acre feet. That’s on page 6 of the 

study that was done in 2001. 

Mr. BETTING. By the West Consultants, yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. By—that’s the so-called ‘‘West Study.’’ 

Mr. BETTING. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. Daniel Rhineharts made that study and when 

they went—so, page 6, they talk about possibly drain 92,000 acres. 

They then convert that on page 15 into how much that leads to an 

inflow—additional inflow—into the lake. And they say, if you restored 50 percent of those wetlands, you would save 15,643-acre 

feet going into the lake. That’s up against an inflow that we’ve 

averaged, since 1993, of 240,000 acres. 

So, let’s say the West study is wrong. Let’s say they underestimated the acres. Let me just conclude this point and then I’ll give 

you all the time you want to respond. Let’s say they were off by 

362 

100 percent. Let’s say, there were double the amount of acres that 

they estimated. That would still leave you with only 30,000-acre 

feet that you’re averting coming into the lake when we’ve got a 

problem of 240,000-acre feet, on average. And as you, correctly, 

pointed out, nearly 600,000 that came in last year. 

The point I’m making is, certainly restoration would help, and 

it’s something we’ve got to explore, that’s why we have asked the 

working group to go back and explore additional Upper Basin storage, but it just seems so striking to me that doesn’t come close to 

addressing the problem that we confront today. 

Mr. BETTING. Well, you’re right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just ask you to wait for 1 minute, because they need to change the tape for the transcriber, and 

then—— 

[Recess.] 

The CHAIRMAN. So, they’ve told us—this is the first I’ve heard of 

this, but they have asked us to be out of this room in 15 minutes, 

so please. 

Mr. BETTING. Yes, everybody’s planning to hop on the elevator. 

Yes, you’re exactly right. West Consultants even said, about their 

own study, the results of this study indicate that restoration can 

reduce the volume of runoff entering Devils Lake. Further studies 

should be conducted to more accurately quantify runoff reduction. 

They did not do an on-the-ground study, they did not use current 

data, and they did not have anything like lieder available to them. 

So, the best that they could do was with what they had. 

They did summarize and say that the West Report estimates 

total wetlands at 115,668, with 52,210 possible drained; 115,000 

possible wetlands, not acres, wetlands. And 52,000 possibly 

drained. Well, if there’s an average of five acres each, even, that’s 

a considerable number. 

So, yes, we could argue a long time about—and my point is that 

we don’t have the kinds of numbers that we would need in order 

to make those decisions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, and that’s why we’ve asked them, because 

technology has improved, and we’ve asked them to go back because 

it’s in all of our interests to find the best set of solutions. And, you 

know, frankly I hope against hope that what you think would be 

the case. I just don’t see it in the evidence. 

When the West Study was updated in 2008, here’s what they 

concluded. Upper Basin storage does have the potential to change 

the timing and probabilities of increased lake levels. However, with 

the potential for acceleration in the lake level rise, as observed between 1993 and 1999, Upper Basin storage would not preclude the 

need to implement flood risk management actions at the city of 

Devils Lake should the lake level continue to rise. And, of course, 

we know since 2008, indeed it has risen, another 3.5 feet in the 

next year, it’s going to rise again this year. And here’s their conclusion. ‘‘Overall effectiveness of this alternative is considered low.’’ 

I just have to say to you, looking at the historic record as given 

to us by USGS. Three times in 4,000 years this lake has had an 

uncontrolled release out of the east end before there was any drainage of wetlands. And the studies that have been done by the Corps 

that say they believe the effectiveness of Upper Basin storage, on 

363 

its own, the effectiveness of that approach is low, tells me that 

we’ve got to think about more than just that. 

Mr. BETTING. Could I ask one question? 

The CHAIRMAN. Sure. 

Mr. BETTING. When you’re talking about east and it’s our—it’s 

everyone’s question. When you’re talking about east end or Tolna 

coulee outlet—what does that mean? Are you digging it down? Yes 

or no. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I think it—they’re—— 

Mr. BETTING. We’re for armoring it where it is. But, dig it down? 

Yes or no. Don’t answer. If you do—dig it down two feet, four feet, 

six feet, what you get is a lake that will overflow at two feet lower, 

and four feet and six feet lower. If the lake ever reaches that level, 

it will run through completely, automatically without control. But 

to lower it, to me, means you’re wanting it to happen sooner, which 

is what Devils Lake did. And that’s not quite acceptable. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I think when you ask the question, 

what is in the mind’s eye of people with respect to an east-end outlet, you get a lot of different answers. There are some people who 

see it as a way of having a controlled release, so that we don’t suffer an uncontrolled release with the consequences that have been 

discussed here. 

A second view is, by some, that you lower it, so you take off 

water earlier to try to have less of an effect. So, you have different 

views of what constitutes a west-end structure. 

But, I would say in Devils Lake, you have many people who believe they would like to have it lower so that the lake can be fresher. And that’s a view of many in the Devils Lake basin, I think we 

heard that loud and clear when we were in Devils Lake. 

I think what we’ve heard here, today, is that from Mr. Glatt, representing the Health Department, that we would be better off taking water from the west end, where it’s of much higher quality. 

And, of course, that’s where the State’s outlet is today, as you well 

know. 

Mr. BETTING. What’s a control structure? In order—if the lake 

ever reaches the level that it’s going to go over the coulee, at whatever level that is, if there’s a control structure—which one do you 

want first—if there’s a control structure, the control structure has 

to be bigger than Baldhill Dam. Because if any water comes from 

the Upper Basin in the quantities like it did last year and a few 

years ago, you can’t hold 500,000-acre feet back with a small burm, 

there ain’t no way. The dam would have to be as—half as tall as 

this room and all the way across or it couldn’t hold the water back. 

And so what I’m saying is, whatever level you choose to make 

the over—the spill level, it’ll either come straight over Harden coulee or if you’re putting a control structure in, it would have to be 

bigger than the overflow level in order to hold water back from the 

14-foot. It wouldn’t even have to wash out to be, then, high-level 

overflow. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK, that’s a fair point. 

Let me just say to you, that what we have underway is an analysis by all of the relevant Federal agencies in consultation with the 

State, in consultation with local officials—many of those consultations will be occurring in the weeks ahead to try to determine what 

364 

set of options is the best, for everyone—upstream, downstream, 

Devils Lake, Lisbon, West Fargo, Fargo, and I don’t think anybody 

should reach a conclusion yet before we have the best analysis. 

One of the things we’ve asked them, and the delegation send a 

letter asking them, go back and look at Upper Basin storage. Is 

there an opportunity—I’ll tell you, this from my observation looks 

to me like Mother Nature has done a big job of filling in the wetlands and restoring wetlands. Does that mean there aren’t some 

that are still there that could be useful? That’s why the study is 

requested. 

Let me just say—how much time do we have before we have to 

be out? 

Male Speaker. Five minutes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Five minutes. Well, I’ll give two and a half minutes to the Congressman and two and a half minutes to the Governor. 

Mr. POMEROY. Thank you, Senator Conrad. In sensitivities to 

this birthday celebration, I won’t engage in questions of the panel, 

I appreciate the panel and appreciate, obviously, they offer views 

that are different from other views that have been expressed, and 

so to commend you for doing that, you’re encouraged to speak your 

beliefs. 

I disagree with you. I disagree with you completely and believe 

that the testimony just does not reflect the recognition of what’s 

happened, even over the last 17 years. I mean, if this might have 

been a view plausibly held 17 years ago, we’ve had 30 feet of lake 

rise during the period of time where there has not been extensive 

additional drainage occurring throughout that region. Additionally, 

we have historical data that shows pre-civilization this thing overflowed. 

It’s certainly a natural tendency to want to find quick and simple 

answers and yet in really complicated problems, that rarely is 

available. 

Certainly, I’ve spoken some in the early days upstream that, they 

had this, ‘‘Gosh dang, we drained this bathtub,’’ but no, that wasn’t 

going to be possible, under the complicated nature of these circumstances. And to my hometown I would say, it isn’t possible to 

say, ‘‘This is Devils Lake’s deal and they can just find places to put 

that water and deal with it,’’ that is no more possible than to drain 

the bathtub. We have to find our way with this mix. The Governor’s outlined the strategy the State has initiated and supported 

with the Federal funding and the Federal efforts, retention where 

possible, mitigation as required, and now taking some of the water 

off the lake to mitigate the risk of uncontrolled spillover—there 

really isn’t any other way around it. 

And, yeah, as we try to define these strategies, we’re going to 

have the best help available to senior agencies and jurisdictions, 

but I believe that constructive thinking from the folks on the 

ground, the real experts, are going to move that project along, or 

that process along in a very, very helpful way. 

So, thank you, Senator, for holding this hearing. 

With that, I want to thank all of my hometown friends for participating. 

The CHAIRMAN. Governor? 

365 

Governor Hoeven. Senator, good to be here with you. Congressman, Earl, good to be with you, as well. 

I want to thank all of the other elected officials that are here, 

as well as all of the citizens that are here, for being here. 

And I’m going to go back to where I started, and that is, we’ve 

got to work together on this one and as I listen to the testimony 

here today, I mean it, again, it convinces me we’ve got to work together on this challenge. 

I see a number of legislators, here, I see Senator Robinson, I see 

Representative Kurt Onstad back there, I saw Representative Dennis Shatson, I thought I saw, earlier, Representative Metcalf, I may 

be missing some, but Mayor Werkhoven, Mayor Coles, former 

mayor, Mary Lee Nielson, Commission Schwehr, other Commissioners. We’ve got to work together as elected officials, but we’ve 

got to work together as citizens of this State. 

And I, you know, since we’re talking about funding, it’s kind of 

like having a boat. And if we’re in the boat, and we’re wrong, we’ve 

got Upper Basin, we’ve got the people in Devils Lake, we’ve got 

Lower Basin. If one’s rowing, I guess you can make some progress. 

If two are rowing you can make a little more, and if all three are 

rowing you do a lot better, don’t you? And particularly if they’re 

rowing in a coordinated way, working together. 

So, go back to, do we need to store water in the Upper Basin? 

Sure we do, and we area. Hundreds of thousands of acres of feet. 

There are farmers in this room that don’t have a farm anymore because they’re under water. That’s pretty tough. So, we’re storing— 

we’re storing a lot of water. 

And I mean it, don’t just take somebody’s word for it, go take a 

look, honestly. Go up and take a look at the size of a lake that’s 

grown from 49,000 acres to 180,000- plus acres, look at all of the 

water around it—we’re storing a lot of water. 

We’re building a lot of roads, I mean, it’s going to take you a long 

time, by the way, to get around up there, because every single 

highway is under construction with rip-rap and raising them and 

resurfacing them. And some of these county and township roads 

are under water, you can’t drive on them. And we’re building up 

dikes, so you’re going to say a lot of construction—road construction, building up dikes—we’re doing a lot of that. And we’ve got to 

let some—we’ve got to bring some water out, too. 

And the thing is, to do it the right way, to help prevent more 

flooding up there, and to protect you downstream, we’ve got to 

bring it out in an orderly way. We can’t do it in 1 day and 1 month 

or 1 year, we’ve got to bring it out over time, guys—that’s how we 

manage it the best way. 

It used to be everybody was talking biota—but we’ve studied and 

studied and studied, we can’t find any biota difference between 

Devils Lake and the Sheyenne and the red, OK? So, now we’re 

talking about sulfates. But, remember, the Canadian drinking 

water standard, if you’re going to go drink the water, untreated, 

the Canadian drinking water standard is 500 milligrams per liter, 

500 parts per million. So under—take some time to understand this 

sulfate issue and, you know, how big of an issue it is or it isn’t, 

take some time with that and remember that Devils Lake is one 

of the greatest walleye fisheries, when you talk about fish and 

366 

aquatic life, remember—go up and fish Devils Lake, it’s a great 

place to fish walleye. 

So, when we’re talking about Devils Lake versus the Sheyenne 

versus the Red or all of these, go up there, spend some time fishing, and, you know, while you’re doing that, talk to your friends 

and neighbors up in Devils Lake, and for our friends and neighbors 

up in Devils Lake, spend some time talking to our folks in the 

downstream. 

I have great belief in North Dakotans. I think around the country, people are taking notice of the great work North Dakotans are 

doing, and so I have great belief that you’ll come together on this— 

continue to come together on this, and it’s communicating it, and 

then it’s working on it together, and that’s what we need to do. 

Thanks for being here today, have a great weekend. 

Senator Congressman, thank you so much for being here with us, 

we appreciate it. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Governor for being, thanks to the entire panel. Let me just say, I even caught a fish in Devils Lake. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I held it up to have a picture taken, Governor, 

so that we could have a record that I caught this fish. It was a very 

large fish. 

[Laughter.] 

Governor Hoeven. Oh, there we go, say is this on the record, by 

the way? 

The CHAIRMAN. When that fish saw the water, it was right back 

into the lake. And I immediately said that I was part of the Governor’s catch and release program. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say this—to people who came here 

hoping to make an additional statement or ask a question, in a 

hearing format, we can’t take questions. An official hearing doesn’t 

work that way. We could have taken—and I looked forward to, I 

thought we were going to have the opportunity to take additional 

statements on the record. Because of this birthday situation that 

I was unaware of until 15 minutes ago, we can’t stay in this room. 

We can do this. I will hold the hearing record open for 10 days. 

So, anybody that wants to contribute a statement for the record, 

we will hold the record open for 10 days to accept your statement. 

If anyone has questions, they can submit them back to my office, 

and we will be happy to answer them. Third, we will be back, this 

is not the last meeting, not the last opportunity to ask questions 

or to be heard, because we know this is something that’s way too 

complicated to deal with in just one meeting. We’ve already had 

many, many meetings over the years in Devil’s Lake, we’re going 

to have to have additional sessions in this community and other 

communities. 

Mayor, we need to come to Lisbon. We also need to have additional sessions in West Fargo and Fargo, because they are affected 

by these decisions, as well. Senator Dorgan has already had a 

water quality meeting in Fargo, but we’re going to need to do additional sessions there. So there are going to be additional opportunities to be heard for everyone. 

367 

Again, I apologize. We—I did not know that they had reserved 

this room for a 90th birthday but, Richard, as you said, when you 

get to 90, you really can’t wait. 

Mr. BETTING. You didn’t have to exaggerate. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BETTING. And did you know, Fargo was using the Sheyenne 

River water yesterday? 

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, they were? 

Mr. BETTING. Yep. 

The CHAIRMAN. I know that is their backup source. 

All right, the hearing is concluded. 

[Whereupon, at 3:46 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

368 


58154.226
369 


58154.227
370 


58154.228
371 


58154.229
372 


58154.091
373 


58154.092
374 


58154.093
375 


58154.094
376 


58154.095
377 


58154.096
378 


58154.097
379 


58154.098
380 


58154.099
381 


58154.100
382 


58154.101
383 


58154.102
384 


58154.103
385 


58154.104
386 


58154.105
387 


58154.106
388 


58154.107
389 


58154.108
390 


58154.109
391 


58154.111
392 


58154.112
393 


58154.113
394 


58154.114
395 


58154.115
396 


58154.116
397 


58154.117
398 


58154.118
399 


58154.119
400 


58154.120
401 


58154.121
402 


58154.122
403 


58154.123
404 


58154.155 58154.156
405 


58154.157 58154.158
406 


58154.159 58154.160
407 


58154.161 58154.162
408 


58154.163 58154.164
409 


58154.165 58154.166
410 


58154.167 58154.168
411 


58154.169 58154.170
412 


58154.171 58154.172
413 


58154.173 58154.174
414 


58154.175 58154.176
415 


58154.177 58154.178
416 


58154.179 58154.180
417 


58154.181 58154.182
418 


58154.183 58154.184
419 


58154.185 58154.186
420 


58154.187 58154.188
421 


58154.189 58154.190
(423) 

FIELD HEARING DEVILS LAKE FLOODING 

DISASTER: A RED RIVER VALLEY PERSPECTIVE 

Monday, August 16, 2010 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

West Fargo, North Dakota 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., at the Vector Conference Room, Cass County Highway Department Building, 

1201 Main Avenue West, West Fargo, North Dakota, Hon. Kent 

Conrad, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad [presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everyone this morning to this hearing of the 

Senate Budget Committee. 

And I want to welcome Governor Hoeven, who is joining us 

today. Welcome. 

Governor Hoeven: Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good to have you here. 

Governor Hoeven: Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to emphasize that this is an official hearing of the Senate Budget Committee, so we will be operating under 

the rules of the United States Senate. An official transcript is being 

kept of this hearing. 

The title of this hearing is the ‘‘Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: 

A Red River Valley Perspective.’’ I want to begin by introducing our 

distinguished witnesses today. We will have two panels. We’ll first 

hear from the Governor, and then we’ll have a chance to hear from 

the other witnesses that are part of the first panel: Dave Glatt, the 

chief of environmental health section of the North Dakota Department of Health; West Fargo Mayor Rich Mattern; and Fargo Mayor 

Dennis Walaker. Our second panel will include Darrell Vanyo, 

chairman of the Cass County Commission—good to have you here, 

Darrell; and Steve Burian, chief executive officer of Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services, Incorporated. 

I look forward to hearing from each of you on what steps should 

be taken to address the flooding disaster in Devils Lake and the 

effects of that flooding downstream. 

Since 1992, Devils Lake has risen nearly 30 feet. It’s hard to 

fully appreciate how a lake of that size could rise 30 feet, but that’s 

424 

what has happened. Tens of thousands of acres of productive farmland have been consumed, and hundreds of homes have been 

moved. The transportation network, including the roads and rail 

line, has been disrupted, and the local economy continues to take 

a hit. 

Last year alone, the lake rose 3 and a half feet, and this year 

it reached a record elevation. Devils Lake is now within 6 feet of 

the natural overflow. Let me just say, an uncontained release, an 

uncontrolled release, of water would have devastating consequences, not only for the Devils Lake Basin, but for every city 

and town downstream. Finding solutions to prevent an uncontrolled overflow is in everyone’s best interest. 

Experts tell us that the wet cycle in the Basin will likely continue for years. There is no way to predict exactly when a normal 

cycle of drier conditions might return. There is, according to the 

projections, a 72-percent chance that the wet cycle will continue for 

10 years or more, a 37-percent chance it will continue for 30 years, 

and a 14-percent chance that it will continue for at least 60 years. 

Simulations show a substantial risk the lake will reach the spill 

elevation of 1458 feet. An uncontrolled release of water would 

cause significant damage downstream. The quality of water released would be extremely high in sulfates, five times worse than 

if the release of water were to occur from the west end of the lake. 

This is one thing that’s hard to get your mind around, but the quality of the water in this lake is not even throughout the lake. The 

water quality out of the west end is much higher than the water 

quality out of the east end. And if there is an uncontrolled release 

of water, it will come out of the east end. 


58154.390
425 

The reason there is different levels of water quality in this lake 

is because there is a natural flow to the lake. The fresh water 

comes in on the northwest, and then there is a flow to the lake, 

moving to the east. That is why there is such a dramatic difference 

in the water quality out of the east end compared to the west end. 

Drinking water systems drawing from the Sheyenne River could 

be impacted if there was an uncontrolled release of water. Discharges from Lake Ashtabula could be nearly twice what was experienced during the flooding of 2009. Twice what was experienced 

during the flooding of 2009. And some properties would be flooded 

for an extended period of time, making it almost impossible for recovery. 


58154.391
426 

There are a number of unresolved issues for the Red River Valley. For example, how would the region be impacted by floodwaters 

from an uncontrolled release of water? How would the drinking 

water supplies be impacted in an uncontrolled release? Could existing water systems handle a temporary increase in sulfates in the 

lower Sheyenne? What are the operational costs to address increased sulfates? What new treatment plants would be needed? 

And what would be the impacts on the fishery? I’d like to use this 

hearing to address all of these issues. 


58154.398
427 

When the flooding disaster began, we worked cooperatively on a 

three-pronged strategy: upper basin storage, protecting infrastructure, and construction of an outlet. It’s a strategy that we have 

pursued aggressively. 

We have secured more than $700 million of Federal resources 

that have been allocated, so far, to protect the region. Keep the 

road network intact, over $400 million has been spent since 1995. 

FEMA has spent $84 million, since 1993, on repairing damage to 

public infrastructure caused by the rising lake, relocating threatened structures, and buying out Churchs Ferry. The Corps of Engineers has spent $200 million since 1993 on the levee protecting 

Devils Lake; and, without that Levee, and without the rises in that 

levee, Devils Lake would be under water today. 


58154.411
428 

HUD has also provided more than $11 million since 1997 to mitigate the damages caused by the disaster, but the lake continues to 

rise, and it’s clear we’re in uncharted territory. 

We’ve always understood that only comprehensive solutions will 

succeed in the long run. The problems of Devils Lake cannot be 

solved by simply flooding everything downstream. However, we can 

no longer write this off as just a Devils Lake problem; this is all 

of our problem. This is a problem for not only the Devils Lake 

Basin, but for every city and town downstream: Valley City, Lisbon, West Fargo, and right up the Red. 

Since the May Flood Summit in Devils Lake, the administration 

has convened a working group to evaluate both short- and longterm options. The working group has representation from all of the 

relevant Federal agencies, including the Corps of Engineers, 

FEMA, the Department of Transportation, the United States Department of Agriculture, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey and others. 

The group’s recommendations are expected in September. In fact, 

we are anticipating their recommendations on September 9th. We 

are now talking about a meeting in Washington on September 3rd 

with local leaders, State leaders, and the Federal task force. They 

have told us, if that meeting is held on September 3rd, it could 

delay the report by a week, or even two. So, we are making a judgment now on that issue. But, I think most of us believe it is absolutely in our interest to deal with the Federal working group face 

to face rather than in a phone call or in some other venue. I think 

most of us believe it would be more effective for us to talk to them 

face to face before they come out with their recommendations. They 

have already had working groups on location in Devils Lake, in 


58154.384
429 

Valley City, in Lisbon; and they are working toward conclusion. 

They say they are on track for that September 9th date. 

So, from the perspective of those downstream, what options 

should the Federal Government be considering to deal with this 

flooding disaster? And what, specifically, should be done to mitigate 

downstream impacts? I am particularly interested in hearing from 

our witnesses on where they think the working group should focus 

its attention as it relates to downstream impact. 

With that, we’ll turn to our witnesses. And, Governor, thank you 

so much for being here. I appreciate very much your participation 

in the Summit in Devils Lake and your participation in Devils 

Lake on other occasions, and in Valley City, when we had a hearing there. And I appreciate very much your taking the time to be 

here this morning. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN, GOVERNOR OF NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Governor Hoeven: Thank you, Senator. Good to be with you. Appreciate the invitation to join you. 

As you mentioned, this is, I think, the third hearing where we’ve 

come together to not only get input, but to make sure that we’re 

all working together to do everything we can to help with the flooding in the Devils Lake Basin, but also make sure that we’re protecting interests downstream. And so, I want to thank you for your 

efforts. 

And clearly, this has to be a local, State, and Federal team effort 

to make this work. And so, I want to also thank both Mayor 

Walaker, Mayor Mattern for joining us, as well as Dave Glatt, 


58154.386
430 

who’s the chief of the environmental section at our State Health 

Department, and, as well, the commissioners—Commissioner 

Vanyo and Commissioner Pollock, the other commissioners that are 

here, Joe Belford, the crew from Devils Lake. 

As I say, it’s just imperative that we all work together to make 

sure that this works for everybody. But, clearly we need to move 

forward. 

And so that—we’re hopeful that the Federal task force, which I 

believe now is set to come out with its recommendations on September 7th. I talked to Colonel Price, with the Corps of Engineers, 

last week—Thursday or Friday—and I had the 9th, but now they’re 

saying September 7th, and, as you say, unless that date slips some. 

But, very, very important that we get help from the Corps and— 

cooperation from the Corps and the EPA so that we can continue 

to move forward. 

Our—and our approach, which Senator Conrad touched on here 

just a minute ago, is a three-part plan, and it includes storing 

water in the upper basin, mitigating around the Devils Lake area, 

which is roads and dikes, and moving water out of the lake. And 

we need to do all three. We absolutely need to do all three; again, 

to protect both upstream interests and downstream interests. So, 

again, it comes down to all of us working together, both upstream 

and downstream, to get this done. 

First off, in terms of storing water in the upper basin. The size 

of the lake—Devils Lake—has increased from—1993, it was 

about—covered about 49,000 acres. So, in 1993, it covered about 

49,000 acres. Today, it covers about 180,000 acres. So, it—the lake 

has inundated more than 100,000 acres. Well, that’s a tremendous 

amount of storage of water. Now, that’s for storage, because the 

lake’s growing and it’s flooding, but that’s a huge amount of water, 

over—almost 130,000 acres of water, right there, that’s being 

stored in the upper basin. And that doesn’t even count all of the 

wetlands that have grown throughout the north and the western 

part of the basin, as well. 

And so, what I recommend to anybody that has a question about 

whether or not water is being stored in the Devils Lake Basin is, 

‘‘Go take a look.’’ You know? And I know Joe Belford and Mayor 

Dick Johnson up there, and others, would be happy to take you out 

and take you around. But, don’t just take, you know, my word for 

it, or the Senator’s word for it, or the numbers. Go take a look, and 

see how much water is being stored in the upper basin. It’s a huge 

amount of water. So, clearly, that—you know, that water is being 

stored in the upper basin. And again, I encourage people to go up 

and just take a look. 

The second part of the plan is mitigation in and around the Devils Lake area, which means raising roads and raising dikes. 

Now, on the conservative end, between local, State, and Federal, 

we spent $650 million. And I think Senator Conrad has numbers 

that go up—upwards to, like, a billion dollars that we have spent, 

or are spending, on raising roads and dikes. Right now, for example, this year, we’re riprapping and raising and resurfacing, and so 

forth, on highways—State Highways 19, 20, 57—and we’re also 

doing emergency work on Highway 2, which, of course, is the fourlane highway that goes across the north side. Now, on that, I’m not 

431 

even sure we have Federal approval yet to do it, but we’re doing 

it, because when water starts crossing the road, you know, our 

State DOT has to step in and raise the road. And that’s exactly 

what we’re doing, and have done in parts, to make sure that it continues to be passable for traffic. And obviously we’re going through 

the Federal process to make additional improvements to Highway 

2, as well. And then, you’ve got all the diking, as well as the work 

on the reservation through BIA. And I think that may be some of 

the numbers difference, Senator. But, again, conservatively, we’ve 

spent, on raising roads and dikes, $650 million, and we’re spending 

more. 

So, clearly, water storage in the upper basin, mitigating in and 

around Devils Lake, and this has had a tremendous impact on the 

people in the upper basin and in Devils Lake. 

And so, the third part has to be there for us to deal with this 

issue, as well, and that’s moving water out of the way. 

Now, we had constructed a State outlet at 100 cfs, which we’d 

run to some extent, but we’d run into the sulfate standard. And so, 

that’s going to be an important part of addressing, you know, moving water out of the lake, is how we deal with that sulfate standard. And Dave Glatt’s here; he can talk about that some more. 

But, we’ve increased the size of that State outlet to 250 cubic feet 

a second. And we’ve got our Department of Transportation; they actually, I think, have worked to get some video of that outlet. But, 

250 cubic feet of—a second—is a lot of water. And so, if you go up 

and take a look—now, that’s running, and it is bringing a lot of 

water out. And so, between what we can bring out of the west end 

outlet and evaporation, we have significantly increased what we 

can take off the lake; like I say, both in terms of moving water out 

and evaporation. But, the reality is, we need to do more there, and 

that means either—or probably a combination of both running that 

outlet longer or increasing the capacity, as well as developing a 

control structure on the east side of the lake to prevent an uncontrolled overflow—right?—but then also looking at options for gravity flow in a controlled way out of the lake, as well. 

Now, again, that has to be done in a way that we manage water 

quality downstream and make sure all downstream interests are 

protected, as well as mitigating the flooding in the lake region. And 

that’s where it takes both communication, cooperation amongst all 

of us in North Dakota, and then help with the Corps and EPA so 

that we can continue to advance that ball and move forward. 

And so, that’s exactly what we’re working to do. We need to continue to move the water out, which is what we are doing. And I’m 

hopeful that the task force, the Federal task force, will help us in 

that endeavor so that we can continue to bring some water out, get 

that lake level down some; because, remember, we go through the 

next winter period, and, you know, we’re going to see substantial 

runoff again. So, we’ve got to stay after this now. It’s very, very important that we continue with this third piece, the third leg of the 

stool, if you will, to move water out in an orderly way. 

The last comment I’d make in that regard is the water treatment 

aspect. Valley City does draw water, essentially, from the river. 

Dave can explain that better than I can. But, we have already 

worked with our Federal partners to provide funding for Valley 

432 

City to add reverse osmosis to their water treatment plant so that 

they can actually take sulfates out of the water. 

Now, the reality is, if you look at the CDC report, they have not 

indicated any deleterious effects from sulfate at the levels we’re 

talking about, so I don’t know that they need to remove them. But, 

nevertheless, we’ve provided that funding assistance. And I have 

talked to the good mayors, both Walaker and Mattern—and you 

will hear from them shortly—about providing that assistance, as 

well, for a possible new joint facility, that may be developed in this 

region, for water treatment or for their backup source. I know that 

Fargo uses the Sheyenne as a backup source on, you know, some 

number of days of the year. 

But, it’s good to see Fargo and West Fargo working together on 

a joint facility. That’s great. I congratulate you for that. And, on 

behalf of the State, we’re certainly going to work with you in that 

process, to make sure that, again, any treatment aspects that you 

feel need to be there are properly addressed. 

So, with that—and we’d had a—Senator Dorgan had a hearing, 

and so we’d covered some of this before, but I think it’s very good 

to go through it again. Part of the effort, keeping—or, getting and 

keeping everybody working together is this communication effort. 

And so, Senator Conrad, again, good to be here with you and to 

be working, not only with our local partners, but the Federal partners, on addressing this flooding issue in a way that works for everyone. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thanks again for being here. 

And again, just to clarify, the difference between the numbers that I’m citing, the $700 million Federal expenditures so far, and 

the number the Governor’s using—we’ve sorted it out—it’s between 

our people, and it—we’re including expenditures by BIA, that are 

not included in the Governor’s numbers, to try to give a full reading of what’s been spent so far, and for what is being committed. 

When we go higher—that’s looking ahead; the 700 million is 

sunk costs, that’s what’s already been spent or committed—to go 

higher, one has to look at additional expenditures that are going 

to be required, in terms of transportation, in terms of moving 

threatened structures and the rest. 

With that, we’ll turn to— 

Governor Hoeven: Senator, if I—just to follow up that— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Governor Hoeven: —point, which is a very good one. 

For example, when Senator Conrad talks about increased expenditures—if you take that, say, $700 million, right now we’re at 

an elevation where—for example, the Empire Builder, that northern line—if we don’t get that lake level down some, that—the 

bridge up there becomes at risk, which means—just raising that 

bridge, alone, is $65 million. The town of Minnewaukan, we’re, 

right now, at a point where—What do we do with the town of 

Minnewaukan?—because the water is right there, really, at the 

edge of the school, you know, in Minnewaukan. So, do you build 

dikes? Do you move the town? 

So, we’re at that point where, now, to raise—to do more mitigation, you’ve got significant—you know, you’re talking hundreds of 

millions of dollars. And so, you know, we’re at a very important 

433 

point, in terms of trying to get this lake level down. If we don’t, 

the investment that has to be made to protect these other—this 

other infrastructure is, you know, very significant. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, I’m— 

Governor Hoeven: Just to follow up— 

The CHAIRMAN. —I’m glad you— 

Governor Hoeven: —with your— 

The CHAIRMAN. —mentioned it. We’ve been talking to Burlington 

Northern, for example—the delegation, the Governor— 

Governor Hoeven: Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. —and the costs, as he outlined, just on the bridge, $65 million, one structure. Moving Minnewaukan—and by 

the way, I’ll be there at 2 o’clock today—if we have to move the 

town of Minnewaukan, that’ll be tens of millions of dollars. So, 

those are realities. 

We’ll turn now to Dave Glatt, the chief of environmental health 

section of the North Dakota Department of Health. 

Welcome. Good to have you here. 

Mr. GLATT. Great to be here, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Please proceed. And why don’t you put the microphone right in front of you; that’ll help our transcriber. 

STATEMENT OF L. DAVID GLATT, ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH 

CHIEF, NORTH DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH 

Mr. GLATT. Well, good morning, Senator. It’s good to see you 

again. 

The CHAIRMAN. Good to see you, sir. 

Mr. GLATT. For the record, my name’s Dave Glatt, chief of the 

environmental health section for the North Dakota Department of 

Health. 

Our Department is responsible for the implementation of many 

State and Federal environmental protection programs. Through 

primacy agreements with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, we implement major elements of the Clean Water, Clean Air, 

Safe Drinking Water, and Hazardous Waste Acts. 

From a water quality perspective, the Department of Health is 

aware of the issues associated with Devils Lake flooding, and, in 

cooperation with other local, State, and Federal agencies, has developed an extensive water quality database for the Sheyenne and 

Red Rivers, as well as Devils Lake. 

This ongoing data collection effort has enabled the Department 

to anticipate potential downstream water quality changes due to 

the operation of the Devils Lake outlet, and, two, to estimate downstream impacts from various flood mitigation options. This data 

has proven extremely valuable in the Department’s decision to pursue an alteration to the sulfate water quality standard for a portion 

of the Sheyenne River. It is important to note that the alteration 

to the standard continues to protect the applicable designated uses 

in the Sheyenne River. 

As State and Federal agencies continue to evaluate additional 

flood mitigation options, it is clear that any option will change 

water quality downstream of Devils Lake. 

National Weather Service reports of a continued wet cycle for the 

foreseeable future raise concerns that a do- nothing scenario sigVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00439 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
434 

nificantly increases the potential for a natural overflow to occur 

along Tolna Coulee. Based upon existing water quality in Stump 

Lake, a natural overflow through Tolna Coulee would result in significant water quality changes downstream in the Sheyenne and 

Red Rivers. A natural discharge through Tolna Coulee would have 

a major impact on all downstream designated uses, which include 

municipal, aquatic life, agricultural, industrial, and recreational 

uses. 

Therefore, the challenge is to identify an effective flood mitigation alternative that will lower the lake level, reduce the potential 

for a natural outlet, and minimize impacts on downstream water 

quality. In evaluating the potential flood mitigation alternatives, 

the Department has partnered with the U.S. Geological Survey to 

model water quality changes resulting from the following options: 

do nothing, increasing the window of operation for the west-end 

outlet, doubling the flow from the west end, combining a west end 

and east Devils Lake outlet, developing only a Stump Lake outlet, 

and combining a west end and Stump Lake outlet. Preliminary 

modeling results for the above options indicate—depending on how 

they are operated, length of time, that type of—and time of year— 

the protection of designated beneficial uses for aquatic life, agriculture, industry, and recreation in the Sheyenne and Red Rivers— 

the river waters could still be used for municipal supplies and comply with the Safe Drinking Water Act standards. But sulfate concentrations could be anticipated to exceed 450 milligrams per liter 

in the lower reaches of the Sheyenne River and a portion of the 

Red River. The commingling of Sheyenne River and Red River 

water results in sulfate concentrations which only slightly exceed, 

or is below, the 450-milligrams-per-liter limit. In some cases, the 

concentration is below the 250-milligram-per-liter sulfate standard 

for the Red River. A report clearly defining the model results 

should be available by the end of September. 

It is important to note that, due to the level of the lake, currently 

around 1451.75 feet mean sea level, and the projected continued 

wet cycle, an emergency exists, where additional efforts to lower 

the lake level should be implemented as soon as possible. We believe this action is needed to avoid a natural overflow through 

Stump Lake. 

This concludes my testimony. I’m happy to answer any questions 

you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Glatt follows:] 

435 


58154.232
436 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Why don’t we finish with this panel, and then we’ll open it to 

questions. 

Mayor Mattern, thank you so much for being here. And please 

proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. RICH MATTERN, MAYOR, CITY OF WEST 

FARGO 

Mr. MATTERN. Thank you, Senator Conrad, for inviting me. And 

it’s a pleasure to see you again. 

At a State hearing on an outlet for Devils Lake back in the 

year—August of 2000—I was quoted in a forum news article saying, ‘‘At what point do you say enough is enough? When will State 

and Federal officials decide they’ve studied the basin’s flooding sufficiently and are ready to do something to solve it?’’ 

Senator that was a question I asked almost 10 years ago. Today, 

I would have to ask that same question, ‘‘At what point do we say 

enough is enough?’’ Much has been done, don’t get me wrong. But, 


58154.233
437 

we need to move forward now. The Devils Lake Basin has been 

studied and studied, and it’s time to move forward. 

A few weeks ago, I was shown some aerial photographs of Devils 

Lake. The devastation caused by the rising lake is hard for us to 

sometimes understand, as the Governor and you have pointed out, 

from the ground level. When you see it from the air, it—it’s hard 

to imagine the helplessness that farmers and city residents must 

feel at watching something happen, and there’s nothing, really, 

that they can do right now. 

Through the years, when asked, the West Fargo City Commission always has supported doing something to alleviate the problem of rising water. I’m confident that the City Commission will 

continue to do so in the future. 

Today, as a city, we do have some concerns about an outlet. 

These concerns are not insurmountable, by any means, and by 

working together we certainly can solve these problems, as you and 

the Governor have pointed out. 

Again, we need to move forward to help our neighbors, and this 

is certainly not any kind of fingerpointing testimony, by any 

means. 

First of all, West Fargo is protected from high flows in the 

Sheyenne River by two Army Corps of Engineers diversion projects. 

Those are, of course, the Horace and Sheyenne diversions. The intent is to divert excess Sheyenne River water around the city during flood events. There is some concern by city staff that the two 

diversion projects could run continuously, depending upon the 

amount of water that is released from Devils Lake. The two diversion projects were not really built to run continuously, so the Army 

Corps of Engineers may have to consider changes, such as lining 

the diversion with cement or something to kind of alleviate any 

problems. Again, this depends upon the flow. 

Of larger concern, West Fargo gets all of its water, currently, 

from groundwater sources. That may have to change soon, because 

of our rapid growth. In the year 2000, we were at 14,500, today we 

are predicting that we are at about 26,000. So, West Fargo is analyzing the need for a water treatment plant, along with the city of 

Fargo and, hopefully, some other entities. The treatment plant 

would utilize water from the Sheyenne River. 

A study by Advanced Engineering that was completed by the city 

of West Fargo states that increased sulfate levels in the Sheyenne 

River, due to releases from Devils Lake, potentially—again, potentially—could cost the city an additional $15 million to build a water 

treatment plant. Annual operating and maintenance costs also 

could be increased by up to a million dollars per year due to the 

added equipment and treatment requirements. 

So, again, those are two of our major concerns, Senator. And 

again, thank you for inviting the city of West Fargo to testify. And 

it was a pleasure to be here. And I’ll—again, I’ll answer questions 

when you’re ready. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. 

And now we’ll go to the mayor of Fargo, Mayor Walaker. 

Welcome, good to have you here. Please go ahead. 

438 

STATEMENT OF DENNIS WALAKER, MAYOR, CITY OF FARGO 

Mr. WALAKER. It’s good to be here. I can make some comment 

about being last, but that’s all right. 

[Laughter.] 

Voice: Saved the best for last. 

Mr. WALAKER. Yeah, right. 

Well, I will make a couple of personal comments, and then I have 

a letter, here, that—there’s copies in the back. 

We usually go fishing up in Devils Lake once a year. We didn’t 

make it this year. And I have met nobody that could have forecast 

where the river or the lake is today. Absolutely nobody. The size 

of that is amazing. And it’s big water right now. It’s huge. And you 

think of all the farms and so forth along that area; it’s just very 

traumatic. And we’re going through some of those situations here. 

My concerns, of course, are with Valley City and Lisbon, and then, 

of course, ourselves, to a certain extent. And we can talk about 

water quality and so forth, and we’ll talk about that shortly. 

But, our biggest concern is life and property. And I’m sure if everybody would have known what was going to happen, things 

would have been different—different solutions and so forth. But, in 

1992–93, everybody was complaining about the lack of water, and 

today you’ve got to pick a date to fish up there, because of the 

winds. It’s that big. It’s huge. Absolutely huge. 

And I’m pleased, Senator Conrad, that you guys are taking this 

and trying to resolve the process. There’s a lot of people out there— 

is—‘‘Why isn’t something being done?’’ Well, a lot of things have 

been done. You can’t spend 600 to 700 million dollars and not accomplish something, so forth. And when you—when the forecasters 

talk about the future, I mean, you know, 50 years? I mean, I know 

the National Weather Service pretty well. Anything beyond 24 

hours is a pure guess. But— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALAKER. So, the solution really gets down to—you know, 

it’s—we need to move this forward. Is a drought—I mean, I have 

never, ever seen the corn in this part of the State and Minnesota 

as lush as it is this year. And what makes that? Usually, the tops 

in Minnesota—corn gets a lot shorter because of the lack of moisture. This year, it’s phenomenal. And then our wet cycle continues. 

I think, the last I checked, that we’re about 4 and a half inches 

above normal right now. And what is normal? My goodness, it just 

continues to be exceeding any expectations. 

So, I’ll start with my letter, here, and I’ll try and make this as 

brief as I possibly can. It’s about two pages. 

Thank you for providing the city of Fargo with the opportunity 

to provide testimony with regard to the ‘‘Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: A Red River Valley Perspective.’’ A 

field hearing of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee to address 

this important topic is greatly appreciated. 

As you know, the city has previously expressed concerns about 

the changing water quality conditions in the city’s water source, 

the Sheyenne River, due to the operation of the Devils Lake emergency outlet. The primary water quality concern has been elevated 

sulfate concentrations being transported downstream to the city of 

Fargo intake on the Sheyenne River, near West Fargo. 

439 

The city of Fargo understands the necessity of moving water out 

of Devils Lake, and it should be noted that the problems in Devils 

Lake have expanded beyond the immediate Devils Lake Basin to 

become a regional issue that warrants regional solutions for all 

stakeholders. 

The city of Fargo relies upon the Sheyenne River as a vital component of its current and future water supply. In fact, the city of 

Fargo has utilized the Sheyenne River for our water supply on over 

40 percent of the days since 2007, 559 of 1,308 days from January 

1, 2007, through July 31 of 2010. Impacts to our source water quality, especially with elevated sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne 

River, are concerning because the water—Fargo water treatment 

plant was never designed with process capable of moving—removing sulfates. 

Historical concentrations below the EPA’s secondary maximum 

contaminant level of 250 milligrams per liter did not warrant sulfate treatment at that time of the design. During the design of our 

water treatment plant, we did make significant commitment to provide our consumers with high quality, aesthetically acceptable 

water. Elevated sulfate concentrations in our source water will impact taste and odor, quality of our drinking water, and may have 

potential health impacts, including diarrhea and dehydration, 

which are most severe with infants, the elderly—that’s myself— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALAKER. —and transient consumers. As a major economic 

center for the region that hosts a significant transient population 

for healthcare and employment, shopping, conventions, entertainment, and higher education, we have a very large group of potentially impacted consumers. 

As the stakeholders work to develop a satisfactory solution to 

Devils Lake flooding, the city of Fargo strongly encourages efforts 

to prevent an uncontrolled release from Devils Lake. Some time 

ago, I went up, with the Corps of Engineers, and we tried to find 

Tolna Crossing. My goodness, we searched for almost an hour and 

a half before we finally got it, and you could barely see Stump Lake 

from Tolna Crossing. And then, Joe Belford, at—informed me that 

when they drilled down, took soil samples, there was sod at 20 feet. 

So, if you think that’s going to prevent an overflow, what’s there 

right now will erode very quickly. An uncontrolled discharge from 

a natural outlet on the east side of Devils Lake has many uncertainties that could impact downstream communities, including the 

strong possibility of flooding and significant water quality degradation. 

The city would also like to encourage the investigation of a yearround operation of the emergency outlet. A year-round operation 

could remove additional water from the lake and could alleviate 

large fluctuations in sulfate concentration in the Sheyenne River. 

Given historical Sheyenne River usage patterns by the city of 

Fargo, it is likely that the city will be drawing water from the 

Sheyenne—it is less likely that the city of Fargo will be drawing 

water from the Sheyenne during the winter months. 

The city of Fargo currently supplies drinking water to its residents and to the customers of Cass rural water users district. City 

of Fargo also provides regional waste water treatments serving sevVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00445 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
440 

eral neighboring communities and sanitary districts. With the city’s 

increasing service boundaries, the impact of our drinking water 

quality extends beyond the boundaries of our city limits and into 

the metropolitan area and county, which is—combined statistical 

population of over 200,000. 

Recently, the cities of Fargo and West Fargo have begun negotiations and discussions related to a regional water supply system 

that would provide both communities in the Cass County water 

users district with a reliable water system. Additional planning 

and coordination are necessary before moving forward with this regional water supply, but it’s clear that the Sheyenne River will be 

an integral part of the water supply and drought mitigation for this 

system. 

We expected that one solution to the elevated sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne River could be provided to satisfy the city 

of Fargo, the city of West Fargo, and Cass rural water users district. 

In order to minimize the drinking water impacts associated with 

the elevated source water sulfate concentrations, the city has estimated that the capital improvements, approximately 50 to 70 million dollars, will be needed for our water treatment plant. The cost 

is based on concentration of sulfate in the Sheyenne River ranging 

from 450 milligrams per liter to 750 milligrams per liter. 

The city is prepared to address the capacity expansion of its 

water treatment plant to accommodate our growth, but we are not 

prepared to fund these necessary capital improvements for sulfate 

treatment without financial burden to our consumers. As such, the 

funding in Devils Lake flooding disaster should include funds necessary to mitigate the downstream impacts of the Devils Lake outlet, including State and Federal funding for the city’s—for Fargo’s 

drinking water system. 

Your efforts to achieve a comprehensive solution to the Devils 

Lake flooding situation are greatly appreciated. These challenges 

now associated with Devils Lake are very significant and could 

have potentially long-term devastating impacts to the region. 

As you continue your work to develop these solutions to regional 

Devils Lake issue, solutions must address the prevention of additional local flooding, prevention of an uncontrolled discharge to the 

Sheyenne River, increased flows from the lake, including consideration of year-round discharges, sulfate treatment for downstream 

water treatment plants on the Sheyenne River. 

With State and Federal funding to provide sulfate treatment 

processes at our water treatment plant to meet the treatment 

standard of 250 milligrams per liter, the city has prepared a 

stream standard variance for sulfate in the Sheyenne River up to 

750 milligrams per liter. We understand this variance would allow 

a much more aggressive discharge of water from Devils Lake to 

prevent further flooding impacts. Without this funding as part of 

the regional solution, however, the city desires to continue use of 

the Sheyenne River supply with sulfate concentrations that do not 

exceed the national historic levels. 

Note as a supplement to this testimony I have attached the testimony that I provided Senator Byron Dorgan at the 

441 

U.S. Senate and Energy Water Appropriations Subcommittee 

hearing on February 19th, 2010. Along with the attachment, please 

accept this letter as Fargo’s formal submittal to the Budget Committee hearing, ‘‘Devils Lake Flooding Disaster: A Red River Valley 

Perspective.’’ 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Walaker follows:] 


58154.244
442 


58154.245
443 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much. 

Let me start with the first question that I haveten, which is, 

Why is the Budget Committee holding a hearing on this question? 

Well, simply put, the reason is money. In order to fund all of this, 

it has to go through the Budget Committee and then be appropriated by the appropriators. And so, you’ve got two committees 

that have jurisdiction here. You have the Budget Committee and 

then you have the appropriations committees. 

With what is contemplated, in terms of additional cost, if nothing 

is done, we could be looking at billions of dollars. If there was an 

uncontrolled release of water, we know the costs would be staggering. 

Let me give you a reason why that would be. In a worst-case scenario, we could have Valley City getting water, if there was an uncontrolled release out of the east end, 10 feet above flood stage, 5 

feet above where flooding was in Valley City in 2009. Similarly, 

Lisbon would be devastated. Both of those communities, in this 

worst-case scenario, would have to be evacuated, and they would 

have to be evacuated for a considerable period of time. You think 


58154.246
444 

about the extraordinary cost of an incident like that. That is the 

potential risk that we have to balance all of our other decisions 

against. What is the worst-case scenario? And, frankly, it’s not very 

farfetched. It assumes that the Tolna Coulee goes down to 1450, 

and that’s—goes to the observation the Mayor was making with respect to what is there that is stopping the release of water now. 

And I think it’s just very important that we understand—all of us 

understand—the consequences, yes, for the Devils Lake Basin, but 

for the downstream cities and town, as well. 

Let’s go the question of sulfate levels, very quickly, because that 

really becomes the crux of the issue, I believe, for the downstream 

cities and towns. And I think the first thing I want to do is go to 

Mr. Glatt. The current standard, without a waiver, is at what level, 

Dave, of sulfates— 

Mr. GLATT. The— 

The CHAIRMAN. —in the river? 

Mr. GLATT. Well, Senator, the current river standard is—for the 

Sheyenne—will be from Baldhill down to the Red River—is 450 

milligrams per liter, and that’s the river standard. And the river 

standard for the Red River is 250. For a drinking water supply, it’s 

called a secondary standard, which is a non-enforceable standard, 

and that’s 250. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So, we’ve got two standards at work, here. 

That contributes to confusion that we’ve seen in some of the stories. You’ve got a river standard, which is at 450, in the Sheyenne, 

and you’ve got, for the Red, 250. Is that correct? 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what is the—you mentioned an analysis 

that’s been done with respect to that standard and the acceptability 

of a higher level than 250. And as I heard you describe it—well, 

why don’t you describe it for me and make sure we have it right 

for the record. 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, as it relates to the drinking water standard, 

is that what— 

The CHAIRMAN. Correct. 

Mr. GLATT. Currently, under the Safe Drinking Water Act, 

there’s primary standards and secondary standards. 

Primary standards relate to health issues, concentrations of various chemicals—parameters—that can be in your drinking water 

that, if exposed to them over a period of time, can result in health 

impacts to a percentage of the population. So, those are more 

health- related standards. 

Secondary standards deal more with aesthetics—taste, odor, 

color—you know, like iron can impart a color to it. It’s not a health 

issue, but it’s an aesthetic standard that people may find 

unpleasing, not desirable, in their drinking water supply. 

The CHAIRMAN. So— 

Mr. GLATT. And so, those are the two. The primary is enforceable, that they have to comply with; secondary is not enforceable. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what would the primary standard be for sulfates? 

Mr. GLATT. There is no primary for sulfates, because it’s not considered to be a health issue, as it relates to the concentration. 

445 

The CHAIRMAN. So, there’s no standard for sulfates for the purposes of health. 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, that’s correct. There’s no enforceable— 

The CHAIRMAN. Standard. 

Mr. GLATT. —primary standard for sulfates. 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s the secondary standard that becomes the 

concern, and that involves aesthetics. 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And again, that standard would be, in Red River, 

250? 

Mr. GLATT. Now we’re—Senator, we’re talking in—for—we have 

two different things. We have standards for water quality for surface waters in the State, and that is for your rivers, the lakes, that 

type of thing. Then we also have standards for drinking water, 

under the Safe Drinking Water Act, which is separate than that. 

The—for the Red River, the standard for the Red River surface 

water is 250 milligrams per liter for sulfate. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Is there anything more we should know 

about these sulfate levels? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, that—well, that—the CDC has studied the 

sulfate levels, and determined what—that there isn’t really a 

bright line between any health issues related for that. And that’s 

why—one of the reasons they did not make it a primary standard. 

I will tell you that, statewide, we have several communities that 

drink very high concentrations of sulfate without any health issues. 

The CHAIRMAN. What— 

Mr. GLATT. But— 

The CHAIRMAN. What concentrations would they be drinking? 

Mr. GLATT. We have up to 1,000 milligrams per liter. But that 

becomes a local decision and issue on what is acceptable for their 

community. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, you are—there are communities in North Dakota right now who have a sulfate level of 1,000 parts, and they’re 

not experiencing health issues that can be seen. 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct, Senator. And—but, I will tell you, in 

all honesty, there are some communities that are looking to hook 

up to rural water because—you know, it’s—not it’s only—not only 

sulfates, but other minerals in the supply that they’re looking for 

something, aesthetically, a little more pleasing. 

The CHAIRMAN. Currently, what is permitted above Ashtabula? 

Is there a difference in standard, at the current time, for above 

Ashtabula, and below? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, right now we are operating an emergency 

standard that will allow the stream standard to be up to 750 milligrams per liter. We have also gone through what is called a triennial review of our statewide water quality standards, and we’ve 

asked for a permanent change of that standard to be from the 

headwaters of the Sheyenne to a tenth of a mile below the Baldhill 

Dam. And that would permanently change it to 750. 

The CHAIRMAN. 750. And what is the water quality coming out 

of the State outlet? 

Mr. GLATT. Right now, the most recent testing, we’re about 550 

milligrams per liter. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, well below the 750. 

446 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. If the water were to come out in an uncontrolled 

way out of the east end, what would be the sulfate level there? 

Mr. GLATT. East end, meaning Stump Lake through Tolna Coulee? 

The CHAIRMAN. Correct. 

Mr. GLATT. Right now, we’re at about 2500 milligrams per liter 

for sulfate, plus other elements that may be of concern. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, when I referenced, earlier, the water quality 

being five times worse out of the east end than out of the west end, 

that is supported by the sulfate levels that we see between the 

two—500, roughly, out of the west end, 2500 out of the east end. 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. If we were to have a continuation of up to 750 

out of the west end, which is permitted above the dam, what would 

the effect be on levels of West Fargo and Fargo? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, first of all, we—I—we don’t see that we 

would get to 750. We’ll be in that 550 to 600 range. And so, that’s 

the highest it would ever get. What we have seen from our monitoring—we’ve done extensive monitoring from the point of discharge, down to through the Sheyenne, into the Red River, all the 

way up to Canadian border—that there is some dilution that occurs, so that level would be less than that. If we were to operate 

the west-end outlet for 9 months out of the year with no stoppage, 

you would see concentrations probably in that 450 to 500 range in 

the Sheyenne, the lower Sheyenne. 

The CHAIRMAN. In the lower Sheyenne. And what would that effect be, then, on the Red? Because there would be other sources for 

the Red. 

Mr. GLATT. Yeah. And we—and that’s one of the—Senator, that’s 

one of the things we’re looking at modeling with USGS, is that— 

Under different scenarios and different flows, what can we anticipate in the Red River? Clearly, the amount of flow that we’ve seen 

in the Red in the last few years is significantly greater than what 

the Sheyenne would add to it. So, you would see a considerable 

amount of dilution occurring. And—to the point where our preliminary results say that we may even meet the 250 milligrams per 

liter for sulfate at certain times of the year. 

And so, those are the things that— 

The CHAIRMAN. So, without any additional treatment being done, 

your initial studies indicate that, in the Red, you might still 

achieve the 250 parts, even without any additional treatment being 

made, for certain times of the year. 

Mr. GLATT. Yeah. Senator, that’s true. And it’s all dependent 

upon what type of flows we can anticipate in the Red and what 

type of dilution flows we get in the Sheyenne. But, clearly, there 

are times when we can see the 250, and be in compliance with 

that. Clearly, there will be times we’ll be above that. But, we’re trying to get that modeling refined enough to give us a good indication 

of what the— 

The CHAIRMAN. Of— 

Mr. GLATT. —downstream impacts— 

The CHAIRMAN. Of how much above it we might be. 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct. 

447 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. All right. 

Mayor Mattern, in terms of West Fargo, I heard you loud and 

clear, you want to be part of a solution. 

Mr. MATTERN. Absolutely, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. And we appreciate that. Frankly, I think it’s in 

all of our interests to be part of a solution, because I think— 

Mr. MATTERN. Absolutely. 

The CHAIRMAN. —we can see, from this testimony, if we have an 

uncontrolled release of water out of the east end, at 2500—level of 

sulfates, 2500—that becomes an issue for everybody downstream. 

Mr. MATTERN. Absolutely, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. The—what assurance would West Fargo need to 

support an increase in sulfate levels from what’s already been approved? That is, the 750—Dave, correct me if I’m wrong—that’s 

just for above the dam. 

Mr. GLATT. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. If we had to raise sulfate levels—what are the 

sulfate levels permitted below the dam? 

Mr. WALAKER. As it relates to—Senator, as it relates to the current water quality standards, it’s 450 from below the dam to the 

Red River, and 250 from there on. I would point out—for—in the 

Red—250 in the Red. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. WALAKER. I would point out that, when you—we—through 

the monitoring, we’ve been able to show that, naturally occurring— 

the river fluctuates naturally, and it naturally goes above 250, up 

to 350 at times. So, that—does it without any influence from Devils 

Lake. But, as the standards are set, today, the emergency standards—750 from the headwaters to Baldhill, 450 from Baldhill to 

the Red, 250 in the Red. 

The CHAIRMAN. Have—has the city had any discussions about 

what levels that they would want to be assured of to support increasing the level of sulfates that are permitted? 

Mr. GLATT. Senator, I—to me, I don’t know that that—certainly, 

that’s an issue, but—and, as we talked about, it’s going to raise the 

costs of a water treatment plant that we are working on jointly. 

And I think that’s the—going to be, with residents, somewhat of an 

issue, when you—I think you talk to any resident in West Fargo, 

and they’d probably, 99 percent, support doing something. I don’t 

think that’s an issue. I think when you start talking about an 

added $10–15 million, then, of course, that becomes an issue. And 

that’s, I think, what we’ll have to work on to mitigate that somewhat with our city residents. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is the consideration of a water treatment facility—are there other reasons, other than water quality effects that 

might come as a result of Devils Lake? 

Mr. GLATT. I guess I didn’t quite understand the— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Are there other reasons for considering a 

joint water treatment facility, other than changes in quality caused 

by a release of water from Devils Lake? 

Mr. MATTERN. No, I think—help me out, here, Mayor, but—I 

think we’re looking at the high costs of a water treatment plant, 

and that’s why we’re—we want to work together with Fargo, and 

448 

any other entity or cities around them, to make—take a more regional approach to the whole water issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, you would be looking at this potential for a 

new water treatment plant, regardless. 

Mr. MATTERN. Yes. Yes. I’m sorry— 

The CHAIRMAN. You’d be— 

Mr. MATTERN. —I guess I misunderstood. 

The CHAIRMAN. You’d be— 

Mr. MATTERN. Yes, we— 

The CHAIRMAN. I want to be clear, on the record here, that you’re 

looking at a new water treatment plant because of the economics 

of water treatment, whether or not Devils Lake is in the picture. 

Mr. MATTERN. Yes. As I mentioned, all of our water right now 

comes from aquifers, and when you have a—terrific growth that we 

have had, those will not last forever, and it’s time for us to take 

a look. 

I’ve—you can correct me if I’m wrong—right now, we’re in the 

portion of the study to take a look again at just how much water 

is left in that aquifer—or, aquifers—for us to—but, clearly, I think 

the handwriting is on the wall that a water treatment plant is in 

our future. 

The CHAIRMAN. Water treatment plant is in the—I think it’s just 

very, very important that it be clear to people that you’re not talking about a new water treatment plant between Fargo and West 

Fargo because of Devils Lake. 

Mr. MATTERN. No. 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re looking at it because of explosive growth 

in your population, you’re looking at it because of the economics of 

water treatment, that you might be able to get lower costs for your 

constituents by going together on a water treatment facility. 

Mr. MATTERN. Absolutely, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. But, the construction of that water treatment facility would give us an opportunity to improve the ability to remove 

sulfates as well 

Mr. MATTERN. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. That would be an additional benefit. 

Mr. MATTERN. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the way you see it, Mayor Walaker? 

Mr. WALAKER. Anything that Rich says, I agree with. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. MATTERN. Gosh, he’s agreeable today. 

Mr. WALAKER. This graphic, right here, explains—and, I mean— 

people have to understand is that we paid for over one-half the cost 

of the construction of Baldhill Dam. That’s our reserve. We have 

about—we anticipate about 2 years of water in the Baldhill Dam 

area, Lake Ashtabula. So, we’re very concerned with what happens 

to that. 

If you look at this whole thing historically, we have been somewhere in the vicinity—for the majority of years, somewhere around 

250 milligrams per liter. We have a—I think there’s one spike 

there that goes up to 300, but, for the majority, it’s been at that. 

And that’s very acceptable. We think we produce a good quality 

water for our community and the people that we serve. 

449 

But, as you can see here by the blue lines, that’s when we took 

water out of the Sheyenne. So, building this water plant is—between Fargo and West Fargo—the cost of treating sulfates is something that Devils Lake will add to this process. Very simply. 

And as far as we can tell, there’s very little dilution from the 

dam to Fargo. And there probably won’t be any, and so forth. 

Now, when you start talking about the quality of water, there’s 

lots of people that won’t drink the water in West Fargo. 

Mr. MATTERN. I knew you were going to say that. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. WALAKER. And we understand that. Bottled water is not the 

answer. You know, use it for cooking or sanitary purposes or whatever. But, the taste of the water right now in Fargo is excellent, 

and this would be a dramatic change in that whole process. And 

all we’re doing is—you know, granted, 50 to 70 million dollars is 

a lot of money, but that’s what we’re talking about. We need some 

help with that process if you’re going to talk about increasing the 

sulfates to 500 to 600. You know, even though you changed the 

rules, historically Fargo has not had to deal with sulfates for the 

last 50 years. And the problem very—gets down to is priorities— 

we need some priorities, number one, to attend to what Devils 

Lake needs first. That’s number one. And the process of Valley City 

and Lisbon having all of that water, because it’ll come at one shot, 

that’s unacceptable. We’ve had years and years to see this going, 

and hopefully the answer has been that it’s going to quit, that the 

process would quit pretty soon, and we would get through these 

wet years and so forth. But, it doesn’t seem to be anything on the 

horizon, and that’s what we have to deal with. 

I’ve been in Minnewaukan. I mean, I can’t believe it. I mean, I 

was there when the water was beyond the parking lot at the high 

school and the grade school, and that was there before 281 was 

moved, you know, a mile or so to the west and so forth. But, now 

people are fishing off of the old highway. I mean, they’re standing 

there on the rocks, and fishing in an area that used to be farmland. 

So, that’s the number-one priority, is the protection of Devils Lake. 

And Joe has taken us around on a bus tour from the Red River 

Basin Board and showed us some areas that I wasn’t acquainted 

with, the area. And in the military camp, they’re talking about 

their—losing their area and so forth. And there’s a lot of options 

that—I mean, Devils Lake is a real, significant problem, and we sit 

here and we argue about sulfates and so forth. But, the reality is, 

the city of Fargo would like some assistance in the—just like what 

was done for Devils Lake. And the Governor has mentioned that, 

and we’d like the Federal Government also to participate in sulfate 

removals, because we have never had to do that in the past. We 

never have. We’ve had—you know, granted, the water quality, 

years ago, was because of the treatment process, but we just spent 

a significant amount of money building a brand new water plant, 

and we think it’s doing a very good job and so forth. And we want 

to continue doing that. 

I mean, I live in an area—or used to live in an area—that had 

artesian water. You could even taste it in the coffee and the Kool– 

Aid. That’s the only way you could actually drink it. And this—and 

the process is—is not that the people that are in these communities 

450 

that are using higher levels of sulfates, the problem is acclimating 

themselves to getting used to it. And there is an acclimation process in the—and so forth. So— 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. 

Mr. WALAKER. Okay? 

The CHAIRMAN. I think we’ve explored this pretty completely. I 

think we’ve—we have already dealt with Valley City, in terms of 

upgrading their water plant, a commitment to do so, substantial 

Federal help there, and would not be unreasonable to have Federal 

help to deal with that part of the water treatment issue that might 

be exacerbated by decisions that were made with respect to releases from Devils Lake. 

Again, I want to emphasize, and close on, this point: An uncontrolled release of water out of the east end would have sulfate levels coming at us of 2500. Out of the west end, on a controlled basis, 

the water quality, in terms of sulfates, is roughly 500. So, that is 

a tremendous difference, in terms of what we’d face downstream. 

And I think that’s just got to be kept in mind, in terms of what 

is in our collective interest, in terms of a solution. 

Governor, any statement—final statement you want to make, in 

terms of this panel? 

Governor Hoeven: No. I’d just echo your closing comments, there, 

that we can work together and manage this, and keep the sulfates 

at a manageable level downstream, and also work with the communities, as we’ve done with Valley City, on your water treatment 

needs. 

And I want to express my appreciation to both Mayor Walaker 

and to Mayor Mattern for your willingness to work with us on it. 

We appreciate it very much. 

Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. 

Thanks, to the entire panel. 

And now we’ll call the second panel: Darrell Vanyo, chairman of 

the Cass County Commission, and Steve Burian, chief executive officer of Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services. 

Governor, if you’re able to stay, we’d love to have you — 

Governor Hoeven: Yeah, I’m going to stay. 

The CHAIRMAN. —stay. 

Governor Hoeven: I’m going to— 

The CHAIRMAN. Why don’t we proceed with Darrell Vanyo, the 

chairman of the Cass County Commission. 

Welcome. Thank you so much for taking time to provide testimony at this hearing. And please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DARRELL VANYO, CHAIRMAN CASS 

COUNTY COMMISSION 

Mr. VANYO. Thank you, Senator, for giving me the opportunity 

to appear before this committee hearing today. 

I think I want to applaud you and the people in the Devils Lake 

area for being concerned about the downstream impacts relating to 

any solution with the Devils Lake issue. 

That type of concern has been going on for many, many years. 

I can recall—I was a city commissioner in West Fargo from 1986 

until 1999, and during that time, I remember Commissioner Joe 

451 

Belford coming before us a handful of times because of his concern 

in getting the support of people downstream. So—and that’s—concern still goes on. And I applaud you for that. 

As indicated, I’m the chair of the Cass County Commission. I believe that a timely solution to the current devastation and downstream threat created by the continued rise of Devils Lake must be 

a priority to the Federal Government, the State government, and 

local governments across the State of North Dakota. 

The risk associated with an uncontrolled spill from Stump Lake 

into the Sheyenne River is substantial, and would result in catastrophic consequences to downstream communities, including those 

in Cass County. 

The best available evidence suggests that the Devils Lake has 

spilled from Stump Lake into the Sheyenne River more than once 

in the past 2,000 years during wet cycles. A recent USGS report 

suggests, as you indicated on your chart, Senator, a 72-percent 

chance that the current wet cycle will last at least another 10 

years, and a 37-percent chance it will last 30 years. We simply cannot afford to gamble on the possibility of a quick end to the wet 

cycle. One exceptionally large rain event could escalate the current 

crisis to a catastrophic event with significant damages and associated costs. 

The 250-cubic-feet-per-second pumping station recently put into 

operation is a step in the right direction that provides some reduction in the probability of an uncontrolled outflow. However, it does 

not solve the problem. In a recent USGS simulation model exercise, 

one- half of the random models resulted in a spill within the next 

20 years, even with the State outlet. Therefore, more is needed and 

time is of the essence. The risk to downstream interests is unacceptably high. 

Of additional concern are the large expenditures for raising roads 

and other temporary infrastructure that continue with no end in 

sight. We understand that, by the end of 2011, 650 million will 

have been spent to address infrastructure needs in the Devils Lake 

area since the wet cycle started. This includes several hundred million on roads. The North Dakota Department of Transportation estimates possibly 250 to 300 million in—more in highway expenditures necessary to raise essential highways to an elevation of 1465 

if the lake reaches its natural spill elevation of 1458. 

Scarce Federal, State, and local resources would be better applied to a permanent solution instead of continued expenditures on 

short-term fixes. Whether they realize it or not, all taxpayers in the 

United States—and certainly within North Dakota—all are already 

paying a high price for the flooding in Devils Lake region. 

A controlled outlet, with appropriate downstream mitigation, 

may be the only viable solution. Ideally, the outlet should draw 

water from the West Bay, where sulfur—sulfate levels are between 

500 and 600 milligrams per liter, instead of the much higher east 

Devils Lake or Stump Lake area. We understand that there are 

technical and financial challenges with a West Bay outlet, but believe this option needs significant and thoughtful evaluation before 

being ruled out. 

Additional consideration must be given to the following: 

452 

Downstream water quality standards will have to be further 

modified for any outlet option to be effective. 

NEPA compliance inevitably poses unreasonable time delays. 

Emergency legislation to speed up the permit process must be explored. 

Leaders in downstream communities in the United States and 

Canada must be educated to understand that the environmental 

impacts of an uncontrolled discharge would far exceed those of a 

smaller, controlled discharge. 

While we recognize and support the need for an outlet, we must 

also emphasize the need to mitigate adverse consequences to the 

fullest extent practical. These mitigation steps may include, but are 

not limited to, new or improved treatment facilities, flood protection measures for downstream communities, erosion protection 

measures. 

During flood periods, a high percentage of the floodwater in the 

Sheyenne River now spills out and flows overland through Northern, Richland, and Southeastern Cass Counties. The Sheyenne diversion channel picks up part of the Sheyenne River near Horace. 

If levees were constructed, containing all flows in the Sheyenne 

River channel through Southeastern Cass County, the existing 

Sheyenne diversion channel may not have adequate capacity to 

provide the necessary protection. However, if large flows from a 

Devils Lake spill were allowed to enter the Sheyenne River without 

levees, communities of Kindred, Davenport, and Horace, as well as 

many rural residences, would be threatened from the breakout 

flows. Harwood and many rural residents would be threatened by 

a Sheyenne River flooding to the north of Fargo and West Fargo. 

These downstream impacts must be considered and dealt with as 

part of any outlet plan. 

The proposed North Dakota Red River diversion would do much 

to address the concerns created by a sustained increase in 

Sheyenne River flows. The need for a Devils Lake outlet increases 

the urgency of also completing the diversion in a timely manner. 

Speaking on behalf of the entire Cass County Commission, I 

would like to say that we all understand the issues of too much 

water very clearly. Our years of organizing, planning, and funding 

projects for minimizing the impact of rising waters have not been 

enough. The temporary measures have been costly for both the 

Devils Lake area and Cass County for battling their respective 

water issues. 

The time for permanent solutions is now. The time for addressing the Devils Lake rising-water issue, the flooding in Cass County, 

and mitigating any downstream effects, is now. Federal, State, and 

local funding of permanent solutions will save millions of dollars in 

the long run. 

Cass County supports a planned and controlled process to solving 

the rising waters of Devils Lake. Likewise, I believe that the people 

of Devils Lake support the Red River diversion as a means, not 

only to protect a highly populated metro area, but to allow for the 

additional water coming to our area through the Sheyenne River. 

The two are mutually beneficial. 

Once again, thank you for allowing me to comment. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Vanyo follows:] 

453 


58154.247
454 


58154.248
455 


58154.249
456 


58154.250
457 


58154.251
458 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for that excellent testimony. 

And now we’ll hear from Steve Burian, chief executive officer of 

Advanced Engineering and Environmental Services. And I might 

add, parenthetically, that his father was my deputy when I was tax 

commissioner, so I’m always glad to see a Burian. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE BURIAN, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, 

ADVANCED ENGINEERING AND ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES, 

INC. (AE2S) 

Mr. BURIAN. Good morning. And thank you, Senator Conrad. 

For the record, my name is Steve Burian. I’m an engineer specializing in water supply and treatment, and I’m here this morning 

as a consultant to the City of Fargo. 

Like to thank you, Senator Conrad, as well as Cass County, for 

hosting this hearing focused on the Devils Lake flooding disaster. 

I fully understand the immediate issues surrounding Devils 

Lake, and the need for flood relief, but I’m going to actually shift 

my focus of my testimony to issues related to the discharge of Devils Lake into the Sheyenne River. 


58154.252
459 

Specifically, I would like to address implications related to the 

increased sulfate concentrations in drinking water, increased sulfate concentrations within the Sheyenne River, and how these sulfate concerns will affect downstream users, including the City of 

Fargo. 

Sulfate is an anion with high solubility that—it naturally exists 

in water sources primarily in the forms of sodium sulfate, calcium 

sulfate, and magnesium sulfate. United States Environmental Protection Agency, or the EPA, and the North Dakota Department of 

Health have adopted a secondary standard of 250 milligrams per 

liter—talked about that earlier—for sulfate in drinking water. Estimates indicate that only 3 percent of drinking water supplies in the 

country have provided water in excess of this 250-milligram-perliter recommendation, although sulfate is more common in North 

Dakota. 

Sulfate, especially sodium sulfate, is known to give a bitter, astringent, and an undesirable taste even at low concentrations. One 

study by Zetman indicated that sodium sulfate, in any concentration, affects the taste of drinking water. Another study, by the National Academy of Science, indicated that sulfate concentrations between 250 to 1,000 milligrams per liter caused reported taste impacts and varied depending on all the species, with sodium sulfate 

being the worst. 

Based on water-quality sampling data from the North Dakota 

Department of Health, sodium sulfate appears to be the most prevalent form of sulfate in the water discharged from Devils Lake into 

the Sheyenne River, though all three forms are present. 

Regarding health implications, the EPA and the World Health 

Organization have identified many resources that indicate that sulfates in higher concentrations can cause diarrhea anhydration, particularly for infants, elderly, and transient populations that aren’t 

acclimated to sulfate. The specific concentration for these health effects is variable and inconclusive, as Dave Glatt mentioned. The 

World Health Organization has set a health advisory level for 

drinking water containing sulfate concentrations above 500 milligrams per liter. 

In 1994, the EPA proposed its primary standard, which is the enforceable standard, of 500 milligrams per liter for sulfate. But it 

was not enacted, because the field experiment was inconclusive, 

primarily because the researchers could not secure a large enough 

statistical population of exposed infants, and the adult trials produced nonstatistically-significant results. As a result, in the absence of an enforceable health-effect standard, the only published 

standard for sulfates is based on aesthetics, at 250 milligrams per 

liter. 

The United States Geological Survey historic water quality data 

from 1969 to 2005 indicates an average sulfate concentration of approximately 146 milligrams per liter on the Sheyenne River at 

West Fargo, with higher concentrations occurring since the mid– 

1990s. A closer look at the source water quality data indicates that 

prior to the Devils Lake emergency outlet, only 3 of 65 samples, or 

4.6 percent, from the Sheyenne River at West Fargo exceeded the 

secondary standard of 250 milligrams per liter, with a maximum 

recorded concentration of 310 milligrams per liter. 

460 

With the operation of Devils Lake emergency outlet, however, 

the sulfate concentration throughout the Sheyenne River is increasing. Water quality sampling performed by the City of Fargo from 

October 2009 until the present, at the City of Fargo Sheyenne 

River intake at West Fargo, indicates an average sulfate concentration of 270 milligrams per liter and a maximum concentration of 

383 milligrams per liter. Sixty-three percent of the samples taken 

by the City of Fargo over this time period are above the 250- 

milligram- per-liter secondary standard. 

Unfortunately, USGS water quality sampling data from 1975 to 

2005, as well as more recent data since operation of the emergency 

outlet began, indicate that the Sheyenne River offers almost no dilution of sulfate concentrations between Baldhill Dam and West 

Fargo. 

It is understood recent discussions have suggested extending the 

temporary emergency sulfate stream standard of 750 milligrams 

per liter in the upper reaches of the Sheyenne River to the lower 

reaches of the Sheyenne River. If this variance is approved, historical data suggests the sulfate concentration in the Sheyenne River 

at West Fargo will be similar to the sulfate concentration released 

from Baldhill Dam. 

Data from 2009 and early 2010 indicate that operation of the 

emergency outlet has a significant impact on sulfate concentrations 

in the Sheyenne River. Sulfate concentrations in the below– 

Baldhill–Dam sampling site rose from just over 114 milligrams per 

liter in May of 2009 to 279 milligrams per liter in October of 2009, 

with near constant operation of the emergency outlet at 100 cubic 

feet per second. 

Sulfate concentrations at West Fargo continued to rise to 383 

milligrams per liter by the end of January 2010 as a result of the 

lag time between the dam location in West Fargo before falling as 

a result of spring runoff. 

The pumping capacity of the emergency outlet was expanded in 

June 2010 from 100 to 200 cubic feet per second, but sufficient data 

is not yet available to evaluate how the expanded capacity will impact the sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne River. 

The City of Fargo relies upon the Red River to the north and the 

Sheyenne River as its water supplies. Throughout the year, the 

sources are used independently, as well as blended at different 

ratio. Having redundant water supply sources provides the city 

with important operational flexibility in the event of infrastructure 

failures, contamination of one source—of the sources, and undesirable discharges from poor-quality upstream reservoirs or point 

sources. The City of Fargo has made significant investment to secure the redundant source water supplies. It would be irresponsible 

for the City of Fargo to rely exclusively on a single source. 

The City of Fargo successfully provides consumers with safe and 

aesthetically pleasing drinking water. The current Fargo water 

treatment plant, which was constructed in 1997, with the related— 

along with related facility improvements, at a cost of approximately 

$75 million, includes five main mechanisms for treating its Red 

River and Sheyenne River sources: one, high-rate clarification to 

remove solids; two lime—two-stage lime-soda ash softening to reduce hardness; three, filtration to remove particulate matter; four, 

461 

ozonation for organic taste and odor control and primary disinfection; and, five, chloramination for disinfection, byproduct control, 

and secondary disinfection. 

These technologies were selected based on the historic water 

quality of the Red River and Sheyenne River. Ozone was specifically incorporated for taste and odor treatment to provide an aesthetically pleasing water to the—quality—to the Fargo consumers. 

Because of its solubility, however, sulfate is very difficult to remove 

from drinking water using conventional technologies, and none of 

the treatment technologies incorporated at the Fargo water treatment plant is capable of removing sulfate. 

Based on the historic water quality of the Red River and 

Sheyenne River, sulfate removal technologies were not historically 

necessary for the City of Fargo to provide acceptable drinking 

water to its consumers. 

If increased sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne River persist, 

and further increases stem from the necessity to move additional 

water from Devils Lake to prevent further flooding impacts in an 

uncontrolled release, sulfate treatment to the Sheyenne River by 

the city of Fargo will be warranted. Advanced technologies capable 

of sulfate removal include reverse osmosis, ion exchange, and 

electrodialysis, and reverse electrodialysis. 

Of these technologies, reverse osmosis is likely the only practical 

alternative for a large-scale drinking-water system. City of Fargo 

staff and consultants have begun preliminary analysis of the scope 

and estimated costs to incorporate reverse osmosis treatment to the 

Sheyenne River to maintain a treated-water sulfate concentration 

of 250 milligrams per liter. 

The preliminary concept developed for the City of Fargo includes 

a new 8-million-gallon-per-day reverse osmosis facility to treat 

water from the Sheyenne River prior to blending and polishing 

treatment at the existing 30-million- gallon-per-day Fargo water 

treatment plant. 

Another option that could be considered is partial reverse osmosis treatment of the Fargo water treatment plant effluent prior to 

pumping finished water into the city’s distribution system. Further 

facility planning is necessary to identify the most cost-effective 

treatment alternative. 

Although reverse osmosis in—for drinking water has become 

more common in recent years, the estimated capital costs and operation and maintenance costs to incorporate reverse osmosis for sulfate removal within the City of Fargo water system are significant. 

The required size and associated cost for the reverse osmosis system are directly related to the source water quality. 

Based on the preliminary analysis, the new sulfate treatment facility is estimated to cost approximately $50 to $70 million in capital costs, with additional operational and maintenance costs ranging from 3.7 to 5.5 million dollars per year. These cost ranges are 

based on maximum sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne River of 

450 and 750 milligrams per liter, respectively. Higher sulfate water 

concentrations result in higher estimated costs. 

It is also important to note that reverse osmosis will be capable 

of removing the cations that are paired with the sulfates in the 

Sheyenne River; namely, sodium, calcium, and magnesium. 

462 

In conclusion, I would like to reiterate five key points in my testimony: 

Research indicates that sulfate starts to impact the taste of 

drinking water at relatively low concentrations. Research also suggests that sulfates at higher concentrations can potentially impact 

health. The only published drinking-water standard for sulfate is 

the secondary standard of 250 milligrams per liter, based on aesthetics. 

Two, sulfate concentration in the Sheyenne River are increasing 

due to the operation of Devils Lake emergency outlet, and little dilution has been observed between Baldhill Dam and West Fargo. 

Further sulfate concentration increases in the Sheyenne River may 

be required to limit further Devils Lake flooding impacts and prevent an uncontrolled discharge. 

Three, the Sheyenne River is a critical component of the redundant Fargo water supply system. Based on a significant water 

treatment investment in the mid–1990s, the City of Fargo has been 

able to routinely provide its consumers with safe and aesthetically 

pleasing drinking water. The existing Fargo water treatment plant, 

however, is not capable of removing sulfates. 

Lastly, with increasing sulfate concentrations in the Sheyenne 

River, reverse osmosis treatment by the City of Fargo to maintain 

the treated water sulfate concentration of 250 milligrams per liter 

will be warranted, with very significant new capital and operational and maintenance costs. 

Thank you once again for the opportunity to testify regarding the 

downstream drinking water impacts of the Devils Lake flooding 

disaster. I’ll be glad to answer any questions you have, along with 

the other panel member. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Burian follows:] 

463 


58154.234
464 


58154.235
465 


58154.236
466 


58154.237
467 


58154.238
468 


58154.239 58154.240
469 


58154.241
470 

The CHAIRMAN. Steve, I’d like to go to the question of the cost 

of a facility. The estimated cost, as I heard you describe it, was 50 

to 60 million? 

Mr. BURIAN. Fifty to seventy. 


58154.242 58154.243
471 

The CHAIRMAN. Fifty to seventy million dollars. And that would 

be—is that the reverse osmosis plant, that would be on the front 

end, that would treat Sheyenne River water? 

Mr. BURIAN. Those are the incremental costs of treating specifically for sulfates using reverse osmosis. And we looked at two different concepts. One, we would either treat the water at the 

Sheyenne River intake at a location to see if Fargo’s retained, and 

then transport that water to the water treatment plant for blending before it goes out. The other approach would be to treat all of 

the water at the Fargo water plant, and then just treat a portion 

of it to get the blended portion down to about 250 milligrams per 

liter. 

Right now, it appears like the independent plant on the 

Sheyenne River has a little bit more flexibility, but we were—we’ve 

been hired by the City of Fargo to look at a facility plan to look 

at both of those options, as well as incorporate the City of West 

Fargo into that analysis. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. And the additional operational cost, you testified, was $3 and a half, $4 million a year? 

Mr. BURIAN. Yeah, 3.7 to 5.5 million per year. 

The CHAIRMAN. $3.7 to $5.5 million dollars a year additional operating costs. And in your assessment, this would get you down to 

a sulfate level of—in the 250 range. 

Mr. BURIAN. Yeah. We didn’t try to completely remove sulfate; 

we took it down to the recommended secondary standard of 250. 

The CHAIRMAN. Was any analysis done at assuring a lower level, 

then, would come through the Sheyenne River, but not as low as 

250? 

Mr. BURIAN. In other words, the analysis of treating 300 milligrams per liter? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. BURIAN. I guess—you saw that we have experienced 300 milligrams per liter in the past. The—we’re starting to approach 400 

now. And I’m presuming that, with the operation of the—at 250 

cfs, that we’re going to see numbers, as Dave testified, approaching 

or even—you know, getting very close to 450 milligrams per liter. 

And so, our analysis, at this point, focused on treating at those 

higher levels. It’s also our presumption that, if they want to do 

something meaningful—and we’ve heard a series of testimonies 

today about not waiting, but, you know, taking as much—get as 

much as done you can, given that time is—probably be—only thing 

that we have—and if that were to increase, you know, that would 

either provide further impetus for treating the water. Not to duck 

your question. If we did have to treat something at—if we had a 

better source of water quality, the cost would likely be less. But, 

given— 

The CHAIRMAN. What I’m sort of grasping at here, and trying to 

understand, is, Is there a significant difference in cost if you are 

to achieve sulfate levels that are above 250? 

Mr. BURIAN. You mean— 

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, is there is there a big difference— 

Mr. BURIAN. If— 

The CHAIRMAN. —in cost— 

472 

Mr. BURIAN. If we allow— 

The CHAIRMAN. —getting down to 250, versus getting down to 

350, since we’ve already experienced above 350? 

Mr. BURIAN. There—it’s not linear, but the—to answer your 

question, if we decided that the acceptable threshold was 300, because we’d seen 300 under natural conditions, there would be a 

slight reduction from those numbers I showed you. Because what 

we’re looking at doing is a blend, and only treating enough water 

to get that blend down to the— 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. 

Mr. BURIAN. —my own objective. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. And we’ve seen—can you give us some 

sense of the frequency that of—we’ve seen levels above 300? 

Mr. BURIAN. Well, the—everything to the left of the first red line 

is kind of pre–1993, so that’s the dry period. And you see there, we 

don’t have any data that exceeds 200 milligrams per liter. And 

then, just from natural effects, as both Dave and I testified, from 

1993 to somewhere in 2004, where they began the outlet operation, 

you can see that all of the data was below 300, except for the one 

extraneous point there that went up to 310. And then, more recently, you can see—and obviously the data gets much more compressed, but you can see the impact of the Devils Lake outlet, particularly because of sulfate limitations, they weren’t able to operate 

it very much, and so it really mimicked the 1993 to 2004 data, 

until this most recent change that the Health Department implemented. But, at that point, you can see, all of those red dots are 

data points that are above 300 milligrams per liter, so we’re dealing with a water that— 

The CHAIRMAN. And have we gotten—what has been consumer 

response? With all those data points above 300, were there complaints? 

Mr. BURIAN. Well, there—the—you also have to—I suppose, if we 

didn’t parallel that—but, if you showed the other one, it has—go 

along with the amount of the time that they’re using that. But, so 

far, because they’ve never used the—haven’t been forced to use the 

Sheyenne River exclusively, and because they have—so they can 

blend it; and there are certain times of the year where they weren’t 

using it, which would have been the winter tail—we haven’t heard 

a lot of complaints at this point. 

The CHAIRMAN. Have there been any complaints? 

Mr. BURIAN. There have been complaints. I guess the question 

would be, Are they due to organics in the water or are they due 

to—because you get taste-and-odor complaints kind on a routine 

basis with surface water. Can we tie that to the sulfate concentration, or would that be tied to MIB or geosmin in the water? It 

would be hard to discern that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Because there are other things that would 

contribute to people complaining, is what you’re saying. 

Mr. BURIAN. Yup. 

The CHAIRMAN. And the 310—there was a data point on the previous slide—that occurred before there ever was a State outlet. 

Mr. BURIAN. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. That occurred naturally. Okay. 

473 

Mr. BURIAN. We—I guess, in looking at it, we had to pick a defendable number in—to which to treat it,—. We picked a secondary 

standard of 250, because it was the published data that was out 

there. If, collectively, everybody decided that 300 or 310 was acceptable, we would revise our cost estimates, and I would expect 

our cost estimates to go down slightly. 

The CHAIRMAN. But not significantly. Okay. That’s important to 

know. 

I—any final statement you’d want to make, Darrell? 

Mr. VANYO. Well, summing up my testimony, it simply is that we 

certainly support moving forward with, you know, trying to resolve 

the Devils Lake situation. We certainly encourage the West Bay, 

as—you know, for better water quality. And mitigation of any 

downstream—in terms of the cities I mentioned—I happen to live 

on the Sheyenne River, between Horace and I–94, which is protected, but it’s a 100-year level of protection, although new numbers might indicate it’s less than 100 years. And during the last 

couple of years, even though we have the diversion at Horace, the 

water has been within—there’s been about 2 feet of freeboard, and 

there have been people in our area that we have—for. So, if you— 

a controlled outlet is obviously the best, but we have to be concerned about the spring flooding and, you know, timing of everything, there. So, that would be my statement, is simply concern 

about water quality, and the amount of water, when it comes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yup. 

Let me just say, I’m drinking West Fargo water right now. It is 

very good. Far superior to Washington, DC, water, I’ll tell you that. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. So, you’re doing something right, here, because 

this is very good water quality. 

Mr. BURIAN. Senator, are you sure it’s not coming out of that— 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BURIAN. I’m sorry. 

The CHAIRMAN. Did you know that the source of water is West 

Fargo? 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BURIAN. But, I bet it’s been spruced up a little bit. 

The CHAIRMAN. You think? 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s very good. 

Any final statement you’d want to make, Steve? 

Mr. BURIAN. I might have in trouble with the last one. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say that law enforcement is waiting 

for you outside. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. BURIAN. I guess the only point that I made as I was sitting 

in—or thought that I had, sitting through the previous panel and 

the questions you asked, were—there were some comparisons made 

to other systems across the State that are drinking water that has 

higher levels of sulfate, and how that’s deemed acceptable. I’d like 

to point out a couple of things. 

I have tracked down that data. And if you start to list some of 

the communities which I think would—may be unfair to start 

474 

pointing them out in the testimony, even though I have them in 

front of me—these are communities that are, you know, sometimes 

30 people or 40 people. Some of them have already been switched 

to rural water since the data was published, and a lot of them have 

plans to do that. 

There are a couple of systems that start to approach maybe 1,000 

people or 2,000 people. Every one of them, to a city, are looking at 

supplemental treatment to try to address the aesthetics of their 

water. 

And then, I would also guess that, when you say they’re drinking 

it, and everything’s safe, that, when you get a water that has that 

marginal quality, I’ll bet every one of them is using that same trick 

that I pointed to you— behind you, where they may bathe in it, 

and they may do other things in it, but, when it comes to drinking 

water and coffee and other things, they’re probably either treating 

that with home treatment units or hauling water to mitigate the 

impacts. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Very important to know. 

Governor, any final statement you’d want to make? 

Governor Hoeven: Well, again, Senator, good to be here with you, 

and also to the Mayors and to the Commissioner and the Commission members—I saw Ken Pollock and other Commission members 

here, as well. 

Appreciate the spirit of cooperation. The approach, again—I 

mean, it’s everybody working together. It’s storing water in the 

upper basin, it’s all the mitigation we talked about, in and around 

Devils Lake, and it’s moving water out of the lake in a way that 

not only helps with the flooding upstream, which we need to do, 

but protects downstream interests. 

As was pointed out very clearly in the testimony, we need to 

move water out in a controlled way, both in terms of the amount 

of water, so that we don’t have flooding, and also so that we manage water quality. And I think everyone that’s testified here, both 

from the State level, from the community level, the county level, 

and private individuals—experts, engineers—in terms of talking 

about the approach we’re talking—it’s an approach that protects 

downstream interests, as well. And so, that funding’s already in 

place, from a Federal and State level, to help Valley City with their 

water treatment, so that they have the reverse osmosis that Steve 

and others have talked about. And that’s exactly what we’re talking about with this joint effort between Fargo and West Fargo. And 

it’s got the added element of Fargo and West Fargo coming together on a joint water supply system. 

Again, I would comment that this is actually the backup, the secondary system. The main system comes off the Red itself; the 

Sheyenne comes into this community north of the Red. So, this is 

a backup system. 

But, I think, from the State of North Dakota, there’s a real commitment to work with Fargo and West Fargo and local communities to make sure that they have the water treatment facilities 

in place that they want, and that best serves the citizens. 

And so, now we turn to the Federal task force. And, like I say, 

we’re looking at that September 7th date for them to come forward 

475 

with us so that we can continue to move water out of the lake, and 

also take these other steps, as well. 

Thanks. And again, Senator, thanks, to you. And we’ve had good 

dialogue, I think, both at these hearings, but as well as just offline 

between us, this joint effort, and that needs to continue. 

So, thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. And it will, and we appreciate very much, Governor, your taking your time to be here. I think that was important 

for these communities. We’re listening, paying close attention to 

their concerns. And I think the witnesses have done an excellent 

job of making clear what these downstream communities face. And 

these concerns are fully legitimate and have to be addressed. 

I think the final point I want to make is, we are all in this together. Some have posited this as the Devils Lake Basin against 

the downstream. That just isn’t the circumstance, as I see it. After 

hours and hours of testimony, after hundreds—literally hundreds 

of meetings over the last 15 years, it is as clear as it can be that 

we are all in this together, because if there is an uncontrolled release out of the east end of Devils Lake, everybody suffers. Certainly, the Devils Lake Basin is the first to suffer, but it is no— 

by no means exclusively their suffering, because every community 

downstream would suffer immeasurably; first of all, by flooding, beyond anything we have ever seen since this area of the State was 

populated; secondly, by water quality levels that the treatment facilities can’t handle, that our human systems can’t handle if there 

is an uncontrolled release of water out of the east end. 

So, it is entirely in all of our interest to find alternatives. And 

as we examine the various options, one that presents itself is releases out of the west end. A State outlet that has now been expanded from 100 cfs to 200 cfs, but is limited in duration of how 

it can operate, under the current regulations, presents itself as 

something that has to be considered. And if it is, if that becomes 

part of the solution, then we’re going to have to deal with additional water treatment downstream. I think that becomes clear, 

based on the testimony that we’ve heard here from the mayors, and 

from Mr. Vanyo and Mr. Burian. 

So, with that, I thank everybody for their patience. I thank them 

for the professionalism of the testimony that we heard here. 

And again, Governor, my personal thanks for your being here to 

hear this, as well. 

With that, the hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:46 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(477) 

FIELD HEARING DEVILS LAKE FLOODING 

DISASTER: HOW SHOULD DOWNSTREAM IMPACTS BE ADDRESSED? 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Lisbon, North Dakota 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1 p.m., at the Stake 

Out Supper Club and Lounge, 6840 Highway 32, Meeting Room, 

Lisbon, North Dakota, Hon. Kent Conrad, Chairman of the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. Is that better? 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Voice:—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Sorry for that little technical glitch. Want 

to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. This is an official hearing of the committee, and so we will 

be abiding by the rules of the U.S. Senate. And an official record 

of this hearing is being kept. The title of this hearing is, Devils 

Lake Flooding: How Should Downstream Impacts Be Addressed? 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. 

We have two panels. I will have the Governor go first. I’m delighted that Governor Hoeven has joined us again today. He was 

with us yesterday in West Fargo, and he has been with us, previously, in Valley City and Devils Lake. I very much appreciate his 

taking his time to come and testify and be part of this listening 

session as well. We also have, as part of the first panel, Todd 

Sando, the State engineer for the State Water Commission—Todd, 

thank you very much for being here—Lisbon Mayor, Ross Cole; and 

Fort Ransom Mayor, Jim Thernes. 

Our second panel will include Neil Olerud, chairman of the Ransom County Commission; Teresa Rotenberger—I hope I’m pronouncing that right—is it Rotenberger—is that the correct—— 

Voice: It’s Rotenberger. 

The CHAIRMAN. Rotenberger? Is that correct?—the emergency 

manager for Ransom County; and former Lisbon mayor, Morrie 

Saxerud. 

478 

I understand the Valley City mayor, Bob Werkhoven is here, as 

well. I think I saw Bob. 

Welcome. Good to have you here as well. 

I look forward to hearing from each of our witnesses here today 

on how we should address the flooding disaster in Devils Lake and 

the impacts downstream. 

Since 1992, Devils Lake has risen nearly 30 feet. Tens of thousands of acres of productive farmland have been subsumed, and 

hundreds of homes have been moved. The transportation network, 

including the railroads and the roads, have been disrupted, and the 

local economy continues to be affected. Last year alone, the lake 

rose 3 and a half feet, and this year it reached a record elevation. 

Devils Lake is now within 6 feet of the natural overflow. Finding 

solutions to prevent an uncontrolled release of water is in everyone’s best interest, I believe. 

Experts tell us the wet cycle in the Basin is likely to continue 

for years. There’s no way to predict exactly when the normal cycle 

will return, but we have been told, by those who forecast long-term 

weather trends, that there is a 72 percent chance the wet cycle will 

continue 10 years or more, a 37 percent chance it will continue for 

30 years, and a 14 percent chance that it will continue for at least 

60 years. I don’t know how much credibility, frankly, any guy that 

can put in a forecast that goes for these very long periods of time, 

but that is the forecast that we have been provided. 


58154.390
479 

An uncontrolled overflow would clearly cause significant damage 

downstream. The quality of the water released would be extremely 

high in sulfates, five times worse than if the water was released 

from the west end. Let me just say, parenthetically, that that’s one 

of the things that—hard to appreciate about this lake. You know, 

you’d think of a lake, that the water quality be pretty much the 

same any place in the lake. That is not true of Devils Lake. There 

is a natural flow to the lake. The water coming in from the northwest flowing east, picking up sulfates and other dissolved solids as 

it moves east. And so, the water quality is about five times worse 

out of the east end, which is where the natural outlet occurs, 

versus the west end, where the State outlet has been constructed. 


58154.391
480 

Drinking water systems, drawing from the Cheyenne River, 

could be impacted if there is an uncontrolled release of water. Discharges from Lake Ashtabula could be nearly twice what was experienced during 2009—twice what was experienced during 2009. 

And some properties would be flooded for an extended period of 

time, making recovery extremely difficult. 

The unprecedented flooding, experienced in Lisbon, Fort Ransom, 

and Ransom County, in 2009, gave a preview of what we could potentially see if Devils Lake overflows in an uncontrolled manner. 

We won the flood fight then, but it took a Herculean effort in every 

community south of Devils Lake. And victory came at a considerable cost. A cost of rapidly building protective defenses; a cost of 

damaged infrastructure, including many homes; and a cost of lost 

income for residents who left their jobs to aid in the fight. 

The Mayor has just taken me on a brief tour of parts of the town 

heavily impacted by the last flood. Many homes, that still have 

dike right up against them, and many other homes that have the 

dike running through their backyards even today. 

I think all of us understand the stress created by previous floods. 

And all of us want to avert another experience like that one, one 

that has the potential to be even more serious. 

When the flooding disaster began we worked cooperatively on a 

three-pronged strategy and there was strong agreement between 

the Federal Government, State leadership, and local leadership on 

the three elements of the strategy. No. 1, Upper Basin storage. No. 

2, protecting vital infrastructure, including roads, bridges, buildings, water systems. And, the third leg, was the construction of an 

outlet. 

I want to indicate that, in 2000, we secured approval of a Federal 

outlet, and there was a determination made at the time, by State 


58154.398
481 

and local leadership, that they could not afford their 35 percent 

share of the cost of that structure, which would have been about 

$200 million. State and local share would have been some $72 million. The State believed that they could construct an outlet at less 

cost and went forward with that project with our support. That 

project started with 100 cfs capacity outlet that has now been increased to 250 cfs. 

Just in terms of a Federal commitment of dollars to this crisis, 

it has now reached—more than $700 million has been allocated, 

with another $200 million to be spent in the next, approximately, 

12 months. So, we’ll be talking, by a year from now, of more than 

$900 million of Federal dollars committed here. 400 million for the 

road network; FEMA has spent 84 million, since 1993, on repairing 

damage to public infrastructure; the Corps of Engineers has spent 

200 million, since 1993, on the levee, evaluation of a Federal outlet, 

and other protective measures; HUD has provided more than 11 

million. In terms of going forward, in this next year, we have another $100 million of road work scheduled, we have another almost 

$100 million being spent on the dike protecting Devils Lake. 

And, by the way, if that dike had not been raised—had not been 

raised several times now, the entire town of Devils Lake, or virtually all of Devils Lake, would be under water. Some of Devils 

Lake would be under 20 feet of water today. That is the reality. 

And the lake continues to rise. 

We’ve always understood that only comprehensive solutions will 

succeed in the long run. The problems of Devils Lake can’t be 

solved by simply flooding everything downstream. This is a shared 

responsibility, this is not just a Devils Lake Basin problem, this is 


58154.384
482 

now a problem for the entire region. And the region extends from 

Devils Lake to Valley City, here to Lisbon to Fort Ransom, and 

then goes over to West Fargo—that’s why we had a hearing there— 

and right up the Red. So, we’re talking about something that has 

an effect far beyond the boundaries of the Devils Lake Basin. 

Since the May Flood Summit in Devils Lake, the administration 

has convened a working group to evaluate both short- and longterm options. The working group has representation from all the 

relevant Federal agencies, including the Corps of Engineers, which 

is heading up the effort, FEMA, the Department of Transportation, 

USDA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Environmental Protection 

Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, and others. The group’s recommendations are now expected in September. I have emphasized, 

to this group, that the interest of downstream communities must 

be fully considered as options to manage this devastating slow-motion flood are identified. 

I am pleased that members of the working group were in Valley 

City last month to hear directly from local leaders on these options. 

And, next month, a delegation of local and State officials will be 

invited to Washington to meet with the working group as its recommendations are finalized. So, from the perspective of those 

downstream, what options should the Federal Government consider 

to deal with this flooding disaster? And what, specifically, should 

be done to mitigate downstream impacts? 

I am particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on 

where they think the working group should focus its attention, as 

it relates to downstream impacts. I intend to share that informaVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00488 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.386
483 

tion with the working group as they finalize their recommendations. 

With that, we’ll turn to the Governor for his opening observations and comments. Again, I want to thank the Governor for his 

taking his time, repeatedly, to address this issue and for his participation in each of the hearings that we have held, both in the 

Devils Lake Basin and outside the Devils Lake Basin. Again, Governor, welcome, and please proceed with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN, GOVERNOR OF NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Governor Hoeven: Thanks, Senator. Good to be with you. Appreciate you holding these hearings. 

Clearly, communication is an important part of meeting this 

challenge. And, it has to be a team effort. And it has to be a team 

effort in a number of respects. One, is it needs to have local, State, 

and Federal representatives working together. And so, it’s great to 

see so many of you here from, not only Lisbon, but the surrounding 

area in Sheyenne Valley. 

Mayor Thernes, thank you for being here, from Fort Ransom. 

Of course, Mayor Cole, former Mayor Morrie Saxerud—it—you 

know, it’s interesting to be here and see so many of you, as well 

as Teresa, John Cameron, and Mayor Werkhoven, and others, so 

many that, you know, we’ve worked on the flood battles through 

the years. And, of course, that, again, dealing with it this spring, 

dealing with it, in a big, big way, in 2009. But, great to see so 

many of you here. 

Senator Dotzenrod, thank you for coming as well. 

Former Representative Bob Hunter. Bob, thank you for being 

here. I saw—yeah, here he is. 

And, you know, like I say, there’s got to be a team effort. It’s got 

to be local leaders, State officials, our Federal delegation all working together on this. And it’s got to be an approach where we have 

people, throughout the region, working together. 

Good to see you again, Joe Belford, thank you for being here and 

for your efforts to pull people together and to communicate our efforts to deal with the Devils Lake flooding situation. 

We really are working to go forward with a three-part plan that 

includes storage of water, in the Upper Basin; mitigation in and 

around Devils Lake, building up roads and dikes; and moving 

water out of the lake in a way that protects downstream interests. 

And it takes all three, so it takes people in the Upper Basin, people 

in and around Devils Lake, and people in the Sheyenne Basin and 

lower basin—downstream areas—as well as along the Red; all of us 

working together to meet this challenge. 

First, in terms of storage in the Upper Basin: the lake, in 1993, 

covered about 49,000 acres; today it covers more than 180,000 

acres. I’ll repeat that. So, in 1993, the lake covered about 49,000 

acres, today it’s 30 feet higher and it covers 180,000 acres. That’s 

almost 130,000 acres that are inundated. That is an incredible 

amount of water, right there, that’s being stored in the Upper 

Basin. And that doesn’t even take into account all the wetlands 

and other areas where we have water stored in the Upper Basin. 

484 

In addition to listening to those numbers, I would encourage you 

to just go up and take a look. Just go up and drive—and it’s a long 

drive, right Joe? 

Mr. BELFORD. Yeah. 

Governor Hoeven: Drive around Devils Lake. Drive around the 

west side, up along the north side and east side. The lake is huge. 

But, what you’re going to see, all the way up to—and other areas, 

is huge amounts of water that is being stored in the Upper Basin. 

So, we’re storing a lot of water up there, right now. Second, Senator Conrad just mentioned, about $700 million, between local resources, State resources, and Federal resources, have 

been put into raising roads and dikes in and around Devils Lake. 

Another 200 million is planned. OK? Now, that’s 700-million-plus 

dollars going into raising roads and dikes. 

For example, right now, we are raising State highways 19 and 

putting in a riprap and other production features, and resurfacing 

and so on and so forth. But, Highways 19, Highways—Highway 20, 

Highway 57, and even Highway 2 had water across it this year, 

after one of those heavy rains. And we had to go in and start doing 

emergency work before we even had Federal approval to do it. And 

we’ll work to get that Federal approval, but we had to go in and 

raise the road, so that traffic could continue to pass. In addition, 

then you’ve got all the dike work, as well you’ve got all the IA work 

on the reservation. So, an incredible amount of mitigation, but understand we’re at the point now, where we’re within feet of a whole 

new round of infrastructure that’s going to be impacted. Right? I 

mean we already moved Highway 281 further to the west, but right 

now we’re in a situation where if it goes up a couple more feet—— 

For example the Empire Builder Rail Line, there’s a bridge up 

there that we’re going to have to raise. Just to raise that one 

bridge alone is $65 million. And, again, we’ve worked with the delegation, with Burlington and that, but just that one bridge is $65 

million. And we’re within a foot or two of not being able to have 

the Empire Builder Train go across that northern tier, and that’s 

a track that goes coast to coast. 

Another example, town of Minnewaukan, working with Mayor 

McCoy, your counterpart up there, who’s been tremendous. And, 

again, great example of local leadership, but we’re right at the 

point where we’re going to have to move the community. The water 

is right there up against the school grounds, and that’s a growing 

school district. 

You know, so, we’re right at the point where we have significant 

infrastructure impacts, that another foot or so means huge expenditures. So, we’ve got to move water out of the lake as well. And 

we’re doing that. The outlet that we’ve built is running at 250 cubic 

feet a second. That’s a lot of water. The key is that we bring it out 

in a way that also protects downstream interests. But, we need to 

continue to move that water out, and we need to do it over a longer 

period of time, and we—or we need to, actually, continue to increase the volume. 

And so, that’s really a big part of what we’re working on, with 

our Federal partners, is, the task force now is going to come out 

with recommendations, on September 7th, I believe is the target 

date right now. And we’ll be back working with the delegation— 

485 

local leadership will be back; they’re looking at some draft reports 

beforehand. But, about September 7th they’re going to come out 

with some recommendations, and it’s very important that the 

Corps and the EPA work with us to bring more water out, in a controlled way, so that we, you know, have some margin, even going 

into next spring, in terms of that lake level. 

So, we’ve got to continue to bring the water out, to address this 

problem, as part of a three-part strategy. We need help from Federal authorities and this task force to do that. We also need help 

from you. We have to be working with you. We have to do it in a 

way that is protective of downstream interests and we’re working 

to do that. 

One of the issues that—obviously, that we’ve talked about— 

Mayor Werkhoven and others and John Cameron, in the Valley 

City area—is the sulfate levels. And, between the State of North 

Dakota and the Federal Government, we’ve provided additional resources to Valley City to add reverse osmosis to their water treatment plant. So, we’re actually building a new water treatment 

plant that will provide significantly—will provide capacity for 

growth, but also reverse osmosis to take sulfates out of the water, 

so that—protect their water quality. Very important we keep moving on that and keep that going, because of the situation where we 

need to continue to move water out. 

At the same time, down here, you don’t take your water from the 

Sheyenne, but we want to make sure that, in terms of, you know, 

flood protection, that the diking that we’re looking at working with 

FEMA and the Corp to do, along the river here, the mitigation of 

housing, that it’s all coordinated. And that’s the real challenge, as 

Mayor Cole is probably going to testify, we have study going on, 

right now, that we funded through the Water Commission, with 

more engineering on behalf of the city, to really take a look at, How 

do we do this diking down here, with our Federal partners, with 

the Corps, with FEMA? How do we do this in a way that’s good 

for this community? 

And, Senator Conrad, you mentioned about some of these dikes 

right up against houses. I mean, I can remember, as we were working on flooding, particularly in 1909, some of those dikes were incorporated right into the wall of, like, the house or the garage. You 

know, here’d come the dike, and then part of the dike was the wall 

of the garage in some of these homes. Just an amazing thing to see 

what the Corps and our National Guard people could do. But it’s 

very important that we work with the community to get this set 

up—this flood protection set up in a way that works well. 

And so, all of this goes together, is the point I’m making. In 

terms of Devils Lake, you know, as far as bringing water out of 

there, we’ll do that in a controlled way so that it wouldn’t add to 

the flooding, but at the same time we need to have a control structure on the east end to make sure that you don’t get an uncontrolled overflow and flooding in that regard. So, all of this ties together, whether it’s water quality issues, whether it’s flood mitigation or protection from flooding. And that’s absolutely what we’re 

working to do here. And making sure that we’re working with local 

leadership to do it in a way where people know exactly what’s 

going on, and that it protects downstream interests, as well as 

486 

helps address this flooding, which we have to do for the Upper 

Basin and for Devils Lake. 

So, with that, thank you, Senator. Appreciate it very much. And 

I’ll look forward to our panels. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Governor. And, again, we 

appreciate your taking your time to be here and participate in all 

of this set of hearings. 

We’ll go to our first panel. Todd Sando, State engineer for the 

State Water Commission, to help us understand better the technical issues that we’re confronting. 

Todd, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF TODD SANDO, STATE ENGINEER, NORTH 

DAKOTA STATE WATER COMMISSION 

Mr. SANDO. Thank you, Senator. 

And my name is—for the record, my name is Todd Sando. I’m 

the State engineer, and chief engineer and secretary for the North 

Dakota State Water Commission. 

I do have 25 copies here, for Tracy. I do have written testimony; 

I’ll just kind of paraphrase the testimony. I do also have attached 

to the testimony—on July 8th, there was a hearing held in Devils 

Lake, and I went into great detail—and that testimony was rather 

lengthy—about the history and the background on some of the 

issues with Devils Lake flooding, and plus the—what we’ve been 

looking at to try to alleviate the situation, several of the things 

that the Senator and the Governor had explained. So, that’s also 

attached to the testimony. 

So, for today, the things I want to concentrate on, just a quick 

rundown on the history. We’ve been in this flooding situation for 

17 years. And you’ve heard that the lake’s risen 30 feet, so it’s— 

spring of 1993 it was at 1422, and now we’re at 1452 and the lake’s 

not dropping at all right now. Usually, at this time of year, we 

start seeing the lake fall and—but, we’ve continued to have precipitation events week after week after week. So, it’s been above normal temperatures and above normal precipitation. 

So, the lake’s really at a dangerous level. We’re within 6 feet of 

an overflow, the overflow elevation’s 1458. There’s only 1.3 million 

acre-feet of storage remaining between 1452 and 1458. And, for 

this late in the summer, not—to see the lake still right around the 

peak elevation for the year, it does not bode well for next year. 

Usually, that’s a sign that we’ll see, you know, new record highs. 

So, there’s a major risk that we’ll see new record highs again next 

year. And the weather forecasts still talk for above normal precipitation, and there could be another winter of excessive precipitation, 

too. So, lots needs to be done in the very—coming months. And, 

hopefully, the Federal task force comes up with some good recommendations and we can start really pushing forward with some 

funding and implementation of the alternatives. 

What’s taken place—we did build an emergency outlet and it was 

completed in 2005. So, you’ve heard about this three-pronged approach. And the third part of the solution and, probably, the most 

critical part of the solution, is to get water out of Devils Lake. And 

so, we worked a few years on constructing a temporary emergency 

outlet, that was 100 cfs outlet, and that was completed in 2005. 

487 

And we started running it late that year and we were able to get 

a little bit of water out. One of the big issues, we want to protect 

downstream interests, so we have constraints on the outlet; it’s related to water quality and to flood control. 

So, 2006 came, it was an extremely hot, hot year and the 

Sheyenne River flows were really low. So, the Sheyenne River is 

needed to help lend Devils Lake water. In 2006 the outlet did not 

run, because we could not meet the water quality constraints. So, 

then in 2007, 2008, we started getting some water up, but we were 

constrained a lot by the water quality issues on the Sheyenne 

River, the set standard is 450 milligrams per liter. And so, we 

weren’t able to get a lot of water out. So, in 2009, after the big 

flood event we had, last year was the No. 1 inflow event into Devils 

Lake. It was 590,000 acre-feet. 

And we when—we had the Governor and the Water Commissioner went to Devils Lake last summer—in fact, they were there 

many times, but on one of the tours up there we’ve made a decision 

that we needed to upsize the outlet. And the water commission 

acted on that, and we started designing construction of an outlet 

late last summer. And we built it all last winter, and we had it in 

operation by the, you know, the end of spring this year. So, the outlet now can be run at 250 cubic feet per second. So, we expanded 

the outlet from 100-cfs temporary emergency outlet to a 250-cfs. So, 

it’s 2 and a half times larger. 

So, now, if we could operate that 7 months a year—the goal is 

to operate April 1st through November. We do get constrained because of flooding, a lot of times, in April and early May, but the 

goal is to try to get 100,000 acre-feet of water out a year, during 

a 7-month operation. So, our outlet is just designed to operate during the open water season, not during the wintertime. So, last 

year—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I stop you on that point? 

Mr. SANDO. Sure. 

The CHAIRMAN. And ask, Why is that the case? Is there the possibility of running the outlet in winter months? And I ask, because 

a gentleman stopped me yesterday, after our hearing in West 

Fargo, and said, ‘‘Why don’t you consider running that outlet more 

during the winter, when you’d have less problem of bank erosion?’’ 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Senator, to answer that question, it’s—there’s 

many reasons why we didn’t go with winter operation. First of all, 

the sulfate levels, you talked about that, and the levels of sulfate. 

During the open water season, sulfate levels are a lot less—the 

numbers are lower. So, right now, when we’ve been operating the 

outlet, the west end of the outlet has been between 550 and 600 

milligrams per liter, or parts per million. But, what happens when 

we have ice—when ice forms, all the freshwater form in the ice, so 

all the concentrated dissolved solids are still in the water column. 

So, the water that we would pump out, in the wintertime, would 

have—be much more concentrated. So, the Health Department’s 

got samples that show—like, West Bay is 800 milligrams per liter, 

and that’s even above this temporary emergency rule that we have 

right now, through the Health Department, to operate. So, that’s 

our biggest problem is, in the wintertime the concentrations go 

much higher than the open water season. 

488 

Next big issue with our outlet, we have a 14-mile long outlet and 

10 miles of it’s open canal—and it’s an open channel. So, we’ll— 

we have issues with icing on this open channel. So, we got this 

channel at a gradient, and if ice starts forming, in November, 

around Thanksgiving or whatever, we’re worried about—the first 

couple miles of open channel goes to our second pumping plant, 

called Josephine Pump Station—so when ice starts forming with— 

the ice would move down the channel, because, you know, the 

channel’s at a slope, so there’s velocity. It’s not like a lake where 

the lake just freezes. So, the ice, once it starts forming, it’s going 

to move toward our pumping station. So, the best way to have winter operation is a closed system. Our system, right now, of the temporary emergency outlet that was built as an open system, has 10 

miles of open channel. So, ice is a big problem. 

Another problem with ice is, at the very bottom end of our outlet, 

we have—when we drop the water in, from the outlet to the 

Sheyenne River, we weren’t able to build the outlet all the way 

right in to the Sheyenne River. We had to stop short of an oxbow 

channel, because environmental compliance, NEPA, 404 jurisdictional issues are—all that stop there. So, our water comes out this 

terminal structure and just flows over it, and flows over land into 

this oxbow channel and then it works its way down this oxbow 

channel into the river. So, if we’d run that in the wintertime we 

would just form a major glacier and iceberg right there. 

And, you know, the best way to do that is have a pipe go right 

to the Sheyenne River, right in the bottom. Now, if we could get 

permits to do that, that’s what we—you know, that would be the 

best way. So, in order to operate in this winter we really need a 

closed system. We’ve got to enclose a lot of our stuff, our pumping 

plants, our channel. Really, probably the best thing to do is build 

a parallel outlet next it, a closed system to operate in the winter. 

But, our—still our biggest problem is sulfate constraints. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what would the cost be of a closed system? 

Mr. SANDO. We got some real rough numbers. I mean I don’t 

have a good cost estimate. But—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And do—— 

Mr. SANDO. And—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. You know if it’s in order of magnitude? And are we talking—— 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Like—— 

Mr. SANDO. I could do that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. 10 million, 50 million—— 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. —100 million? 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. We’re talking 100 million for only, like, 50 cfs. 

And we feel we don’t—you know, there probably isn’t much of a 

need to have a real big outlet in the wintertime. So, one of the 

things we’ve been looking at is like a 50 cfs, in the wintertime, 

closed system. And it’d probably be on the lines of $100 million. So, 

when we try and get winter operations it’s very expensive alternative. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

489 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Well, I was, you know, talking about—well, I 

can just continue on, on options of—you know, for ways to relieve 

the flooding at Devils Lake. And the—one of the things was this 

winter operation, like you’re talking about, try to get additional 

days to operate, so we can get more water out. 

The other big way we can benefit, to get more water out, you 

know, at 250 cfs we can get 500 acre-feet a day. If we could add 

additional capacity, too—not just lengthen the days that we operate, but have more capacity than 250. So, you know, if we can add 

another 100, 200, 250 cfs, somewhere, to come out of the lake that 

would really help, because right now, at 100—100,000 acre-feet— 

at a—250 cfs can remove up to 100,000 acre-feet a year. And I testified, like in Valley City and in Devils Lake, evaporation would 

probably take another 100,000 acre-feet off. So, that’s 200,000 acrefeet. And the hydrology, during this wet-cycle that we’ve been in, 

since 1993 to current, the average inflows to Devils Lake are—I got 

a number—it’s 240-some thousand acre-feet. 

The CHAIRMAN. The inflows—— 

Mr. SANDO. So—Yeah, the inflows. Yeah, to be exact, 243,700 

acre-feet. So, between running the outlet nonstop, if we wouldn’t be 

constrained by water quality and flood constraints and we’d have 

some decent evaporation, where we could get 100,000 acre-feet out, 

between the two we could get 200,000. So, we’re getting closer to 

keeping up with this wet-cycle average inflow, but the averages are 

made out of extremes. And, like I’d mentioned, 2009 was 590,000 

acre-feet. So, if we get another big year, like we had in 2009 or 

1997, real soon, Devils Lake—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s repeat that so the people—that we can help 

people understand. 2009, the inflows were 590,000 acre-feet. Typically, we’ve been averaging 240,000. If we ran the State outlet at 

the 250 cfs, full tilt, year round—year round, that would take off 

100—— 

Mr. SANDO. That would be—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Thousand cfs? 

Mr. SANDO. That would be for 7-month operation. We could 

get—— 

The CHAIRMAN. 7 months. 

Mr. SANDO. —100,000—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If we were—— 

Mr. SANDO [continuing]. Acre-feet. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Running at full tilt for 7 months 

that would be 100,000? 

Mr. SANDO. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. And we typically get 100,000 of evaporation. So, 

even that wouldn’t quite keep the lake stable. The lake would still 

be going up, assuming the wet cycle continues. 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. But, even more—of more concern, is 590,000 

acre-feet came into the lake in 2009. If we have another event like 

that we got a really serious problem. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. That would put at least 3 more feet on the 

lake, so we’d be at 55 within—you know, less than 3 feet from overflow. 

490 

The CHAIRMAN. And, is the way of thinking about this is, we got 

180,000 acre-foot lake, now, in terms of surface area, so if you have 

590,000 acre-feet coming in, you’re going to raise the lake more 

than 3 feet. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. So, I—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s the way that calculation works. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. At 100,080—180,000 acres at one foot, that’s 

180,000 acre-feet. Surface area keeps getting bigger, so the next 

foot the surface area might be 195,000 acre-—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So—— 

Mr. SANDO. —195,000—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. To take—— 

Mr. SANDO [continuing]. Acre-feet. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. The lake down a foot, we would 

have to take off 180,000 acre-feet net. And if we’ve got 240,000 

coming in, you got 100,000 evaporation, you got 100,000 if you’re 

running the outlet full tilt, you got to have another 180,000—or actually 220 in order to take the lake down a foot. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, that kind of puts it in perspective, what we’re 

dealing with here, as this lake continues to rise. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. So, I’ve mentioned what we could do for our 

west end, that’d be either, you know, trying to operate more days 

out of the year or adding additional capacity. 

The next thing would be looking at, you know, with this risk, the 

probability, right now, of overflow in the next 20 years shows a 13 

percent chance of the lake overflowing. This is a stochastic model 

that the USGS has put together. So, you know, there’s a high risk 

of it overflowing. And, with the outlet rate now, we could cut that 

risk in half to about 7 percent with a 250 cfs outlet. So, a 7 percent 

risk is still—I mean, when you develop a 100-year floodplain, that’s 

a 1 percent risk, so the risk is still unacceptable—it’s unacceptable 

risk for that region of the State. 

So, really, the next thing to do—to look at would be try to get 

water out further toward the east end of the lake. So, one of the 

things we’re looking at is—as you know, the water quality, as you 

mentioned, gets much worse as you go from west to east. And you 

kind of summarized it saying, it’s like five times worse. And so, basically, the sulfate levels in these—in East Stump Lake and West 

Stump Lake are like 2600 milligrams per liter, or parts per million. 

And we’ve—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Let’s go over that again, so that people hear this 

as simply as we can state it. Basically, the sulfate concentrations 

are about 500 in the western part of the lake and 2500 in Stump 

Lake, is that roughly—— 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah, that’s roughly a fair scenario. Yeah. We were 

operating last year the outlet, and the sulfate levels were between 

550 and 600 out of Round Lake which is the west end of the lake. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. SANDO. So, what this 2600—that’s, you know, parts per million sulfate levels in Stump Lake, I mean, that’s way over the 

standards. The standard’s 450, we have emergency rule for 750, we 

wouldn’t be able to get any drop of water out with—unless, you 

know, there’s a variance or something drastically done differently. 

491 

So, Stump Lake—it’s going to be very difficult to get any type of 

water out of there. So, if we try—add, you know, more capacity— 

one of—alternatives of the Water Commission, and we’ve been looking at is take water out of East Devils Lake, which is one lake further to the west, that’s before it flows through Jerusalem Coulee 

into the Stump Lakes. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what’s the water quality level at Jerusalem? 

Mr. SANDO. Sulfate levels there are like 2 and a half times better 

than Stump Lake. They’re like 1000 milligrams per liter, or 1000 

parts per million, for sulfate levels. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Still that is well above even what we have on the 

variance, because right now you’ve got 750—right? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. That is permitted to—although 

we’re not—we don’t see that high a level. What’s coming out of the 

west is more like 550? 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. 550 parts per million. What’s permitted is up to 

750, but at Jerusalem that would be 1000. 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, that’s well above what is permitted, even 

with the variance that we have. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. So—you’re exactly right, Senator. So, in order 

to get water out of East Devils Lake, there, you’d have to even 

modify the standards even more on the Sheyenne River. And, what 

we’d look at to do, if that we’re the case, we would like to try to 

blend west end water with east end water. So, say if there’s 1000 

milligrams per liter, east end water coming out, and, say, 600 west 

end, that averages to 800, so we’re getting close to that 750 number. So, if we have a class 1-A stream at a 750 standard, blending 

west and east end equally, we could be around 750 to 800. We 

would—maybe we could just run a, you know, a smaller outlet out 

of East Devils Lake, so it would—you know, so when we’d blend 

it, we’d blend it up to 750. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And have there been any estimates of what the 

cost of that would be? 

Mr. SANDO. We don’t have a cost estimate, but it would be a 

much simpler way to get water out of Devils Lake, because that’s 

another—not only does the water quality change, from one end to 

the other, the divide elevation for water to flow out of Devils Lake’s 

a lot different. Our west end, we have to pump it up over a 100- 

foot hill. The water’s only got 6 feet to get out of Stump Lake, and 

probably only has 12 feet to get out of East Devils Lake. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So, the cost of an outlet structure there would be 

considerably less than an additional structure out at the west end. 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct, Senator. It’d be much less money to 

spend on an East Devils Lake outlet. We could build a gravity 

channel out of there. And it would really—where it would really 

save us money, right now, it’d cost us $5 million a biennium to operate the west end outlet. And, say, if we wanted to double the capacity—say, if we wanted to—out the west end—we’d be spending 

$10 million just to operate, to pump water up a 100-foot hill. So, 

if we could have a gravity channel, our own annum costs would be 

a lot lower. So, it’d be, from, you know, an economic standpoint, 

492 

make a lot of sense to, you know, not pump it up over a 100-foot 

hill, and just take it out over a 10-foot hill, and the best way to 

do that is actually cut a channel—a gravity channel out to allow 

the water to flow out East Devils Lake. And that would flow into 

the Tolna Coulee into the Sheyenne River. So, that’s another thing 

I would like the Federal Government to, you know, be part of and 

look at, too, is possibly a blended outlet—west end, east end. 

So, those are the main things that we would like to look at is, 

you know, operate additional days, upsize west end outlet, look at 

East Devils Lake. I mean, anything’s on the table. We’re looking 

at going to any river or any direction too, but that’s kind of what’s 

coming to the surface, for us, in our analysis. And then, relaxing 

the standards, on the Sheyenne River, so we can get more water 

out. 

The CHAIRMAN. We’ve, actually, also asked the Corps of Engineers to look at running a pipeline from Devils Lake to the oilfields, for providing water for fracking in the oilfields. And, you 

know, we’ve tried to take every idea that’s come to us and asked 

them to test it. 

We have also asked them to evaluate additional storage in the 

Upper Basin. The Governor is quite right, in the statistics that he’s 

provided, of the expansion of this lake alone, from 49,000 to 

180,000. That’s a substantial amount of storage. He’s also right, if 

you go north of the lake—we just flew over it a couple of months 

ago in a helicopter, there’s water everywhere. I mean, a lot of what 

was drained wetlands have been restored by Mother Nature. They 

are under water. We saw farmstead after farmstead after 

farmstead surrounded by water. And, you know, that’s water storage that’s occurring in the Upper Basin. 

Todd, go. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. And, just to conclude then, the Federal agencies—the areas that—the ones that we really need help with are 

EPA, you know, dealing with the water quality standards; FEMA, 

that would—you know, if we can really get some waivers and 

variances so we can get the structures. We did an inventory on 

structures and all, that got inundated and there’s 200 structures in 

the water, right now, that we need to deal with. And so, I mean, 

we—some better ways to get some of these structures out and get, 

you know, flood insurance programs, that type of thing, would be 

beneficial. State Department would be another big thing, with 

Boundary Waters Treaty, dealing with our neighbors and with 

Canada to the north. So— 

The CHAIRMAN. So— 

Mr. SANDO [continuing]. Hopefully our— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. We have 200 structures—now we’ve 

already moved some 600 structures out of harm’s way. But, there 

are 200 structures that have been engulfed in the flood waters 

there. Is that what— 

Mr. SANDO. 200 more since the spring of 2009, basically. 

The CHAIRMAN. 200 that have—not—that did not get moved. 

Now, part of this is, you know, we got waivers that allowed people 

to move their houses before they were inundated, but counties had 

to agree to a plan in order for that waiver to be enforced. Some decided they didn’t want to go that route, and so, as a result, they 

493 

don’t qualify to get paid for a move before they’re wet. So, that contributes to that issue. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, you can lead a horse to water and not 

necessarily—can’t make them drink. It’s too bad, because that program was working very well to get threatened structures moved, 

before they got wet. OK? 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Basically, that completes my testimony. It’s 

just—I mean, it’s—like you said, it’s not just a Devils Lake issue— 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. SANDO [continuing]. It’s a State of North Dakota issue. It’s 

one of our most critical issues for our entire State, so we’d like to, 

you know, do whatever we can to help alleviate the situation. So, 

thanks for your time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sando follows:] 


58154.253
494 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Thank you very much for your time. 


58154.254 58154.255
495 

We’ll go next to Mayor Cole, mayor of Lisbon, who has dealt with 

these flood issues. I just want to say, on a personal note, during 

the 2009 flood event, I was so impressed by Mayor Cole, and the 

way he hung in there and was looking out for people in this community night and day. And I really admire the leadership that you 

provided, Mayor. Thank you for being here. 

STATEMENT OF HON. ROSS COLE, MAYOR, CITY OF LISBON 

Mr. COLE. Thank you, Senator. And thank you for coming to Lisbon. We appreciate you guys being here, Governor, and you, to take 

your time to come to town and put on this hearing. We appreciate 

it very much. 

I just want to welcome you, and thank you for coming here 

today. I thank you for those comments, Senator, but I would have 

never been able to do it without the help of Morrie and my council 

members. That 2009 flood was not a one-person operation by a long 

shot. The Corps of Engineers were wonderful to work with, and it 

kind of went on from there. Just—it was a well oiled machine, basically. And, I don’t know if we’d have been here today without it. 

But, thank you everybody. And let that be to the record. 

I did a lot of—a little talking with the Senator today over lunch, 

and we had a good visit. Lisbon, I think, is in favor of a—definitely, 

we know there needs to be an outlet in—coming out of Devils Lake. 

We’ve talked about, we know we have our friends down the—up 

the river and down the river that use the Sheyenne for drinking. 

And so, the sulfate contents need to be a very major part of the 

scenario for the outlet. Whether—you know, so—because they need 

the water, and it just—you know, we got them in our prayers and 

on our mind all the time, too. So, it needs to be part of the scenario. We—— 

What needs to happen downstream for Lisbon? Well, we visited 

a little bit today, is that we have—had 18 homes in the FEMA 

buyout. So, did have a chance to buy one out in 2010 flood, and we 

got that out of the way so we could build the levee, thanks to 

Morrie. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. COLE. It was—we got in a little trouble over it, but we got 

through it. Anyways, we got one out of the way, and we have 17 

more homes in the FEMA buyout. 

I was visiting with Tracy Essinger, our engineer here, the other 

day a little bit, along with Mike Hollen and we were looking at the 

proposed levies that we would like to see built in Lisbon. And all 

17 homes are right in the middle of the levee. Well, you know, with 

FEMA—using FEMA dollars, you know, where does that put Lisbon? You know, and I hope we can work on some sort of a—some 

help, with FEMA, to try to let us—to maybe do some policy 

changes or something, that we can use FEMA dollars to buyout 

these homes. I don’t know how we can come up with dollars otherwise. I think we could probably work with the State Water Commission, maybe, and work with some other, you know, Lake—, but 

I think it’s getting to be time that—time is becoming a factor for 

us. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me stop you there and just say, would— 

you’re being very diplomatic about—if we use FEMA dollars to buy 

496 

out these 17 homes, FEMA policy then says we cannot build a new 

structure where those homes were taken from. And we understand 

that it doesn’t make any sense to build another house there, 

doesn’t make any sense to build another building there. But, their 

interpretation is that we can’t build a dike there. That doesn’t 

make any sense. We need to be able to build dikes where those 

homes are taken from, because those are the exact vulnerable 

spots, as we go down the river. And so, as we met, at noon today, 

we drafted a letter—rough-drafted a letter to FEMA asking them 

for a variance for Lisbon to, specifically, look at permitting, not another house, we understand that, that doesn’t make any sense; not 

a building, that wouldn’t make any sense; but to build a dike to 

continue the dike structure that comes into that area already. And 

that’s what the mayor is very diplomatically asking for here. And 

it’s an entirely reasonable request. 

Mr. COLE. Thank you. In 2000—and we talk about the 

waterflows. If something were to happen—in Lisbon, we are kind 

of—I was visiting a little bit with somebody from the—and I wish 

that I had gotten his name—but he was really good to work with, 

was a gentleman from the Corps—and we were talking about what 

would happen if there was a catastrophe, if Devils Lake is to overflow, things were to washout; if Tolna Coulee were to break loose, 

you know, there are, you know, probabilities, probably they aren’t 

that strong, but it could happen. And, in 2009 we had cfs running 

through Lisbon, at 10,000 cfs—is that correct Morrie? Isn’t that 

what we had? 

Mr. SAXERUD. Just under that. 

Mr. COLE. Just under 10,000. And talking to—and, I think, probably, in that time—that was probably over 7 days or longer, you 

know, give or take, not a lot. But, if something were to happen, 

they’d kind of—are looking that—they’re telling me that we could 

have between 12,000 and 14,000 cfs coming through Lisbon. And 

this is where the kicker is, we’re not talking 7 days anymore, we’re 

talking 30 to 60, you know. That’s a lot of water to try to keep out 

of the city for a long period of time. 

So, you know, it just—what doesn’t make sense to me, is another 

issue, and I hate to keep bringing up the FEMA word, but they’re 

talking to me now that—we do have some nice temporary levies up, 

in place. And they did a good job this last winter, we had time to 

get things done and they built well. Now they’re coming around 

and—we had a little visit the other day, and it sounds like they 

want us to take levies down that are—anything that’s in the 

floodway. Well, you know, that’s not all the levies in the city, but 

it’s portions that just—all it does is extend our time—readiness 

time to build, and we’d have to rebuild them. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just go to this point too, because, you 

know, I’ve spent—had many conversations with FEMA on this subject and their answer is, ‘‘Look, we’re not in the dike building business. The dikes that we build are temporary structures, and those 

dikes cannot be relied on to work long-term. They are short-term 

answers. And so, we don’t want to give a community a false sense 

of security by all of a sudden turning temporary structures into 

permanent flood works.’’ But, that’s really not what the Mayor is 

asking for here. We’re not asking to turn something that was put 

497 

up in an emergency into a permanent structure. We are asking to 

be able to retain these levies, to retain these dikes, for an indeterminate period because we’re in a wet cycle. Every bit of evidence 

we have tells us we’re in a wet cycle and that it is continuing, including the forecast for this next year. So, it doesn’t make any 

sense, to us, to take down these, even, temporary levies, which we 

might then, come spring, and in all probability will, have to turn 

around and put right back. That doesn’t make any sense from a 

Lisbon perspective, doesn’t make any sense from a North Dakota 

perspective, doesn’t make any sense from a Federal taxpayer perspective. So, that’s the second issue, here, that we’re dealing with. 

Mr. COLE. I kind of got lost here. But any—well, we are in the 

process—and thanks to the State Water Commission, and to the 

Governor, that we’ve do a feasibility study. We’re in the process of 

doing some core sampling, looking at the riverbanks to—and trying 

to lay out some—a permanent levee system that—maybe that we 

can afford to put up. And then it becomes an issue too, that I don’t 

know—I don’t think we’re looking at trying to put up a system 

that’s going to get us out of the floodplain, or out of the flood. You 

know, we’re—we’ve put up—we can put up with the flood insurances and the floodplain and whatnot, but we’re just asking for 

some protection. And I don’t think that I can put it any other way. 

And, I guess—and that’s the end of my presentation. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Cole follows:] 

498 


58154.414
499 


58154.415
500 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s very good. Appreciate your testimony and appreciate your hard work. Appreciate your leadership in dealing 

with these issues. 

Next, we’ll go to the mayor of Fort Ransom. And Fort Ransom 

has been right in the crosshairs too. And it was pretty intense 

there in 2009. Welcome, Mayor. Thank you so much for being here. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF MR. JAMES THERNES, MAYOR OF 

THE CITY OF RANSOM 

Mr. THERNES. Thank you. I want to thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today regarding the Devils Lake Flooding 

Disaster and the downstream impacts to the city of Fort Ransom 

and the surrounding area, how they can be addressed. 

I attended your Senate Budget Committee hearing on July 9th, 

and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer technical input session on 

July 19th. I have read numerous testimonies, letters, and various 

handouts, presented at the various hearings and the Corps of Engineer input session. There’s been an incredible amount of numbers, 

facts, figures, maps, photos presented at these meetings outlining 

the pros and cons of various ways to address the Devils Lake problem. 

After reviewing all that information, I’ve come to the conclusion 

that there are no simple solutions that will mitigate the devastating flooding of Devils Lake and have the approval of all of the 

affected communities, both upstream and downstream. I sympathize with you on that. 

It is quite apparent that the communities of Devils Lake are in 

need to have the lake’s water level lowered. To accomplish this, the 

Devils Lake communities have recommended discharging water, 

not only from the lake’s current west-end State outlet, but allowing 

discharges from the east end of the lake as well, to augment the 

west end discharges. Some downstream communities are opposing 

this idea, of the possible—because of the possible negative effects 

that higher sulfate levels will have on water quality and life in the 

river, and because of the effects the additional discharging, from 

the east end, will have on the river—riverbank erosion. 

The downstream community’s recommendations are to enhance 

the outlet at the west end of the lake, armoring of the Tolna Coulee, at the east end of lake, to prevent a natural uncontrolled release, and the utilization of Upper Basin wetlands for added retention. We concur with those recommendations. 

With regards to water quality, we feel that any improvement 

would be appreciated, even though we do not get our potable water 

from the Sheyenne River. Indeed, by the time the river water gets 

to our city it is so degraded and polluted with pesticides, herbicides, nitrates, phosphorus, and suspended silt, from farming runoff and riverbank erosion, that many of the local residents choose 

not to eat the fish they catch from it. Therefore we do not support—therefore we support any practical and beneficial measures 

that could be taken upstream to improve the river’s quality overall, 

and enhance its aquatic life. We, therefore, request the approval of 

the most cost-effective flood relief option that acknowledges downstream impacts and encompasses a way to move better quality 

501 

water out of the west end of the lake. This request is also supported by the North Dakota Department of Health. 

With regards to allowing additional discharges from the east end 

of the lake, we are uncomfortable with that idea, because the increased flows—with increased flows comes the serious problem of 

increased riverbank erosion. Even under low-flow conditions, we 

have experienced the loss of up to about 35 feet of rear yard, at 

9 homes, and at downstream portion of the city, because of the extensive riverbank erosion. 

With the collapse of the river’s embankments, there now is a 

danger that the residential septic tanks and, eventually, the homes 

themselves and the street they front on will soon collapse into the 

river. Further, there is a potential that access to a large portion of 

the city’s residential area, and the entire business district could be 

severed, if the river were to erode the bridge embankments—abutments at the Walter—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Hjelle. 

Mr. THERNES. —‘‘Gile’’—‘‘Jelle’’—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Hjelle. 

Mr. THERNES. —Hjelle Parkway Bridge, which is the main—— 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s those Scandinavian names. 

Mr. THERNES. Yeah. Gets me every time. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. THERNES [continuing]. Which is a year-round—you know, our 

main year-round route into the city. Additional water coming down 

from Devils Lake will expedite that—this erosion in our—of our 

riverbanks, and ultimately will have significant impact to our citizens and our economic stability. 

We are currently working with the Natural Resource Conservation Service on a stream bank restoration and stabilization project 

which will help protect our city. The NRCS goal was to implement 

and construct the project this year. Unfortunately the project is 

being delayed because of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer permit 

process, and we have been told that Federal funding for the project 

could be lost if the project is not moving forward. We respectfully 

request your support in this vital and important project, and ask 

that you take all steps necessary to ensure that we do not lose our 

funding while it is going through the lengthy U.S. Army Corps of 

Engineer permitting process. 

The city of Fort Ransom is not unique in its riverbank erosion 

problem. Erosion is occurring in all the communities and 

farmsteads along the entire length of the Sheyenne River. With our 

stream bank restoration and stabilization project in place, we believe we could temporarily accept controlled outflow rates of 250 to 

500 cubic feet per second, during times of nonflooding, in an effort 

to reduce the potential risk of a natural and uncontrolled release 

from the Tolna Coulee. However higher rates extend—over an extended period of time will, in all likelihood, cause damages to property and infrastructure in our city as well as along the entire 

length of the Sheyenne. Therefore we are—therefore we ask that 

you keep the potential problems that additional discharges and 

higher rates of outflow will create for the downstream’s communities in the forefront of any decisions made. 

502 

We, in Fort Ransom, foresee the solving of the Devils Lake flooding issue as not one step, but a two-step process. The first step is 

finding out what can be done immediately to keep the water level 

in the lake from rising any higher, thereby halting the increase in 

flooding to the lake’s communities, and lessening the chances of an 

uncontrolled release from the lake’s east end at Tolna Coulee. 

The second step, which could begin simultaneously with the first 

step, is to come up with and economically feasible and cost-effective 

long-term solution that would substantially lower the lake’s water 

level, and also control the water level in the future during high 

rainfall events and excessive seasonal wet spells. 

Completing steps—step two allows the Devils Lake communities 

to recover their loss of property and benefit economically. Up to 

this point, all we’ve—after this point in time, all we have heard is 

discussions on the pros and cons of the first step. We have not 

heard any mention of meaning—or meaningful discussions on longterm solutions, which would substantially lower the water level of 

the lake and then maintain it at a controlled level. It appears that 

we have locked into the idea that discharging the lake’s water into 

the Sheyenne will somehow solve both the immediate and the longterm problem; however, we know that that is not the case, because 

of the impacts downstream to the communities will endure with a 

long-term discharge. 

I’ve had a number of discussions with local residents, and asked 

them what they thought could possibly could be done with the longterm to solve the Devils Lake flooding issue. I’ve been pleasantly 

surprised at the number of possible ideas that have been expressed. I learned a long time ago, that non-experts can sometimes 

come up with ideas that are outside of the box, and lead to a real 

solution of the problem. A few of the possible long-term solutions 

that residents presented are listed below. 

Possible solution No. 1: Why can’t the existing McClusky Canal 

system be reengineered and constructed to take water from the 

Devils Lake to the Missouri River? In 1996, proposals called for 

$800 million worth of water projects related to the canal system, 

including stabilization of Devils Lake. They ask, Whatever happened with these projects? 

Possible solution No. 2—which you just alluded to—Why not 

build a pipeline to carry water from Devils Lake to the western 

North Dakota oilfields to use in filling wells after the oil has been 

extracted. Currently the oil companies are trucking water to the oil 

wells at a great expense. Given the opportunity, they possibly could 

cost-share, or would cost-share, with Federal and State governments in the development of such a pipeline. 

Possible scenario No. 3—or, solution No. 3: Why not build an 

earthen dam and create a retention basin downstream from the 

Tolna Coulee? This would provide additional protection for the 

downstream communities, should the Tolna Coulee fail. 

Possible solution No. 4: Why not build a canal or pipeline system 

to carry water from the Devils Lake directly to the Red River, 

above Fargo? Considering the billions of dollars that it will cost in 

damage—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just interrupt you there and say—— 

Mr. THERNES. Sure. 

503 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Every one of those proposals has 

been considered—— 

Mr. THERNES. Has it? 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Is being studied. So, I know that it’s 

not necessarily in the public—it doesn’t get public attention. I have 

spent hours and hours and hours, as Joe Belford has, in meetings, 

in which every one of those has been discussed, evaluated, cost estimates made. And what you find, and I—without going through 

the detail of each one, is you’re dealing with two big problems. 

Cost: the cost of many of these options are in the billions of dollars. 

Billions. No. 2—and all of this has to have a State and local share, 

so it’s not just going to Washington and ask them for Federal 

money, we got to come up with a State and local share as well. So, 

many of these things become cost prohibitive. 

Second major issue is the original plan to hook up the McClusky 

Canal, bring water into Devils Lake from the Missouri. When we 

passed the Dakota Water Resources Act, which provided $400 million of authority to North Dakota for municipal and residential 

projects in North Dakota—for example southwest pipeline, northwest pipeline, other water projects across North Dakota, funding 

for the tribe’s water improvement projects—$200 million authorized to move water from the western part of our State to the eastern part of the State. It was specifically precluded—specifically precluded—to connect up the McClusky Canal and Devils Lake. So, 

you know? 

Mr. THERNES. Uh-huh. 

The CHAIRMAN. These are good thoughts and it’s not as though 

people haven’t thought about every kind of option imaginable. It’s 

just, when you start pulling the thread on these things and you 

bring back the curtain, what you find is often not something that 

looks as attractive as it does at first blush. 

Mr. THERNES. Well, I think, you know, that the residents are, 

you know, of my city at least, it would—hearing this, would be 

happy. I mean, everybody’s been saying, ‘‘Well, what—why haven’t 

we heard anything about these kinds of projects?’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. The oil thing is still under review. The movement of water—I can tell you, their initial impression is, again, 

cost prohibitive, but still being analyzed, and they’ve not done a 

final analysis. So, you know, there’s still—— 

Mr. THERNES. Could the oil companies contribute to a cost-share 

with this? 

The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely. And, I mean, that’s—— 

Mr. THERNES. I mean, it’s costing them big bucks, right now, 

to—— 

The CHAIRMAN. It’s costing them a lot of money—— 

Mr. THERNES [continuing]. Truck it in. 

The CHAIRMAN. —1,000 truckloads, on average, to a well—1,000 

truckloads. 

Mr. THERNES. How many miles do they have to go, I wonder, too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. Well, they’re—you know, it depends, of 

course, on the location of the well, and where the water site is, but 

we’re talking about huge issues, as the Governor well knows. Yeah. 

Mr. THERNES. OK. And then, I guess in summary we respectfully 

request that you ensure that any approval of a flood-relief option 

504 

acknowledges downstream impacts and includes a way to discharge 

better quality water out of the lake; take all necessary steps to ensure that the city of Fort Ransom does not lose its funding while 

going through the Army Corps of Engineers permitting process for 

its stream bank restoration and stabilization project; keep the potential problem of the additional discharge and the higher rates of 

outfall from the east end of the lake—that the outfall east end of 

the lake will create for the downstream communities at the forefront of any decisions made; and ensure that all possible ideas and 

alternatives are studied and investigated before arriving at a solution addressing the Devils Lake flooding disaster. 

Thank you for the work that you have done for us, in trying to 

solve the Devils Lake issue. We appreciate your understanding of 

the challenges which are still ahead of us. And we hope all communities can work together to bring about comprehensive, cost effective, and economically feasible projects. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Thernes follows:] 

505 


58154.416
506 


58154.417
507 


58154.418
508 


58154.419
509 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much for your testimony. I 

would say, I’ve always thought Fort Ransom was one of the jewels 

of our State. As just a—I love going to Fort Ransom, a spectacular 

spot. 

We’ll go to the next panel now. 

Thank you. Thanks to each of the—— 

Mr. THERNES. You’re welcome. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Witnesses. We appreciate very 

much. 

Our next panel is Neil Olerud, Teresa Rotenberger, and former 

Lisbon Mayor Morrie Saxerud. Neil Olerud is chairman of the Ransom County Commission. Teresa Rotenberger, emergency manager 

for Ransom County. And, of course, we all know, Morrie Saxerud 

is the former mayor here. 

Welcome.ahead and we’ll just go right down the panel. And then, 

we’ll have a chance for questions, and then any additional observations the Governor would have, before we reach conclusion. 

Mr. OLERUD. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. NEIL OLERUD, CHAIRMAN, RANSOM 

COUNTY COMMISSION 

Mr. OLERUD. Thank you. I guess I’m not very prepared. I don’t 

have notes or anything. I left that up to Teresa. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s fine. 

Mr. OLERUD. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Just give us your observations. 

Mr. OLERUD. She’s prepared. 

The CHAIRMAN. What—— 

Mr. OLERUD. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. What do you think? 

Mr. OLERUD. We kind of talked about, at our meeting this morning, thinking—we would like to see another outlet for the water, 

rather than the Sheyenne itself. You know, divvy it up, put some 

in the James River, McClusky Canal. Another thing we discussed 

is putting up a permanent dam in the Tolna Coulee area, something more stable. It’s a very unstable outlet right now, full of 

sand, and it starts to go, I’m afraid we’re in big trouble. And, I 

guess another thing we had talked about is looking, in the future 

for water, when things start drying up. And that cycle will happen. 

So, that’s just some of the studies that we would like to see implemented and some money put in. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Let me just say, if I can, that, when Dakota 

Water Resources Act was approved, which provides $400 million of 

authority to North Dakota for water projects, much of these—many 

of these alternatives were evaluated at the time. Because, remember the old plan was for the McClusky Canal to carry water to Devils Lake, and then we would continue to move water over into eastern North Dakota, through a series of canals—open-air canals. 

As part of the Dakota Water Resources Act, 200 million was reserved—we were given authority for 200 million—to move water 

from western North Dakota to eastern North Dakota. And, one of 

the options still is to connect up the McClusky works with a conVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00515 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
510 

veyance system to get water to eastern North Dakota, because we 

know, at some time in the future, that’s going to be needed, just 

as you say. This wet cycle’s not going to last forever. And, for North 

Dakota’s economic development—long-term economic development 

potential, we need to move water from the western part of the 

State to the eastern. 

But, we could not get agreement to pass the Dakota Water Resources Act if the water was going to have an inlet to Devils Lake. 

We couldn’t get an outlet approved if there was going to be an 

inlet. And this has to do with the politics of the downstream States, 

especially the State of Missouri, who thinks they have a special interest in this matter. If you study a map, it’s a little hard to understand how they have anything of interest to do with what happens 

to Devils Lake water, because Devils Lake water never goes to the 

State of Missouri. But, at least some people in Missouri, apparently, have a hard time understanding that, and think that somehow if we have water coming out of Devils Lake, that’s somehow 

going to affect them. Doesn’t have anything to do with them, as 

anybody who knows North Dakota geography understands. So, 

that’s part of the issue. So, we lost the ability to have water go into 

Devils Lake, in order to preserve the ability to get water moved to 

eastern North Dakota, and to have the possibility of an outlet. Because, at that time, the No. 1 priority was, clearly, not getting 

more water into Devils Lake, it was to get water out of Devils 

Lake. 

So, it’s very important. And this was a decision, not just of Senator Dorgan, myself, Congressman Pomeroy, but our Governor, at 

the time, Governor Schafer, and State leadership, the leaders of the 

legislature. Everybody was in on this decision, because we felt it 

was so important to get the Dakota Water Resources Act approved, 

because of the resources it made available to North Dakota for 

water development. So, that’s the circumstance that we face with 

the question of the McClusky Canal. 

Mr. OLERUD. OK. I guess that has—all I’ve got to say. 

The CHAIRMAN. Alright. 

Teresa, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF TERESA ROTENBERGER, EMERGENCY 

MANAGER, RANSOM COUNTY 

Ms. ROTENBERGER. Thank you. First of all, Senator Conrad and 

Governor Hoeven, thank you for coming to Ransom County to listen to our concerns. With the continuous wet-weather conditions 

that have impacted our county and the Devils Lake Basin, and the 

word ‘‘flooding’’ being spoken daily, the people are still recovering 

from the record flooding of 2009 and 2010, and they’re calling my 

office asking for answers for their concerns over the abundance of 

water in Devils Lake. 

And, as I said before, I appreciate you coming to Ransom County 

so that I can express some of their concerns. 

I’ve been the emergency manager for 10 years. I’ve worked with 

disaster planning and recovery. One of our—one of the requirements, as an emergency manager, is to work on the multi-hazard 

mitigation plan. And, with that, you cover all of the natural and 

manmade hazards that can happen in the county. You—we have to 

511 

document where each hazard—you know, what each hazard is, 

where it can occur, and how you’re going to mitigate the damages 

for improving the response. It’s kind of like trying to look into a 

crystal ball and figure out what could happen. 

As I listen to the news headlines continuing to address the rising 

waters in Devils Lake and into the Sheyenne River, I—it’s time to 

ask for help and guidance in planning for the possibility of an outflow. I mean, I really hope that all the control things can work that 

we’re trying for. But, just in case, it’s my job, as an emergency 

manager, is to be—is to plan and prepare. And, I guess, throughout 

my documentation, and I won’t read all of it, that is my main goal. 

Is, just, I need—we need more information. 

If an outbreak would occur it would affect, not just Ransom 

County, the 111 miles, within Ransom County, which would split 

our county in half, Barnes County, you know, and all along the 

river. Resources and assets, to come to a response for that, need 

to be coordinated. It goes far beyond what we, locally, have and we 

need to do our planning together with State and Federal agencies 

to know how we could react. 

So, you know, if it—we need to know so many different things, 

that—you know, we talked about the cfs; how high would dikes 

have to be. We talked a little bit about duration; just more information—we need more technical guidance and we need some funding 

to help with planning. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. You make very good points. 

I think, you know, we have what’s been called the ‘‘Tiger Report,’’ 

that the Corps of Engineers Produced, in an earlier evaluation. 

Very controversial, I must say, that report. But, it paints a scenario—if there was an uncontrolled release, out of the east end, 

and if there were erosion down to 1450—that is, if you had a blowout occur there—it’s really very serious. We’ve had a description 

here of what would happen at Valley City. And we would be 5 feet 

above, not flood stage, but 5 feet above the flood that occurred in 

2009. That’s a worst case scenario. And it would continue for a prolonged period. That’s the—you know, not only is it a very high wall 

of water coming at us, but it goes on for an extended period of 

time. That, obviously, would affect this community dramatically, as 

well. 

Now, what’s the probability of something like that occurring? I 

think, all the scientific assessment that has been made and provided to us, is that that has a very low level of probability. Right 

now, the lake is at roughly 1452, just under that, isn’t it Joe? 

Mr. BELFORD. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. 1451.9? Something like that? 

Mr. BELFORD. 51.7—— 

The CHAIRMAN. 51.779, I think I was told last. So, you can see, 

at that level, you know, you wouldn’t have much coming our way. 

It’s when you get up to 1458—— 

Ms. ROTENBERGER. Fifty-eight. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Where you have the natural outflow 

that you’d have the pressure build in a way that the danger of an 

uncontrolled release rises. Nobody knows for certain. They say the 

State Water Commission and Governor may want to comment on 

this, after we go to our next witness, that they are doing sampling. 

512 

They have tests being done constantly to monitor that, to make 

sure that we’re not in danger of an immediate blowout. 

Ms. ROTENBERGER. And, I guess, visiting with General 

Sprynczynatyk, it was after the flood in 2009, we’re down in the 

park in Lisbon, and he talked about, in past history, that Devils 

Lake has overflowed six times. And I’m hoping it’s far out of our— 

you know, my—our lifetime, but it can happen. It’s just—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Ms. ROTENBERGER [continuing]. It is good to—— 

The CHAIRMAN. No. I—— 

Ms. ROTENBERGER [continuing]. Be prepared. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Tell you, well, you know, we know, 

in 4,000 years of history, the scientists tell us at least twice, maybe 

more, but at least twice, it’s gone over. So, I mean, I tell you, we’ve 

dealt with Federal officials all these years, who want to believe it’s 

not going to happen. That this lake is going to quit rising. Well, 

you know, it hasn’t happened. It does keep rising. And so, you are 

absolutely right, and, I think, all the rest of us are right, to try to 

come up with options to pursue to reduce the risk—none of us can 

eliminate the risk, we’re not God. We don’t—we’re—you know, 

Mother Nature, far more powerful than anything we’ve got to put 

on this. So, I think, that, you know, a certain amount humility is 

required here too. But, we can do things to reduce the risk—reduce 

the risk—and that’s what this effort is focused on. 

The CHAIRMAN. Morrie? Mr. Saxerud, former Mayor, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MORRIE SAXERUD, FORMER MAYOR, 

CITY OF LISBON 

Mr. SAXERUD. Thank you, Senator Conrad and Governor Hoeven, 

for coming to Lisbon. 

My personal opinion is, that the State and the Federal response 

should be one of two things: either we should start immediately to 

discharge enough water from Devils Lake Basin to ensure there 

will not be an uncontrolled spill, or start now, to protect the downstream cities with adequate levies to sustain the predicted uncontrolled flow of a period of time—for the period of time it will be 

spilling, which, from what I read in the newspapers, could be up 

to 90 days. And I don’t know of too many earthen dikes that’ll take 

that without a contractor sitting right on top of them, taking care 

of the breaches in them. 

Attached is an email and charts showing the flow information 

and the flow charts from Mark Coring, PE, MBP emergency manager with the Army Corps of Engineers. He sent me this information in response to my questioning—asking, What would be needed 

for a levee that would handle 12,000 cfs? The lines on this—the 

black line on the chart shows the proposed dike for the 2010 flood 

event. It was at 27.5 feet and provides 2 feet of freeboard, at a 

9,000 cfs flow. There were some levees put in at this height, in 

2010, but the height of the dikes were stepped down as the forecast 

changed and went down. 

The 12,000 cfs event, a figure picked out of the newspaper, that 

would require a dike of 30.5 feet, where the levee system starts and 

the rivers enters the city of Lisbon, at Oak Ridge Drive. Oak Ridge 

Drive is used as a reference line only, to align with the levee that 

513 

is below the hill in the park. It does not mean we would need a 

levee at the top of the hill on Oak Ridge Drive. 

The step-down reflects the drop in elevation, as the river flows 

through the city, and also reflects a lower dike requirement, as the 

city clears the bridges and moves faster as it exits the city. 

My understanding is, there is talk of removing the levees again. 

We know there is concern, by FEMA, that too much confidence is 

put into the nonpermanent dikes that are not build to spec, and 

they could fail. This is a legitimate concern. But, until permanent 

levees are built, a nonpermanent levee system, built under controlled conditions, not on frost, snow, or water lapping at the top, 

would have a better—would be better than a hastily built dike in 

response to a spill out of Devils Lake. 

There are people that are thinking of selling their homes and 

leaving the city to protect their investment. The city needs to quell 

these—those fears by putting an emergency plan in place that addresses the spill. The cities along the Sheyenne River need an affirmative action from the State of North Dakota and the Federal 

Government to remove the ‘‘uncontrolled’’ from the uncontrolled 

spill. I believe a control structure on Stump Lake is the most logical. And the sooner it is put in place, the lower the discharge requirement. If the level of Devils Lake cannot be lowered to prevent 

an uncontrolled spill, then permanent levees need to be put in 

place. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Saxerud follows:] 

514 


58154.420
515 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Very good testimony and very clear, we appreciate that. 

Governor, you’ve been very patient. I’d like to turn to you, for 

any additional observations that you’d have, at this point. 

Governor Hoeven: Thanks, Senator, a couple of comments. 

One, I want to echo, what Senator Conrad said, and that is, you 

know, we’re looking at all options. But just, again, some of the realities. For example, taking the water out to the oilfields or even 

moving water from Devils Lake to the Missouri River, in addition 

to the Dakota Water Resources Act, which you mentioned. 

Lake elevation, on Devils Lake, is about 1452 feet, roughly—a 

little bit under. We’re working to get that down some more. Lake 

elevation at Sakakawea, now, is about 1840. So, if you do the math, 

that’s 400 feet higher. So, No. 1, every single gallon you’d have to 

pump 400 feet higher, uphill. OK? 400 feet. In addition, you’ve got 

to move it several hundred miles, or 150 miles. OK? Every single 

gallon. So, you can imagine the cost. And, if you’re going to get it 

out to the oilfields, now you’ve got to move it another hundred 

miles. OK? So, understand, when you talk about these different options, the incredible costs that you get into. And, sometimes somebody will say, ‘‘Well, yeah, but, you know, I know of a project, in 

another place, where they’re doing something.’’ In some cases that’s 

true, and in some cases they have millions of people that are sharing the cost of that project. 

For example, if we were to try to desalinate the water on the 

east end, and then use a gravity flow, which Todd talked about a 

little bit—we’ve looked at that extensively—but you’re talking 

about building a water treatment plant, probably bigger than is 

used for a city the size of Tampa, Florida or San Diego. And then, 

trying to desalinate the water, so you’re talking, you know, hundreds of millions—or, as Senator Conrad said, you know, potentially billions of dollars, in essence, then, to put water back in the 

river that has almost the same sulfate content as the water you 

took out. For example, right now, the water out of the west side 

of Devils Lake is 5-—it’s coming down—it’s down to 550 parts per 

million, in sulfates. 550 parts per million, OK? And that’s down 

from what it was when we were pumping earlier. 

So, when we talk about the difference between 450 parts per million, or maybe 750 parts per million, remember you’re talking the 

difference between 450 or 750 parts per million. So, go start stacking—you know, maybe stack a few pennies here, and then stack 

millions over here, and you realize you’re talking relatively small 

differences, but phenomenally huge costs to try to completely 

desalinate it, if you’re talking about the volumes of water we’re 

talking about. So, at moving 250 cubic feet a second—and if you 

don’t think that’s a lot of water, go take a look. It’s a lot of water. 

This is a big, big lake. But, that’s why we’re bringing funds to Valley City; it looks like we’ll probably end up bringing funds to Fargo 

and to West Fargo, to treat the water there, to take the sulfates 

down to some very low level. 

Now, the EPA doesn’t have a standard that you’re required to 

treat it, but for taste and aesthetics we—you know, we’re coming 

to the communities and saying, we’ll work with you to do that. It’s 

important we keep that moving fast, because we need to move 

516 

water out, OK? But those are just some of the economic cost, and 

practical, realities to these different options. 

And so, again, that’s just to piggyback on something the senator 

went through very well. But, people do have questions about these 

things, and we want to make sure that we’re communicating on 

these things. The Corps of Engineers is going through all of these 

options. I mean, they’ve—I think, they’ve got more than 20 options 

that they’re going to look at. But, we’ve been working on this for 

while, and we have a lot of engineers that have been working on 

this for a long time. So, those are the practical realities that we absolutely have to deal with. 

As far as the Tolna Coulee, we do have monitoring wells there. 

And, if you have questions—to monitor that, to make sure we’re 

watching it, so that we don’t have a uncontrolled flow, and that 

we’re—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So we’re not surprised. 

Governor Hoeven: Yeah. So, we have a early warning system. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Governor Hoeven: So we’re not surprised. And so, they have 

monitoring wells. Todd can talk about that some more, if you want. 

Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t plan, of course. We need to continue our 

planning efforts. 

And, Teresa, you’re great at that. You know, we’ve been through 

a lot of flooding, and your work is wonderful and much appreciated. 

So, that’s absolutely appropriate, but we do have monitoring 

wells up there. 

But, the other thing is, what we’re looking for, from the task 

force, in addition to going through these options, is we need to 

move more water out. And so, they’re going through the options on 

the west side and the east side. We need to do it in a way where 

we manage the sulfate levels, as we’ve gone through here at great 

length, and we will do. We also need their help on a control structure on the east side, so that you would protect an uncontrolled 

flow, OK? 

And we want FEMA’s help, as we’ve talked about, with how we 

protect downstream on the flooding, as Morrie’s talking about. 

Again, you know, take out homes under the hazard mitigation program, and then to not being able to put in—a dike in there makes 

no sense in communities like Lisbon. We need help to get these approvals, whether it’s the Corps, the EPA, or the FEMA, this task 

force needs to give us some of these authorities so we can do these 

things that make sense. And that’s what we’re looking for, on September 7, and, you know, that’s why your input is extremely important, but that’s why it’s so important to communicate with everybody upstream, in Devils Lake, and downstream, that this is a 

shared task. That means we all have to give a little to make it 

work, but that we can make it work. And that’s, of course, what 

we’re shooting for. 

So, those were the main comments I had. And, again, I want to 

echo, Senator, I know you’re appreciation, not only to the panelists, 

but to everyone else that’s come, and for all the hard work and the 

consideration that you’re putting into this effort as well. 

The CHAIRMAN. I—Frank, thank you, Governor, again, for those 

comments. 

517 

And, I think for the purposes of the record, it would be important 

that we ask Todd to come back to the stand. Maybe he could just 

use the microphone there at the Governor. If you’d just draw a 

chair up, Todd. If you could tell us, for the record, about the monitoring wells that are in place, so that we get an early warning system that would let us know if there is water filtration through the 

Tolna Coulee. 

Mr. COLE. Can I ask one question Mr. Senator? 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me—Ross, if I can, let me go to him, for the 

purpose of the record, then we will—— 

Mr. SANDO. OK. For the record, we do have observation wells in 

Tolna Coulee, right where it would flow out from Stump Lake. And, 

right now, the wells—we’re—what we’re looking for is to see if 

there’s a gradient forming, so to see if water starts migrating 

through the Tolna Coulee. And the big concern is, like you said, if 

we have blowout at a lower elevation, it’s not necessarily that water’s going to start flowing when it gets up to 1458, it could start 

migrating underground. So we have wells—a whole network of observation wells in place—to watch the water level underground to 

see if there is a gradient forming. And to see if there is, actually, 

Devils—you know, Stump Lake water moving through Tolna Coulee. 

The CHAIRMAN. And isn’t it the case that, at this moment, that 

we see no water migration? 

Mr. SANDO. At this—at the—currently, there is no migration of 

water from Stump Lake into Tolna Coulee. It’s just all ground 

water from the area that’s in the observation wells. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. OK. 

Mayor? 

Mr. COLE. My question is, you know, we talked about this September 7th deadline for some answers, is that something we can 

count on? I mean, one of these days FEMA’s going to come to us 

and—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. COLE [continuing]. They’re going to be ready to buy out these 

homes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Here is the best way I can put it to you. The actual deadline is September 9th. That is 60 days after the commitment was made. We—the community asked for decisions to be 

made within a timeframe. I think, they’d asked for 30 days. They 

said they couldn’t do it within 30. They actually asked 90. We negotiated. They agreed to produce the options in 60 days. That deadline is September 9th. They have moved that up a bit and said that 

their intention is they’re on track to produce a report by September 

7th. 

Let me indicate that we have been working on a meeting, in 

Washington, with the working group, by the State officials and the 

local officials that have responsibilities for these areas. We have 

been trying to get everybody’s schedule together. It’s a bit of a challenge. And, the best date we could come up with, to get everybody’s 

schedule together, was September 3rd. They have told us, ‘‘Look, 

if the meeting is September 3rd, that might push the September 

7th report, for the September 9th deadline, several weeks later.’’ 

So, we have had to consult everybody and say, ‘‘Look, is—would we 

518 

rather have a conference call, as a way of giving, you know, additional input; or do we think it’s so important to have a face-to-face 

meeting, that we would potentially delay the report for several 

weeks?’’ The overwhelming feedback we’ve gotten is people think it 

is far more important to have face-to-face meeting, on these very 

difficult issues, even if it means a several-week delay. 

So, that’s where we are. They have said to us, all along, they are 

committed to the September 9th deadline, but, look, we’ve made requests. We’ve made requests that they come out here, which they 

have answered. As you know, they’ve had teams out here, in the 

communities, upstream and downstream. And, we have made requests that we have an additional chance for the Devils Lake leadership, for the State leadership, for this community’s leadership, to 

come to Washington and get an initial review of what their options 

are, and what their preferred option might be, before they finalize 

it. So, I just want to be very, very clear that that may mean this 

date slips a little bit. But, certainly in September. 

I think it is—let me just say, by way of conclusion, my own view 

of all this, after all of these hearings, after all these meetings, 17 

years of paying attention to these issues, we are all in this together. This is not Devils Lake Basin versus downstream. The risk 

to all of us—all of us—is an unacceptable risk. None of us could 

live with a prospect of having 10- to 12,000 cfs for 30 days, going 

through these communities. None of us can afford the risk of a 

water quality, out of the east end, undiluted, five times worse than 

the water quality of the west end. 

I mean, I know that they don’t say there’s a specific level of 

health risk that’s been established for sulfates, but I tell you, as 

I’ve examined what happens—hey, when it gets to a certain level, 

and peoples systems aren’t used to it, they get diarrhea, that’s 

what happens. And, you know, this is not something that we can 

take lightly. You’ve got people getting dehydrated; you got people 

getting sick at these high levels of concentration. So, this is serious 

business. 

And, can you imagine, I mean, Valley City cannot handle a flood 

stage 5 feet above 2009 for an extended period of time, nor can Fort 

Ransom, nor can Lisbon. We’d have to be—we’d be talking about 

potential evacuation of these towns, and maybe for an extended period of time. So, you know, we don’t take this lightly. This is serious business. And, all of you take it seriously because you’ve been 

on the front-end of the fight. And you know how painful it has been 

to win these flood fights. Can you imagine what would happen if 

we would lose? I’ve been through that before, in Grand Forks, 

North Dakota, in 1997, where we lost a flood fight. And it was a 

disaster. People’s lives were sometimes altered irrevocably. 

So, we’ve got a heavy responsibility here—a very heavy responsibility. And we’ve got an obligation to look at all options and to use 

our level best judgment on what has the best prospect of working 

for everybody, downstream, upstream, and in between. And, that’s 

why we’re doing these hearings, that’s why we’re doing these listening sessions, that’s why we have tasked the Corps with examining all options. And we told them, ‘‘We don’t want just to revisit, 

we don’t want you to go out and dust off the old studies. That’s not 

good enough. We need you to think outside the box. To look at 

519 

every kind of option.’’ And that’s what’s going to presented to us, 

now, in September. 

With that, I want to give a chance for people, who are here, to— 

because this is a hearing, we have a format that is approved and 

accepted, which is, we can take statements. If somebody has a written statement, we’re happy to include that in the record. If somebody would just like to stand and be recognized, and give their 

point of view, for the record, we’re happy to do that. 

Yes, sir. And if you’d—— 

Voice: Thank you, Senator. I’m—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you’d just stand and give your name—— 

Voice: OK. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. And the community that you’re 

from. 

Voice:—I’m a commissioner here in Ransom County. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Voice: I appreciate you guys being here—I really appreciate you 

guys being here, and we have gone through Valley City and Lisbon 

and Fort Ransom. 

The CHAIRMAN. You can—— 

Voice: And I would like—I think, maybe something that should 

be studied as well—and you Governor too—what the economic impact a breakout would have on all the bridges up and down the 

Sheyenne Valley. Another 5 feet and I don’t think we’d have many 

bridges left in the Sheyenne Valley. Not to mention the rural— 

farms and ranches, up and down that Sheyenne Valley. Now, if 

that can be considered—I hope it is considered, as well, when we’re 

trying to make a decision, ‘‘Is it worth it to do this or that’’—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Voice:—‘‘or the other thing.’’ 

The CHAIRMAN. It absolutely is. In the—— 

Voice: Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re very good to raise the point, because it’s 

a very important point. It’s one that the Corps has assured us is 

part of the calculation. We have asked them to examine all impacts—all economic impacts of the various scenarios that we could 

confront. And so, when we talk about ‘‘all impacts,’’ we’re talking 

to landowners; we’re talking farmers, ranchers, communities, counties, State; we’re talking private sector; we’re talking a comprehensive look. Now, this is not easy to do. You know, I must say, it’s 

easy to say. It’s very hard to do and do it with credibility. But, 

that’s the task they’ve been given. 

Yes, sir. 

If you’d stand—anybody, that wants to give additional testimony, 

if you’d stand, give your name and your location, where you’re 

from. 

Mr. SCHULTZ. Yes, my name is Virgil Schultz, and I live along 

the Sheyenne River. 

I think you do have one option that—you talk about how critical 

this situation is, and that would be to pull the plug on the Baldhill 

Dam and use that a retention area. You know, it would—— 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

520 

Mr. SCHULTZ [continuing]. It would basically save us—I mean, 

we lose the fish, but it is an option that you have. Lowering 

the—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You know—— 

Mr. SCHULTZ [continuing]. Instead of having it 80 percent recreation and 20 percent flood control—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. SCHULTZ [continuing]. Put it 100 percent until the crisis 

passes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Flood control. 

Mr. SCHULTZ. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, it’s a thought that—former Governor 

called me one night at home. And he said, ‘‘You know, Kent, during 

my administration we were dealing with a number of flood threats, 

and we started examining natural retention areas that could be enhanced to deal with water.’’ And to, you know? I mean, we’ve examined every option. So, we went to the Corps, we asked him to talk 

to the Corps about areas that they had examined, that would be 

natural areas for potential retention, that could be enhanced to 

help reduce what had to be done, in terms of releases—what had 

to be done. And they have promised us that that’s part of their assessment. 

Governor Hoeven: We added 4 feet—is it 4 feet to Baldhill Dam? 

Voice: Five. 

Voice: Five foot. 

Governor Hoeven: Five foot. 

Voice: Five. 

Governor Hoeven: You can imagine what the 2009 flood would 

have been like without that extra 5 foot on the dam. So, we have 

already added to it. 

Mr. SCHULTZ. Why not use it for a retention—drain it and use 

it for a retention—— 

Voice: 70,000 acre-feet—I mean, you’d have to expand it significantly. I don’t know if you could expand it enough. Todd, do you 

know? Could you expand it enough, really, to—you’re talking about 

so much water, you couldn’t hold it—enough water, but—— 

Mr. SANDO. 70,000 acre-feet, that’s how much is in Ashtabula, 

and that’s only 5 inches off of Devils Lake. 

Voice: Yeah. I mean, it’s a matter of scale, I think, is the challenge. But, again, something that’s being looked at, but matter of 

scale, I think, is the issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. And not only there, but other retention areas as 

well. Because, you know, you do the math on these things, it seems 

like such an amazing amount of water, doesn’t it? 70,000 acre-feet. 

But, then when you translate it into what’s happening in Devils 

Lake, that is less than one-eighth of the inflow—one-eighth of the 

inflow in 2009, 590,000 acre-feet inflow. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. JONES. Senator—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If you’d give your name and—— 

Mr. JONES. Wayne Jones, Ransom County Commissioner. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. JONES. Going way outside the box, we pump water up from 

wells, we pump it down, after we take the heat out of it. What 

521 

about—what do we have underground, for underground rivers, et 

cetera for putting some of this water down? Has that been—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. JONES [continuing]. Thought of? 

The CHAIRMAN. Aquifers. Recharging aquifers. It’s an issue that 

is being looked at. As you know, in West Fargo, they draw their 

water from aquifers, those aquifers are being depleted. There are 

lots of complicated issues. I’m not a water engineer, but one thing 

I’ve learned a lot about, as I listen to a lot of water engineers, and 

when you start recharging aquifers, that’s got a series of issues attached to it as well. But, that is also being looked at. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. CROWLEY. John Crowley, Barnes County commissioner. This 

morning, at our meeting, we passed a resolution to request that the 

Army Corps of Engineers, State Water Commission immediately 

start to armor the Tolna Coulee. Now, you have mentioned, everybody talks about blowout. If it’s armored, there is no blowout, period. So, that is the first thing that needs to be done. And, I guess, 

I was the one that suggested pumping water all winter, and I’ll 

still stand by that, but I’m not talking about a pumping outlet, I’m 

talking about a gated outlet, with a channel that’s cut to the 

Sheyenne River, that would be capable of handling 1,000 cfs, so you 

could really lower the lake. 

Now, it was discussed that the water quality is poorer in the 

wintertime. But, if you’re going to blend it from the west end and 

East Bay, you’ve got the same number. So, you might as well pump 

it during the winter and get rid of it. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I think, John, that, frankly, this is 

something that is being examined. Because, if we could operate an 

outlet more than 7 months a year, that would help. We do get into 

this question of water quality, that the State engineer mentioned. 

But—we got water quality issues no matter what we do. But, obviously, they’re much less severe out of the west side than the east. 

Yes, sir. 

Mr. BEDDING. I’m Dick Bedding. I live south of Valley City, and 

I represent People to Save the Sheyenne. 

You’ve mentioned it, but it gets short shrift, and that would be 

retention. So, Upper Basin retention of water, restoration of Upper 

Basin drained wetlands is where we’d like to start. I agree with 

John about, armor the Coulee first, then deal with how to keep 

water out of Devils Lake, getting there in the first place. 

Several of our—I’ve flown up above the basin several times. Several of our members flew, July 4th. There goes my notes. We have 

pictures that we took, like it is, we have 99 pictures showing that 

the—a lot of the land in the Upper Basin is free of wetlands, free 

of water. You can see the drains going down into the Coulees. And 

so, there are several hundred thousand acres there. I agree it’s a 

terribly difficult job to get farmers, now, who are farming that 

land, to agree to revert to wetlands, but if we could do that, I really 

think that would be a good way to go. 

The CHAIRMAN. If you’d like to present those, we’d be happy to 

make them part of the record, Richard. 

Mr. BEDDING. Sure will. 

522 

The CHAIRMAN. I think it’d be good for the record, if we’d have 

them. Yeah. 

Mr. BEDDING. OK. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say, on this issue, you know, I’ve 

flown over that area repeatedly. I’ve seen—you know, I think 

you’ve—you probably saw, yourself, as you flew over, I mean, there 

is water everywhere. Are there places that are drains, in effect? 

Yes, there are. Could that help, if people would agree to reverse 

their drains? Yes, it would. Here’s the—we face a legal problem, 

that we cannot compel people to store water on their land. You 

know, our North Dakota supreme court has ruled on that issue. 

And so, there is nothing we can do to compel people to store. 

We did spend a fair amount of money, in the first phases of this 

effort, to use Federal resources to build additional storage, in the 

Upper Basin. I can tell you, those places not only have stored tens 

of thousands acres-feet of water, but all of the areas around them 

have filled up with water. But, it is true that there are drains that 

are in place, and there are places that are dry, because of those 

drains. And, if we could get people to store water on those it would 

help. 

Wouldn’t solve the problem, because of the massive amount of 

inflows into the lake. It would help. The problem is, there’s nothing 

we can do to compel people to store water on their land. We’d have 

to have some incentive system to encourage them to do so. We’ve 

investigated that as well. And, we have asked—as part of this report—we have asked the Corps to come back and evaluate, What 

is the potential for Upper Basin storage? And, what would it take 

to incentivize people to store water? Because, it would have to be 

voluntary, according to North Dakota law. 

Other—I know we’re very close to the time that we have committed to leaving this facility, but if there are others who want to 

be heard, we want to give them a chance. 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. If not, let me, again, thank the witnesses here 

today, Todd Sando, the State engineer; Lisbon Mayor Ross Cole; 

Fort Ransom Mayor Jim Thernes; Neil Olerud, chairman of the 

commission here, Ransom County Commission; Teresa 

Rotenberger, the emergency manager; and former Lisbon Mayor 

Morrie Saxerud. 

And, of course, to the Governor, thank you so much for, again, 

being part of these listening and hearing sessions as—we’ve conducted around the State. 

Governor Hoeven: Thank you, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all. 

Hearing stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:53 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(523) 

FIELD HEARING TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE’S ROLE IN ECONOMIC 

GROWTH: ND–13 

Wednesday, August 18, 2010 

U.S. SENATE

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Wahpeton, North Dakota 

The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:00 a.m., at the Red 

River Valley Room, Student Center, North Dakota State College of 

Science, Wahpeton, North Dakota, Hon. Kent Conrad, Chairman of 

the Committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad [presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everyone to this hearing of the Senate Budget 

Committee. 

This is an official hearing of the committee, so we 

will be following the rules of the United States Senate. And that 

means an official record will be kept, and this will be shared with 

our colleagues. 

I want to specially recognize State Senator Arden Anderson, who 

is with us. 

Arden, will you stand and be recognized? We appreciate that you 

are here. 

Mr. ARDEN. Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. County Commissioner Perry Miller, who is here. 

Perry, if you’d stand and be recognized. Thanks for being here. 

The title of this hearing is ‘‘Transportation Infrastructure’s Role 

in Economic Growth: North Dakota 13.’’ We’ll be focusing on what 

investments may be needed to upgrade and improve Highway 13 

to promote the economy and agriculture in North Dakota. I also 

want to focus on how we can make Highway 13 even more safe. 

I want to begin by welcoming our especially distinguished panel 

of witnesses today: North Dakota Department of Transportation director, Francis Ziegler. 

Welcome, Francis. It’s excellent that you are here, and we appreciate, so much, your being with us in this series of hearings, in 

preparation for the new transportation bill. 

Wahpeton mayor, Jim Sturdevant. 

Good to have you, Jim. Delighted that you’re here. 

524 

Dan Antrium, the vice president for North American Operations 

at Bobcat. And I was with Jim yesterday in Gwinner. He gave me 

a tour of the plant, and I asked him if they had repaired the damage I had done. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. He said it’s all cleaned up. 

And Pat Pithey, merchant manager at Cargill. 

I hope I’ve pronounced that correctly, Pat. 

I look forward to hearing from all of you, and I will share your 

concerns and ideas with our colleagues back in Washington. 

Let me just, first, explain why we’re doing this series of hearings. 

This is a Budget Committee hearing because the Budget Committee has the first obligation to deal with the new transportation 

bill, in terms of the funding that will be made available to write 

that bill. But, beyond that, the committee of jurisdiction has told 

us that, unless hearings have been held, there will not be project 

funding over and above the basic formula funding made available 

to any project across the country. If that standard is adhered to, 

that is very important for us to know, because we then need to 

make sure that we have had hearings on any projects that may require additional funding, over and above formula funding. 

As you all know, there is a basic formula that distributes money 

to the States; then, on top of that, there is special funding that is 

approved for individual projects. And we have been very successful 

at getting that kind of special funding in the past, partly because 

I have been a conferee on the transportation bills. We hope to be 

successful—again, because we have special needs. With the energy 

development in North Dakota and with the agriculture development in North Dakota, we have special needs that go beyond the 

simple formula funding. 

525 

Highway 13 provides a critical east-west trucking route for agriculture, manufacturing, and energy industries in this area. These 

industries are vital to economic growth and job creation in North 

Dakota. I certainly saw it yesterday at the Bobcat plant. We are 

so proud of what they are doing there. They’re headed for more 

than 1,000 employees there, turning out a world-class product. And 

I told Dan and Troy, and others in the leadership there yesterday, 

that one of that’s a point of pride with me as I go and travel 

around the world is, everywhere I go, there’s a Bobcat. You know? 

Makes you feel good and proud that that kind of product is being 

produced right here in North Dakota. 

It’s—the improvements to Highway 13 will pay dividends, I believe, for North Dakota’s economy. North Dakota 13 is a major 

route for crops and livestock. It’s a crucial link for manufacturing 

facilities along the corridor. And it is a superload route, allowing 

oversized truckloads for wind turbine components, which is, we 

know, a growing emphasis here in North Dakota. 


58154.422
526 

Highway 13 is particularly important to agriculture in the State. 

In the eight counties on the Highway 8—13 corridor, there was 

$1.1 billion in agriculture production in 2007, the most recent year 

for which we have full records. Many of North Dakota’s key agricultural commodities are produced in this area, including 41 percent of North Dakota’s corn crop, with 117 million bushels produced just last year; 31 percent of North Dakota’s soybean crop, 

with 32 and a half million bushels produced last year; 19 percent 

of North Dakota—North Dakota’s cattle are on this corridor, with 

339,000 head on ranches last year; 11 percent of North Dakota’s 

sugar beet crop, with 554,000 tons produced last year. And, by the 

way, this morning we were up a little early and went by the Minn– 

Dak plant and saw the beet campaign getting underway, truck 

after truck after truck after truck, hauling beets to that facility. 

And we know the implications that has for the road network in the 

area. Ten percent of North Dakota’s wheat crop, with 30 million 

bushels produced last year. So, Highway 13 is part of the road network that gets these products to market. 

Now is an important time to focus on our transportation infrastructure needs, because the administration is in the process of developing its transportation reauthorization bill. It’s worth remembering that North Dakota benefited greatly from the last highway 

bill, which was completed in 2005. As a conferee on that bill—and 

conferees are those members who are selected to work out the differences between the Senate bill and the House bill—and as chairman of the Budget Committee and as a senior member of the Finance Committee, I was asked to serve on that Conference Committee in the previous Congress, and anticipate a similar responsibility this next year. 


58154.422
527 

Specifically, we were able to secure $1.5 billion for North Dakota, 

a 31-percent increase over the previous bill. Annually, that average—about $234 million for highways, bridges, and the rest, with 

additional funding provided for transit programs. 

We did very well by securing 2 dollars, roughly, for every dollar 

in tax money collected in our State, ranking us among the top four 

States in the Nation for return on tax dollars sent to Washington. 

In other words, we’re getting almost 2 dollars back for every dollar 

we send in. 

I also fought hard for direct investments for specific priorities 

identified by the North Dakota Department of Transportation. And 

that’s the way we operate in this State; we depend on the excellent 

work that Director Ziegler and his team does to establish the priorities in our State. We follow that priority list in priority order. 

When we get additional funding, we apply that; we don’t just go 

around and base it on, you know, what road I—Kent Conrad was 

on, and whether he’s hit a hot pothole. We base it on an analysis 

that has been done by the North Dakota Department of Transportation on, What are the priority needs of the State? And again, 

that’s why hearings like this are important. 

Here are some of the priorities I will focus on as we consider the 

next highway bill: 

The next legislation must identify sufficient funding so that the 

infrastructure investments are secure and robust over the longer 

term, and are paid for. I want to emphasize that it is imperative 

that the money not be borrowed. We already have too much debt. 

So, things are going to have to be paid for. 


58154.352
528 

States and communities must be able to rely on the money that 

is committed. Francis has made this point to me over and over during this last year. 

Next, any new highway bill must maintain recognition that rural 

transportation needs are vital to the Nation. 

And finally, I’ll fight for continued for recognition of the importance of a nationally connected highway system. What does that 

mean? Well, you can’t have a national highway system without 

every part of the system being in good shape. And, you know, 

sometimes we get criticized for the level of spending in North Dakota on highways, in comparison to what other States receive. The 

hard reality is, we are a rural State, we’re a very large State; we’re 

sparsely populated. And if we don’t get disproportionate funding, 

there won’t be a national network to serve the transportation needs 

of America. That is an economic security matter, it is a military security matter, and it is critically important that we have a national 

network that can provide for the transportation needs of the country. 

I am particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on the 

immediate investments that are needed in Highway 13, and what 

future investments are needed to support the growth in this area. 

With that, we will turn to our witnesses. And I want to start 

with Director Ziegler. 

Again I say to you, Francis, how much we appreciate your taking 

your time, and the time of your team, to come and testify at this 

series of hearings, and to also say what strong credibility you enjoy 

in Washington and around the country with your colleagues and 

with national transportation officials. And I can tell you, when we 

have a hearing transcript and Francis Ziegler has testified, that is 


58154.353
529 

considered to have credibility with national transportation officials 

in Washington. So, I especially value your participation. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, P.E., DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Well, good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. I’m 

Francis Ziegler, director of North Dakota Department of Transportation, and I want to thank you, Senator, for the opportunity to appear before the committee today, and thanks for your interest and 

support for improving transportation in North Dakota. 

Transportation, as we all know, is vitally important to supporting our country’s economic, competitive, and our State’s economic growth. It’s also critical to moving freight, connecting manufacturers to retailers, farms to markets, shippers to railroads, airports, and seaports, and motorists to jobs, schools, and stores. 

This year, the Department of Transportation has undertaken the 

largest construction program in the history of the Department. Approximately $450 million in projects on nearly 2,000 miles of roadway are being done, statewide. This includes projects under the 

regular Federal aid program, under the stimulus, or ARRA, the 

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, under the emergency relief—much of that is in the Devils Lake area—and then State funding. 

Today, I’d like to address the State Highway 13 corridor—as 

you’ve indicated, Mr. Chairman—challenges facing North Dakota’s 

transportation system, and the need for a long-term Federal transportation bill that serves North Dakota and the Nation. 

North Dakota State Highway 13 corridor, I’ll start with that. 

State Highway 13 is a major east-west corridor serving the southwestern part of North Dakota. It links ag producers with valueadded processing facilities, such as ProGold, managed by Cargo, 

and—that’s near Wahpeton—and manufacturing facilities, such as 

Bobcat and Gwinner. The Department recognizes the importance of 

the North Dakota 13 corridor, all 183 miles of it, between 1804 and 

the Minnesota border. From 1999 to 2009, approximately $43.7 

million was invested in preserving and improving 163 miles of this 

corridor. In 2009, the average daily traffic on Highway 13 was just 

over 1100 vehicles a day. This ranges from a low of 230 vehicles 

near Highway 1804 to just over 12,700 vehicles at the Minnesota 

border. The average truck traffic is about 170 trucks per day, with 

a low of 30 at the west end of the corridor, to about 780 trucks east 

of the corridor. 

The combined average annual daily traffic volume in the eastwestbound between here and Wahpeton and I–29, which is the 

largest component of our traffic volume, and the Minnesota border, 

is just over 6100 vehicles a day, and that ranges from a low of 

3655, just east of I–29, to a high, like I’ve said before, of over 

12,700 near the Minnesota border. The average truck traffic is 

about 650, and a low of 460 to a high of 780 trucks per day on this 

route between here and I–29. 

There are about $41 million worth of projects scheduled on Highway 13 for the years 2010 to 2014. This summer, as you can see, 

530 

the Dakota Avenue project is being completed in Wahpeton. We’re 

very happy to have the mayor here today, and we’ve talked a little 

bit about the project this morning. He feels it’s going well, and 

we’re happy with that. 

We—I also have with me today chief engineer Grant Levi and 

Bob Walton, our district engineer, who oversee that—get that ball 

rolling on those projects, to keep ’em going. So— 

The CHAIRMAN. Especially want to recognize Grant, who’s with 

us, and has been with us in each one of these hearings. Appreciate 

very much his professional work. 

Voice: Thank you. Thank you. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. We have the chart there, Senator, for you. It’s just 

in your foldout, and it—like I said, the projects go all the way— 

from 1804 all the way to the Minnesota border, and some of it is 

minor rehab with seal coats—that’s to preserve the pavement—to 

think-lift overlays, to major reconstruction. We have an area that 

we have to do a major reconstruction on between Wishek and Lehr, 

where the water is eating away on the road. And actually that’s an 

area that has water over the road now, so we’re designing that as 

we speak, and that needs to be built next year, because the wind 

and the wave action is taking that road out. So, we’re working on 

it. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, just to be clear on that, that’s a major rehab. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman—Senator, that is a major rehab. 

That’s a major grading. We’re going to have raise that grade 5, 6 

feet just to keep the water away from the top of the roadway. 

It was interesting, Senator—just a side note—Grant and I made 

a trip to that area, and as we parked in the area and looked at it, 

we’d look to the southeast, and there was water as far as the eye 

could see. And there was a southeast wind, and it was really just 

eating away at the road. And so, it needed—needs a lot of work. 

So, from there I’ll go on, Senator, to North Dakota’s transportation system challenges. The DOT and the Upper Great Plains 

Transportation Institute recently held public input meetings across 

the State to discuss transportation issues. Input from those meetings indicates that—and these are the—really, the two most important points that we learned from them—is that residents want 

more transportation infrastructure across the State. Public expectations are growing for load-carrying capacity, increased shoulder 

width and passing lanes, and some want more four-lane roads. And 

obviously the desire is to have year-round capacity with not only 

snow and ice removal, but also with load-carrying. 

But, our most critical challenges are: 

First of all, it’s to provide a transportation system to move commodities year-round. The DOT utilizes load restrictions to reduce 

damage to roadways caused by heavy loads at a time of the year 

when the highway pavement’s most vulnerable; typically, during 

the spring of the year. Load restrictions add to the cost of doing 

business. We can eliminate load restrictions if we put enough pavement on it so that the soft sub-base doesn’t affect the pavement, 

so it doesn’t beak up under the heavier loads. 

But, just as an example there, Senator—Mr. Chairman—farmers 

incur additional transportation costs as they must deter around 

load restrictions or make more trips via the same route with reVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00536 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
531 

duced loads. It costs about $4 per loaded mile to ship a five-axle 

semi that is fully loaded. For example, to ship a load of corn 75 

miles to the ProGold plant, it costs about $300. If the same amount 

of product was shipped on a road with a 6-ton load restriction, it 

costs 1.62 times more, or $486. And the 1.62 times comes from a 

study that the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute did for 

us a number of years ago, and it—I’m very confident in that number, that it costs that much more to move that same amount of 

corn, or wheat, or whatever commodity you have; and corn is that 

one that we’re talking about here. 

Secondly, adding grade-raises to the Devils Lake area and the 

Prairie Pothole Region. Eighteen projects are currently planned 

from 2010 to 2012 in the Devils Lake Basin, at an estimated cost 

of $168.4 million. Upon completion of these projects, the roadways 

will be raised to an elevation of 1460 feet. Senator, we’ve talked to 

you a lot about these numbers, really appreciate the ER program. 

And I know these numbers, as you see ’em, as you remember ’em, 

they keep growing. The fact is that some of the costs are going up, 

but there’s always more damage that’s being done to riprapp and 

whatever else we have out there. And so, the number is a big number, and we do appreciate the ER funding that comes to help us 

with those projects. 

As a result of recent heavy rains, 22 sites on State highways in 

the Prairie Pothole Region—that’s south of Devils Lake, all the way 

down to the south-central part of the State, the Ashley–Wishek 

area, and then farther east, to the Allendale area—but, there are 

22 sites that are inundated—or, 22 sites that we’re closer being— 

close to being, or are, inundated with water; four, where the water 

has run over the road and they qualify for emergency relief funding. For those four, it’ll cost an estimated 3.9 million to raise the 

grade. 

What’s interesting there is that you find stop signs in the middle 

of the highway, out in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, and you 

have to stop. And there’s a sign, says, ‘‘Take turns.’’ And that 

means you take turns driving through the water, going down the 

center of the road. Because if you happen to get into that ditch, 

there’s a lot of—there’s deep water there. 

There are 16 additional sites where the water is close to the edge 

of the driving lane. It’s estimated to cost about 24.1 million to raise 

these 16 sites to 5 feet above the water level. Unfortunately, these 

16 sites aren’t eligible for ER funding under the present criteria. 

We’d appreciate it if we could obtain ER eligibility based on the 3- 

foot freeboard criterias used in the Devils Lake Basin. We will be 

working with the Federal Highway Administration on that issue. 

Due to the aging of the State’s transportation system, the Department has had to move to a preventive maintenance program. 

And, basically, that’s seal coats and overlays—thin-lift overlays. 

Preventive maintenance reduces shoulder width and the ability to 

continue such a program. Load capacity and ride will further deteriorate without widening many miles of road in the future. 

And then, the fourth and most important point is the most—is 

the funding. Most recent multiyear Federal transportation bill expired September 30th of 2009. Since then, Congress has passed a 

series of short-term extensions. The situation results in considerVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00537 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
532 

able uncertainty as we attempt to prepare our budget and do longrange planning. We’d appreciate a long-term transportation bill 

that’s good for North Dakota, enacted as soon as possible. However, 

if there are to be further extensions, we would ask that they be extended for at least a year so that—a year to 18 months—so that 

we can help industry and the Department kind of plan for the future. 

The long-term Federal legislation, and just making a few points 

about the pending authorizing proposal that’s out there now. The 

DOT and other rural States in the Midwest have looked at that 

bill, or that proposal, and have some concerns with it. The fact that 

it would, number one, create a large new funding only for metropolitan areas with a population of 500,000 or more, and provide 

significant funding for large nationally significant projects—a highspeed rail program and infrastructure banks, all of which are 

geared to assist large urban States —reduces the proportion of 

overall program funding for the highway portion of the program. It 

provides a significant increase in the share of overall funding to 

transit, relative to highways. While we support transit in North 

Dakota, Mr. Chairman, we believe the current ratio of funding for 

roads and bridges to transit should remain the same, and that’s 

about a four-to-one. 

It would give increased emphasis to discretionary and nonformula programs compared to formula funds. We don’t support funding large new discretionary programs, particularly that are—programs that aren’t accessible to North Dakota. We’re concerned that 

the House legislation could provide North Dakota with a considerably reduced share of overall funding, compared to the current law. 

To offset some of those proposals in the House, we’re pleased 

that bipartisan rural mobility legislation, Senate bill 3485, was recently introduced by you, Mr. Chairman, Senator Barrasso, and 11 

other Senators. That legislation basically takes the position that if 

new legislation is to dedicate significant highway program funding 

only for large metropolitan areas, the legislation would also include 

a counterpart program for funding rural States. And we do appreciate that action. 

Some of the things that we talk about nationally with—on the 

next highway bill—and what we would appreciate is a long-term, 

balanced bill, funding that addresses rural as well as metropolitan 

needs. And we certainly recognize the metropolitan needs, and— 

but, we also recognize the fact that North Dakota and other rural 

States need connectivity to those rural metropolitan areas, as 

you’ve indicated before, Mr. Chairman. 

Increase the overall size of the Federal highway program to address the growing needs and counteract the impacts of highway 

construction inflation. Mr. Chairman, today I did not put the chart 

in here for you, but I can share with you that, from 2001 to 2010, 

inflation increased by 87 percent. So, what cost a dollar to build in 

2001 costs $1.87 today. And it’s not that people are getting wealthy 

on it. What it is, is the cost of the raw materials in products that 

go into the roadway system. 

We’d also ask that the new bill provide for rural States, like 

North Dakota, to participate at least proportionately in any growth 

of the overall Federal highway and transportation program, both as 

533 

to formula and other funds; ask that it continue to provide funding 

for the entire Federal aid system, not just the national highway 

system—Mr. Chairman, I believe you addressed that early on; to 

allocate a higher percentage of the overall program through the formula process rather than through discretionary or allocation programs; and to maintain the funding ratio for the highway and transit programs at a four-to-one, like I indicated before. 

Streamlining the program and project delivery process. Victor 

Mendez, the Federal Highway administrator, has done a good job 

in starting that. He’s working with our Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials on an Every Day Counts Program, and we’re all working toward making sure that, when we decide on a project, that we can get it from concept to construction 

in as short a time as possible, while not ignoring the environment 

and the cultural issues that go with that type of a development. 

Provide flexibility to rural States and communities to pursue solutions that are practical to them if programs to advance livability, 

complete streets, and climate change are implemented. We’ve 

talked to Victor a lot about the livability program, and he understands that. In rural America, we do have large communities, and 

we work hard to make sure that we address the livability issues 

and the street issues, but, when it comes to rural America, we’re 

just looking for a basic transportation system to move people and 

goods. 

In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, I believe it’s essential for Congress 

to recognize that increased Federal investment in highways and 

surface transportation for rural States is important to the national 

interest. This increased investment is important to all 50 State 

transportation departments that deal with safely moving people 

and goods. 

That concludes my formal testimony, Mr. Chairman. I’d be happy 

to respond to any questions that you might have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 

534 


58154.268
535 


58154.269
536 


58154.270
537 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Director Ziegler, for once again providing excellent and important testimony. 

Your organization—that is, the transportation directors across 

the country—have called for a level of funding in a new 6-year bill. 

Could you share with us what that level of funding is that your 

counterparts, and you, are recommending? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Yes. Mr. Chairman, based on what AASHTO—is 

our American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials—has gone on record as saying that, for roads and bridges, 

we’re looking at a need of 375 billion in a 6-year program, and then 


58154.271 58154.272
538 

a $93-billion program for transit, for a total of $468 billion for 

roads, bridges, and transit. 

The CHAIRMAN. And that is on a 6-year bill, so that’s $78 billion 

a year, by my calculation. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. $78 billion a year. And the trust fund—refresh 

my memory, here—the trust fund, I believe, is providing about 31 

billion a year? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, we have a shortfall of $47 billion a year. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I just think it’s very important to put on the 

record, this is the reality that we confront. The need, as determined by the transportation directors all across the country, is 

roughly $78 billion a year. And I can tell you, I’ve had my people 

review that estimate, and we think it’s pretty much on target. We 

don’t think you’ve gilded the lily here on us. We think you’ve given 

a pretty accurate assessment of the need. 

And, on the other hand, the trust fund that’s funded by gas tax 

is only providing $31 billion a year of income to pay for that bill. 

So, that is a yearly shortfall of $47 billion a year. 

And the question is, Where does that money come from? Obviously, one possibility is to increase the gas tax. I can tell you, that’s 

not very popular. Second possibility is to provide some under— 

other funding mechanism. Because what’s happening to the gas tax 

is, as cars become more fuel efficient—and now we’re moving to 

electric vehicles; there won’t be any gas tax at all—we’ve got a 

funding mechanism that really doesn’t meet the needs that we confront today. 

And, Francis, what have your—what has your organization 

thought of, in terms of options? Are there other things? Obviously, 

toll roads is another option that has been considered for at least 

parts of the country. It doesn’t work well in our part of the country. 

I mean, are there other considerations, other options that your 

group thinks needs to be considered? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, SAFETEA–LU had a requirement 

that—and they were established as part of the SAFETEA–LU—let 

me say it another way. There was a Commission on Transportation 

Funding, and they took input from around the country. And they 

have about 10 different options for funding. I can’t recite them all 

to you, Mr. Chairman, but I know you’ve hit the top three. Gas tax 

was one of them. VMT—vehicle miles traveled—was another. Toll 

roads was another. And public/private partnerships was another. 

And there were quite a number of others, but the —those were the 

big four. 

And what we’ve done here in North Dakota—obviously, we don’t, 

as you said, have toll roads, because it just doesn’t work, with the 

volumes of traffic that we have. While we have needs to move commodities, we don’t have enough volumes to pay for a road. So, the 

toll road doesn’t work. But, we have used, not public/private, but 

public/public partnerships. The City of Fargo, West Fargo—and obviously you’ll be hearing from the mayors soon—they do contribute 

to the project as a percentage participation. 

539 

And so, in the future, I would expect that there would probably 

be more of those public/public partnerships, but, at the same time, 

we need the fundamental funding to address the big needs. And 

I’m not sure how much private funding that we would be able to 

get for infrastructure. 

But, the Commission did come up with quite a number of options 

that are all on the table for discussion. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. I appreciate that. And, you know, it’s— 

I just want to make this point, that this is not going to be easy to 

resolve. This bill must be paid for. We have too much debt, but we 

can’t add to the debt, so it’s going to have to be—the cost is going 

to have to be covered. 

And could we cut back some on the spending proposal? Yes. And, 

no doubt, that will have to be part of the solution, as well. But, you 

can see, there is a chasm here between what the trust fund is providing and what the established needs are. 

With that, again, Francis, thank you for being here. I think we’d, 

at this point in the hearing, turn to the rest of the panel, ask each 

of them to testify, and then we’ll close it out with additional questions for the whole panel. 

Mayor Sturdevant, welcome, good to have you here. Please— 

Mr. STURDEVANT. Thank you, Senator. And welcome to— 

The CHAIRMAN. —please proceed. 

And, before you do, I want to recognize that Andrea Trevneck, 

who is Governor Hoeven’s senior policy advisor, is with us. 

Andrea, why don’t you stand and be recognized. Thank you very 

much for being here. 

Thank the Governor, as well, for having his team here, representing the State of North Dakota. I very much appreciate that. 

STATEMENT OF HON. JIM STURDEVANT, MAYOR, CITY OF 

WAHPETON 

Mr. STURDEVANT. Okay. My name is Jim Sturdevant, mayor of 

Wahpeton. And, first of all, I’d like to welcome you here, Senator 

Conrad, and to have you holding your Senate Budget Committee 

meeting here in Wahpeton, I think, is very important. Highway 13 

is a link to Wahpeton. Very important to us. And so, my comments 

will be, basically, on the importance of Highway 13 to our community and our region. So— 

North Dakota State Highway 13 is an essential and robust part 

of the infrastructure and economy serving the southeastern region 

of North Dakota and the city of Wahpeton. Highway 13 connects 

the region from the Red River to the Missouri River with 200 miles 

of roadway linking agriculture, industry, tourist, and education to 

our communities. And I’d just like to reference and make a few 

comments on each one of those areas. 

First, agriculture. Richland County is the second highest agriculture revenue-producing county in the State of North Dakota, 

with agricultural sales exceeding $261 million annually, and that’s 

per the USDA Census of Agriculture of 2007. The presence of 

value-added agriculture serves as an economic multiplier, creating 

jobs in the manufacturing, transportation, wholesale, and service 

industries. Local processors, including Minn–Dak Farmers Co-op in 

Cargill, employs over 600 people and process crops from more than 

540 

500 farms dispersed over a seven-county area adjacent to 

Wahpeton, and they all depend on Highway—the Highway 13 corridor. The annual sugar beet harvest requires a—trucking of up to 

3 million tons of product in 25-ton increments, or 120,000 truck 

trips, from farm to point—first point of delivery. Highway 13 is an 

essential asset that makes this possible. 

The other area would be industry. Wahpeton has a diverse manufacturing base ranging from millwork production to data storage 

technology. More than 1162 people work in manufacturing in the 

Wahpeton area, with an estimated economic impact of over $59 

million. The Highway 13 corridor is a asset that links major interstate highways I- 29 and I–94, giving our community a logistical 

advantage to prospective employers. 

Another area of importance is the tourism to Wahpeton. 

Wahpeton’s Chahinkapa Zoo hosts approximately 50,000 visitors 

annually. It is estimating 60 percent of these visitors are from out 

of State, representing all 50 States and 15 foreign countries in its 

guest registries. The State of North Dakota estimates 1 in 12 jobs 

are tied to tourism, a strong framework of infrastructure is essential to the tourism industry. North Dakota Highway 13 provides access to two national wildlife refuges, three State historical sites, 

three State parks, and multiple hunting and fishing destinations. 

And the other important aspect of Highway 13 to our community 

is education. North Dakota State College of Science is a 2-year 

comprehensive residential college which is—main campus located 

in Wahpeton—that offers degrees, certificates, and diplomas in 

over 50 academic options in traditional career and technical studies, as well as liberal arts. Approximately 2400 students are enrolled at NDSCS, representing every county in North Dakota. The 

academic, athletic, and cultural activities of the college are dependent on strong transportation infrastructure and North Dakota 

State Highway 13. 

North Dakota Highway 13 is a gateway to Wahpeton and essential to the economy of the southeast regions of North Dakota. 

I want to thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sturdevant follows:] 

541 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mayor. Your testimony is right on 

point and exactly what we need for the purposes of this hearing, 

which is to emphasize the critical role that Highway 13 plays. So, 

thank you very much. 

Mr. STURDEVANT. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Exactly what we needed. 

Let me turn to our next witness. And please proceed with your 

testimony. 


58154.267
542 

STATEMENT OF DAN ANTRIUM, VICE PRESIDENT, NORTH 

AMERICAN OPERATIONS, BOBCAT COMPANY 

Mr. ANTRIUM. Thank you, Chairman Conrad, Director Ziegler, 

Mayor Sturdevant, and Mr. Pithey, for the opportunity to discuss 

the importance of North Dakota Highway 13 to Bobcat and Doosan, 

our parent company. 

As, you know, Gwinner, which is our main facility for Bobcat 

North America, is situated right on Highway 13 and has been our 

home to our primary production facility for more than 60 years, 

dating back to when we were Melroe Manufacturing, even before 

the development of the Bobcat Loader, for which we are known and 

named for today. 

For six decades, North Dakota Highway 13 has been central to 

our distribution and supply chain systems, serving as a primary artery for shipments going to and from anywhere east of Gwinner, a 

direction that has been very important to our business. Most of 

what we produce goes east, and most of our supplied materials and 

components come in from the east. 

We have historical data that details truck runs and tonnages 

loads in and out of Gwinner, using North Dakota Highway 13. But, 

today we’ll focus on current figures that demonstrate its importance to both our Gwinner plant and our newer Wahpeton plant, 

which produces our valves and cylinders production, which is also, 

of course, situated on this vital transportation link. 

We estimate that more than 141,000 tons of material and product to and from Bobcat will be transported in and out of Gwinner 

and through Wahpeton via North Dakota Highway 13 this year. 

That covers more than 527,000 miles driven by various trucks, 

some of which are carrying Bobcat-produced parts and equipment, 

and others with supplied components that are critical to our manufacturing operations. The total number of truckloads is 10,000. 

The shipments in and out of Gwinner through Wahpeton can be 

split into five categories: Gwinner inbound shipments to valve and 

cylinders from our Wahpeton facility, and return trips to 

Wahpeton; Bobcat equipment being shipped from Gwinner to our 

Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, facility for load consolidation and distribution to points east in our dealer network; inbound shipments 

to Gwinner, partial truckloads of Bobcat supplies, utilizing thirdparty public carriers, such as Yellow Freight; inbound shipments to 

Gwinner, full truckloads of Bobcat supplies utilizing our dedicated 

fleet or carriers; inbound shipments to Gwinner, coming direct from 

the suppliers utilizing dedicated fleet or carriers. 

The following numbers are based on current-year estimates. So, 

we—using current-year estimates, but you have to remember, the 

prior years, we’ve seen dramatic— more impacts to this number, 

based on volumes, because we all know what’s happened to the 

economy recently. Annual freight, in pounds, moved from 

Wahpeton to Gwinner along Highway 13, 22,500,000 pounds; annual freight, in pounds, moved from Gwinner to our Brooklyn Park 

facility along Highway 13, 217,336,000 pounds; annual total 

freight, in pounds, coming in from Bobcat/Doosan suppliers, using 

our fleet or carriers—supplier fleet or carriers or third- party shipping companies is 42,500,000 pounds. As you can see, freight that 

includes Bobcat-produced equipment headed toward our Brooklyn 

543 

Park facility makes up the bulk of this; 70 percent of our out-bound 

volume goes east through Brooklyn Park, and North Dakota Highway 13 is the primary conduit in getting there. 

Other impressive numbers, the inbound supplies are not coming 

from Wahpeton, 70 percent of the total freight from our outside 

suppliers, including—, comes from the east. Again, the numbers we 

are providing are based on this year’s estimates. Please note that 

our business volume is down substantially, as I talked earlier, 

roughly 40 percent from 2006. 

So, these are three key factors that could lead to freight pounds 

or tonnage in truckloads increase in the future: Number one, our 

general business rebound or growth, and our markets resulted in 

more equipment shipments east. The Wahpeton facility, previously 

our valves and cylinder operations, was located in Bismarck. We 

relocated that to Wahpeton late last year. As production at 

Gwinner plant increases, so will the need for valves and cylinders 

out of Wahpeton, and the number of trips associated with that. 

Increased number of equipment lines produced in Gwinner. Previously, Gwinner only made loaders at the plant in Gwinner. Late 

last year, we consolidated those operations and moved Excavator, 

our Toolcat utility work machine, and our mini-track loader production from Bismarck to Gwinner. So, again, additional lines 

being produced at the Gwinner facility could result in more shipments, if business, overall, increases. 

As I stated, North Dakota Highway 13 has always been vital to 

our distribution of our products and receiving of supply and components shipments. With the addition of our Brooklyn Park facility 

in 2006, the addition of the Wahpeton facility in 2009, and the consolidation of our manufacturing operations in 2009, this artery has 

even become more vital. 

Specific to the last example, Interstate 94 was previously a critical link, from our Bismarck plant to all points east, including 

Brooklyn Park. With Gwinner now the only North Dakota plant 

producing whole-good products, Highway 13 is our only link east. 

Plus, it connects our only two North Dakota manufacturing locations. 

If you like, we obviously have some more—additional figures on 

details of truckloads and whatnot, freight volumes, miles, coverage 

in shipments during various times of the week and over various 

time periods. But, the total numbers we have here today should 

demonstrate the importance of North Dakota Highway 13 to Bobcat/Doosan. It is, indeed, a vital transportation link for us. 

Thank you, Chairman and other panelists. Thank you for your 

time today. I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Antrium follows:] 

544 


58154.264
545 


58154.265
546 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Dan, really excellent testimony. It’s 

pretty startling, isn’t it? The numbers really jump out at you— 

10,000—10,000 truckloads. 

Mayor Sturdevant, in your testimony, in the beet harvest, 

120,000 truck trips in the beet harvest? 

Mr. STURDEVANT. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, there’s really—I mean— 

Mr. STURDEVANT. It’s amazing. 


58154.266
547 

The CHAIRMAN. —it’s amazing. But, we saw—today—we saw the 

beginning of the beet campaign. And, you know, those trucks were 

rolling, one after another after another. 

Again, thank you very much, Dan. That really, I think, will provide important testimony. And I think that will catch the attention 

of our colleagues when they see these really eye-popping numbers. 

Next, we’ll go—final witness is Patrick Pithey, the merchandising manager for Cargill Corn Milling, here in Wahpeton. 

Welcome. Good to have you here. 

STATEMENT OF PAT PITHEY, MERCHANT MANAGER, CARGILL 

Mr. PITHEY. Honorable Senator Conrad, members of the panel, 

and distinguished guests, I thank you for the opportunity to appear 

before you today. 

My name is Patrick Pithey. I am the merchandising manager for 

Cargill Corn Milling, here in Wahpeton. 

Cargill’s an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial, and industrial products and services. Founded in 

1865, our privately-held company employs 131,000 people, in 66 

countries. We help customers succeed through collaboration and innovation, and are committed to sharing our global knowledge and 

experience to help meet economic and environmental and social 

challenges. 

We have 476 employees in North Dakota, at five different locations. And I’m proud to say that our chairman and CEO, Gregory 

Page, is a native of North Dakota and a graduate of UND. 

Sustainable transportation infrastructure is essential for economic growth. North Dakota, and specifically the southeastern region, enjoy a diverse economic base that deploys light and medium 

manufacturing and distribution, commercial retail, financial and 

medical services, educational and recreational opportunities, along 

with a continuum of expanding agricultural production, processing, 

and distribution activities. The capability to move raw materials in 

and finished products to market; employees to and from home, 

work and Main Street; students to campus and patients to care, 

happens only when a safe and effective transportation infrastructure is maintained. 

Transportation infrastructure is critical to our business in 

Wahpeton on a day-to-day basis, and North Dakota Highway 13 is 

a primary route. It impacts our 120 employees and additional 50 

onsite contractors as they commute to and from work. It facilitates 

the annual delivery of over 26,000 loads of corn from farmers within the region. It enables the shipments of over 13,000 loads of finished product to reach our customers around the country. 

Over the past 10 years, corn production in Richland County has 

increased by over 60 percent, similar to agricultural production 

trends across the region, as well as the State. Being able to safely 

and efficiently transport that production to market is vital for the 

producer, the processer/marketer, and the consumer. 

Continued investment in maintenance of roadway infrastructure 

is vital for economic growth in this region. While we do not have 

specific comments today on transportation funding strategies, we 

view transportation funding as an important part of economic 

growth, and vital to agricultural markets. 

548 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pithey follows:] 


58154.262
549 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, again. More really eye-popping numbers—26,000 loads of corn, 13,000 loads of finished product. 

You know, I don’t think many of us, probably, have numbers like 

that in our heads when we think about the activity of these facilities, how really tremendous the loads are, and the demands on our 

transportation system. And it takes us back to the point that Director Ziegler was making with respect to new transportation bill, the 

needs that have been identified by the transportation directors 

across the country is $78 billion a year. Now, can that be cut back 

somewhat? There’s no doubt in my mind it’s going to have to be, 

because the funding that’s available is only $31 billion a year from 

the trust fund, leading a—leaving a $47-billion-a-year hole. That is 

a big hole. 

But, I don’t think there’s any way to cut from a projected need 

of 78 billion a year back to the funding source that currently exists, 

of 31 billion, and not do significant damage to the quality of our 

transportation systems across the country. 

Francis, let me just go back to you first. Let me ask you for your 

professional assessment. If we had to cut transportation funding 

back to the amount of revenue that is provided by the trust fund— 

in other words, cut back from the 78 billion a year, that your group 

has determined is the need, to $31 billion, which is the amount of 

the funding source—what, in your professional judgment, would be 

the effect on the transportation systems across the country and 

here in North Dakota? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, if we have to cut back to that point, 

our program here in North Dakota—we’ve looked at it very closely—will be cut in half, and that seriously affects what you heard 

here from the rest of the panelists, about the needs for transportation. It is going to cut back on what we can do, and it’s ultimately going to create a system that is flawed. 

I think I testified to you once before, Mr. Chairman, that, you 

know, it’s not far from saying that we could go back to a Third 


58154.263
550 

World country if we don’t get a transportation system that is good 

and strong. 

Here in the eastern part of the State, we have worked hard to 

make sure that Highway 13 is in good shape. It has a thicker pavement section. But, if you look at some of our pavement sections 

that are thin, it doesn’t take many loads—truckloads to break it 

up—very seriously break it up. And so, it’s not far—certainly, I can 

say to you, without a shadow of doubt, that, if we don’t get some 

funding, our system’s going to deteriorate significantly. 

The CHAIRMAN. So—and, in your professional judgment, if we 

had to cut back to the level of funding provided by the trust fund, 

we would see significant deterioration in the transportation system 

of North Dakota. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Jim, before the hearing began—Mayor 

Sturdevant—I see you so often, I feel I can call you ‘‘Jim.’’ 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. STURDEVANT. That’s just fine, Chairman Conrad. 

The CHAIRMAN. —that—your comment to me is that 13 is in good 

shape now. I think, all of us who travel over it—you know, I’ve just 

traveled over it in the last 12 hours—is in good shape, and I think 

that’s certainly an assessment all of us would share. 

The director of transportation has told us, if we had to cut back 

to the funding level provided by the trust fund, we’d see significant 

deterioration. In your judgment—you’re a local leader—what would 

be the effect if we saw significant deterioration in Highway 13? 

Mr. STURDEVANT. Well, maybe what I can do is point to our Dakota Avenue, which is part of Highway 13; it’s the mile that runs 

downtown, our main corridor, in the city of Wahpeton. We have 

been waiting for—we were waiting, and it was on the drawing 

board for—I don’t know, a number of years, probably 6 or 8 years, 

or maybe even longer—to redo that—our Dakota Avenue. And, it 

was an asphalt- based road. And we have a lot of grain trucks that 

use that routing to go over to the elevators in Minnesota. We can’t 

get them out on the bypass, so they go downtown through our main 

district. And we’ve seen a lot of deterioration, over the last 5 or 6 

years, of that road. And I believe that road was our—Dakota Avenue, Highway 13, was about 35–40 years old before we started 

working on it this summer. So, that’s one good example of what 

happens to highways that aren’t maintained and not rebuilt. 

Now, this year, we are putting concrete down, and we’re spending a few extra dollars—city of Wahpeton’s money also—to put concrete down, rather than asphalt, that’ll give us a good solid highway. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it’s a very important point. 

Dan, what would the—what would be the implications for your 

company if there was significant deterioration as a result of having 

to cut back, by 50 percent or more, on the highway program here 

in the State? 

Mr. ANTRIUM. Well, there—it’d probably be, Mr. Chairman, in 

two areas. One is around our commuting of our employees to work. 

As you know, because of the rural local of Gwinner, we have a significant number of employees that commute to work fairly long distances. So, obviously the safety of their commute is very important 

551 

to us, especially during the winter months. So, keeping that road 

clear, being able to keep it clear, with our local and State agencies, 

is very important to us. So, you know, the safety of our employees 

is obviously paramount to be able to travel on that highway, especially during the winter months. 

The other key part is the delivery of our product, especially of 

our inbound shipments of product to our plant. We have daily 

schedules of product that we rely on, almost down to the hour, for 

our production lines in our facility. And if those shipments are delayed, literally by more than an hour or two, for whatever reason, 

we can see some dramatic impacts to our production lines in that 

facility—whether it’s because of holdups on the highway or, you 

know, excessive traffic in certain areas of the highway, so forth. 

I mean, I’ve driven on that road for close to 20 years, to and from 

Gwinner, and it’s been through, I believe, two major upgrades during that time. And I agree with Mayor Sturdevant’s assessment, 

that it’s in very good shape, it’s a very good roadway today; but, 

during those times where we did have those—you know, where we 

got to the point where we had to do those upgrades, we did see 

delays in our shipments of product coming in, and it did affect our 

production in our Gwinner facility. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, one of the things that was striking 

when I was at your plant yesterday—of course, it’s really quite remarkable, what’s going on there, because they are completely putting out, over a 3-year period, as I understand it, all new products. 

Mr. ANTRIUM. Yup. 

The CHAIRMAN. And they’re about halfway through that process. 

And the timing of all of this—we—you were talking yesterday to 

me about the outbound shipments, how you like to hold things 

there to built the right size loads, so things are held a day or two 

so that you right size the loads to make them as efficient as possible. Isn’t that— 

Mr. ANTRIUM. Yup. 

The CHAIRMAN. —the case? 

Mr. ANTRIUM. That’s correct— 

The CHAIRMAN. So— 

Mr. ANTRIUM. —Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. —the timing of inbound shipments, so that you 

are in adjusted time schedule, so that you’re not wasting a lot of 

money holding inventory that’s not being productively turned— 

Mr. ANTRIUM. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. —I assume, is important to the overall profitability of the company. 

Mr. ANTRIUM. That’s exactly right. That’s—my second point is 

around the supplies from our—70 percent of our inbound product 

comes from—through Highway 13, from the east. And we rely on, 

literally, daily shipments of that product, in some cases, and certain intervals during the day. And, you know, the—so, that’s why 

that—keeping the flow of that product on that roadway is very important. 

The CHAIRMAN. Patrick, I go to your point again. You know, 

these numbers—26,000 loads of corn. And your corn production in 

Richland County has increased by over 60 percent in the last 10 

552 

years. So, we see those load numbers going up. Do you anticipate 

that that is going to continue? 

Mr. PITHEY. Well, I think the production capabilities certainly 

has an upside. As for our plant, at this stage we’re finite in inbound, because of our production capability. But, the ProGold plant 

was always built with a potential for expansion. And so, again, 

we’d continue to want to go down the path of looking to expand 

that. So, yes, we do see that— 

The CHAIRMAN. And, you know, Patrick, let me ask you what I 

asked Dan, because—if we had to have a 50-percent cut in transportation funding here in North Dakota, from what the projected 

needs are, according to the Department of Transportation, what 

would the implications be for your company? 

Mr. PITHEY. I think the first—primary impact would be to our 

customers, or the growers, as far as an outlet and a market for 

their corn. The—as a first purchaser, that would impact their decision. If the transportation does not allow them to safely and efficiently get their product to market, they would then have to look 

to a secondary—I don’t mean any disrespect to any other buyers— 

but, obviously having an option no longer available will definitely 

be an impact to the supplier/grower. 

Secondly, from a customer output standpoint, we have trouble, 

again, safely and efficiently getting product out of the plant to market. Both of those are really ultimate net cost to both the supplier/ 

grower, for having a lack of market accessibility, and to the end 

consumer. If you no longer have a primary transportation route 

and have to look at secondary choices, secondary choices usually 

tend to be more costly. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. I think a final element here—Francis, I 

should come back to you—on the question of, What is the share of 

Federal funding for our transportation program here in the State? 

Can you give us that percentage? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, the current biennium budget for the North Dakota Department of Transportation is $1.35 billion. The 

Federal aid, when we include the ARRA funding, is— 

The CHAIRMAN. That’d be the Recovery Act— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. —the Recovery Act funding—that is 57 percent of 

our total budget of 1.35 billion. 

The CHAIRMAN. And is—are ER funds included in that calculation? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, not all of them. We anticipated 

some of the ER for Devils Lake, but we’ve gotten additional ER for 

the 2010 event. And so, we’re going to be putting those numbers 

into our next biennium’s budget. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. Can you— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. But, I can—Mr. Chairman, I can tell you that we 

had $80 million of ER funds in that $1.35 billion. 

The CHAIRMAN. Okay. So, roughly, we’re talking—60 percent is 

Federal money that is in our program at this point? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Sixty percent Federal money. So, if the Federal 

share got cut back as dramatically as would be necessary to meet 

the funding source, that would lead to the kind of reductions in the 

overall State program that you testified to. 

553 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what you said, just again for the record, is, 

we’d be talking of a—somewhere—about a 50-percent cut in the 

transportation program in this State if we were to cut back to the 

current funding level. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. One other thing I should indicate is, 

Jane Priebe, the director of Wahpeton Area Economic Development, is with us. 

Welcome. Good to have you here, as well. 

And are there any other things that any member of the panel 

would like to get on the record before we close the hearing? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you for your 

interest in transportation. As you know, I’m obviously very protransportation, and one of the things that—one of the examples 

that I’ve used in previous hearings is that transportation is a good 

buy. We did a study on national costs of those things that we use 

every day. And we all have cell phones. I have two cell phones 

strapped on me. And the average household pays $500 a year for 

cell phone use. But, we pay $109 for transportation. That’s in every 

household in America. 

So, it’s interesting, when you look at some of the— you know, I 

guess it’s setting our priorities in our own lives. But, basically, my 

point here is that transportation is a good buy. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, it is a good buy, and it’s a critically important buy. I think the testimony here today is as clear as it can be 

with respect to the economic strength of our State, the ability of 

our companies to compete. If we don’t have an excellent transportation system, we’re going to have a hard time being competitive. 

It’s also an important matter with respect to jobs, because—For 

every billion dollars, Francis, what is the estimate of the number 

of jobs created by every billion dollars of transportation expenditure? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, the latest estimate from the Federal 

Highway Administration—it’s 28,900 jobs that are created for every 

billion dollars of transportation funding that is put out there. 

The CHAIRMAN. So, you know, we put that in perspective. Every 

billion dollars of transportation funding—28,900 jobs. And those 

are jobs here in America. These are not jobs that are in some other 

country, these are jobs that are here. 

And it also—it’s always struck me as giving us a double boost, 

because not only is it creating jobs here in this country, but it is 

also strengthening the competitive position of America, because if 

you have a strong transportation network, that improves the competitive ability of all of our businesses, our companies, and of our 

country as a whole, so there is a double benefit, not only of jobs, 

but of improving the economic efficiency of our country. 

And I think that is clear from the testimony here today. And I 

want to thank the witnesses very much for your participation. 

Again, any final thoughts that any witness would like to make? 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. If not, before we close the hearing, I’d like to— 

we’ve got a few minutes remaining; I think we’re very close to the 

time that we were supposed to conclude—but, if there’s any person 

554 

in the audience who would like to testify, if you’d stand and give 

your name and say whatever you would want to say on this subject, you are welcome to do so at this point. 

Mr. MILLER. Thank you, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Perry? 

Mr. MILLER. I’m Perry Miller, a Richland County commissioner. 

And our highway engineer officials have just completed our budget 

hearings for this year. And this is the one issue that—. We have 

roads in the county that are—probably could be deemed unsafe to 

travel. —every other county and State—for more money, and, you 

know, the situation there—. But,—a lot of it was driven by the 

weather conditions that we’ve had, and the high water tables—the 

road—area, and the—just the—of the ground is just—. And—same 

thing in the—. And— 

But, the question I have is—it seems obvious to me—none of us 

like to pay more taxes, but a gas tax, to me, is really a simple solution is—as long as—funding and not be spent on some other 

project. And I’m just amazed that we can’t get that done in Washington. I know that people have tried, but it goes back to politics. 

And if you could maybe comment on that a little bit—. To me, 

it’s the most efficient way of doing it. And it just doesn’t seem to— 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, you can imagine, any tax increase has 

enormous resistance. Gas tax increase, after what happened to fuel 

prices, when oil prices ran up to more than $100 a barrel, I can 

tell you there was no appetite for increasing gas taxes. 

And we have the additional problem of, as we go forward, gas tax 

is less and less connected to transportation usage. That’s our fundamental problem. You know what’s happening. We’re moving to 

cars and vehicles that don’t use gasoline. So, we’ve got a disconnect, here. 

You know, Chevrolet has just announced their Volt, an electric 

car, can go 40 miles without using any gasoline. But, of course, it 

puts a burden on the roads. So, our—is somebody who own a Volt 

not going to contribute at all to transportation funding? That 

doesn’t seem fair. 

We have other considerations like that as we see the fundamentals of our transportation change. And so, relying solely on the gas 

tax, going forward, is not going to work. The trust fund is throwing 

off—producing about $31 billion of income. We’ve heard the testimony, here this morning, that the need, according to the transportation officials across the country—and this is their considered 

judgment—is $78 billion a year. That is a huge gap. And, of course, 

as chairman of the Budget Committee, I’m—they look to me to— 

Where is this money going to come from? And it’s one reason I’m 

doing these hearings, to get a very clear assessment of what the 

need is. And, of course, it needs to translate to North Dakota, as 

well. I’ve got a responsibility to my colleagues with respect to the 

budget for the country. I also have a responsibility to my constituents here with respect to how we fund needs that have been clearly 

described by panels across the State, including the one here this 

morning. So, it’s fair to say this is a real challenge. 

Thank you for your observation, Perry. 

And I—one thing I should also emphasize is, Director Ziegler and 

his team have a very tough challenge because of these weather conVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00560 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
555 

ditions. You heard his testimony with respect to the Devils Lake 

Basin. Twenty- two places, I think the testimony was, where we’ve 

got water encroachment on roads that are going to have to be dealt 

with, some places where the water is over the road. And it doesn’t 

have to be over the road for it to have a big negative impact. 

You’ve seen it here in Richland County. These overly wet conditions create a real problem for the roadbeds. And then, when we 

put heavy loads on ’em in the spring, and when that ground is 

mushy, it does a lot of damage, as the Director testified here today. 

Again, any final thoughts, anybody? 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. If not, we’ll close the hearing. I want to, again, 

thank you everybody for being here, and especially thank our witnesses. 

[Whereupon, at 10:10 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(557) 

FIELD HEARING: TRANSPORTATION INFRASTRUCTURE’S ROLE IN ECONOMIC 

GROWTH: US 12 AND US 85 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 24, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Bowman, North Dakota 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m. in the Bowman City Hall, 101 1st Street, NE, Bowman, ND 58623, Hon. Kent 

Conrad, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everyone to this hearing today in Bowman. 

This is a hearing of the Senate Budget Committee. It is an official hearing of the committee and so we will follow the Rules of the 

U.S. Senate in conducting it. An official record is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is Transportation Infrastructure: The 

Role in Economic Growth, US 12 and US 85. 

We’ll be focusing on what investments may be needed to upgrade 

and improve Highways 12 and 85 to promote the economy in North 

Dakota and specifically in this region. I also want to focus on how 

we can make these roadways more safe. 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses today. 

Our Director of North Dakota Department of Transportation 

Francis Ziegler, who we have especially high regard for, one of the 

best transportation directors in the country; Bowman Mayor Lyn 

James, who was with us yesterday in Williston, as well, as we 

hosted the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for the 

United States in that community; and Cal Klewin, the Executive 

Director of the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, always good to see 

you, Cal, as well. 

I look forward to hearing from each of you. I’ll share your concerns and ideas with my colleagues in Washington. 

This map shows why Highways 12 and 85 are so important to 

North Dakota’s economy, particularly its energy production. Highway 85 is the main north-south link, all of us know that, connecting the gas plants and the oil fields in the Williston Basin. And 

Highway 12 provides an important east-west connection to HighVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00563 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
558 

way 85 in this corner of North Dakota. The agriculture industry is 

also a very heavy user of these roads as are tourism and we see 

tourism being an important part of the economy in this part of our 

state, as well. 

Unfortunately, these roadways, like many of our nation’s highways, are in need of improvements. Heavy truckloads, much of it 

from trucks traveling the oil boom in the Bakken Formation, have 

put added strains on the roadways and, of course, now we’ve got 

to add the Three Forks Formation to the Bakken Formation. 

The roads need further investments to foster continued growth 

and to ensure safe travel of area residents and tourists and others 

who are using them. 

This is a recent article in Bismarck Tribune. The title is Bowman 

Grapples With Heavy Truck Traffic: Safety Concerns in Residential 

Neighborhood. The article talks about the recent special meeting 

held here to discuss the traffic problem. I’d like to hear from Mayor 

James about the findings from that meeting and make that a part 

of the record of this hearing, as well. 


58154.424
559 

According to North Dakota’s Department of Transportation, 

truck traffic on Highway 85 increased nearly 26 percent between 

2005 and 2009. The highway was simply not designed to handle 

the increasing number of heavy trucks and oversized loads currently traveling it. 

Now is an important time to focus on our transportation needs 

because we’re about to write a new transportation bill. I anticipate 

that that will be done next year. 


58154.425
560 

In the last bill, I served as a conferee. Conferees are selected to 

work out the differences between legislation that’s come out of the 

U.S. Senate and legislation that’s come out of the House. 

As Chairman of the Budget Committee, as a senior member of 

the Finance Committee, I was asked to serve on that Conference 

Committee and have been advised that I will be asked to serve on 

the next Conference Committee, as well. 

In that bill, I was able to secure a billion and a half dollars for 

North Dakota, a 31 percent increase. That included 13 million to 

make improvements to Highway 12 from Bowman to Hettinger, 

and annually the total average is out to 234 million a year for highways, bridges, and the rest, with additional funding for transit. 


58154.426
561 

We did very well overall getting $2 for every dollar we send 

Washington in gas tax money, ranking us among the top four 

states in the Nation for return on gas tax dollars. 

We also secured roughly a $180 million in Recovery Act money 

over and above the Highway Bill. That Recovery money is being deployed over this year and last. 

Francis Ziegler, our Head of the Department of Transportation, 

no doubt will be able to give us further detail on that. 

In addition, we have been able to secure certain ER funds, Economic Recovery funds, Emergency funds, that have been used, as 

well as especially in the Devils Lake area, where we see such extraordinary demands being made. 

We also worked hard to have Highway 85 designated as a highpriority corridor. That designation means Highway 85 is eligible for 

Special Corridor funding and I think that’s going to be increasingly 

important as we look ahead. 

These are some of the priorities I will focus on in the next Highway Bill. We must identify sufficient funding so the infrastructure 

investments are secure and robust over the long term. States and 

communities must be able to rely on them. Any new highway bill 

must maintain recognition that rural transportation needs are vital 

to the nation, and, finally, I’ll fight to secure funding for longerterm investments in our nationally important corridors, like Highway 85. 


58154.352
562 

I’m particularly interested in hearing from our witnesses on the 

immediate investments that are needed in Highways 12 and 85 

and what future investments are needed to support the growth in 

the area and the safety of those who travel these roadways. 

With that, we’ll turn to our witnesses and we know that time is 

short. I’m doing five counties today. So we’ve got to move quickly 

in order to reach all of our locations on time. 

Tim or Matt, maybe we could ask somebody to adjust the air conditioner. It’s a little chilly in here, isn’t it? Am I the only one? 

We’ll go to Francis Ziegler. Welcome, Francis. I’m delighted that 

you are here. Francis Ziegler, our Director of Transportation, has 

been at every one of the hearings that we have held, and let me 

just specify why we’re doing this. 

We have been told that in the next Highway Bill there will be 

no funding granted for special projects beyond formula funding, unless a hearing has been held to document the need. So if they hold 

to that position and nobody can predict what other committees 

might do, but this is what I have been advised of informally, if they 

hold to that position, it’s critically important that we hold hearings 

like this and, Francis, I just want to express my public thanks to 

you for helping us meet that requirement. 

Director Ziegler. 

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS ZIEGLER, DIRECTOR, NORTH 

DAKOTA DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I’m Francis Ziegler, 

Director of the North Dakota Department of Transportation. 


58154.353
563 

I want to thank you again for the opportunity to appear before 

the committee today and thanks for your interest and support for 

improving transportation in North Dakota. 

As you know, transportation is vitally important to supporting 

our country’s economic competitiveness. It’s critical to moving 

freight, connecting manufacturers to retailers, farmers to markets, 

shippers to railroads, airports and seaports, and motorists to jobs, 

schools, and stores. 

This year, the Department of Transportation is investing $450 

million on 2,000 miles of roadway. That money comes from the regular Federal aid, from ARRA, and from the Emergency Relief Fund 

and state funding. Our total budget—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Francis, if I could just stop you on that point and 

just say you and I are very familiar with ARRA, but we probably 

just should say for the record that’s the Recovery Act money. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. ARRA is the American Recovery and Reinvestment 

Act, oftentimes called Stimulus money. 

The department’s total budget is $1.35 billion, of which 52 percent is regular Federal aid. If the stimulus funding is put in there, 

it’s at 57 percent of the current biennial budget, and if the ER is 

included, we’re at just over 60 percent for the Federal aid that is 

part of this budget. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just say this is especially good news to me, 

Francis, because your numbers match ours? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That’s good. Today, as you said, Senator, I’d like to 

address the US 12 and 85 corridors and challenges that the North 

Dakota DOT is facing and the need for long-term transportation 

bill, as you’ve already talked about. 

In the interest of time, Senator, we have outlined for you some 

traffic counts and one of the things about traffic counts, your traffic 

count is absolutely right, and it was a point count that we had provided to you. What we try to do is try to get averages for the whole 

corridor so that when we’re designing projects and getting ready for 

them, that we can know exactly what it is that we need to design 

for and so I’m sharing with you, on the bottom of Page 1 and top 

of Page 2, what some of those counts are and you’re right. They are 

increasing significantly and so the department does have challenges. There’s no doubt about it. 

But to improve the traffic flow, enhance safety, preserve the system, a variety of construction projects are going to be undertaken 

in the next few years. Attachment 1, which is the foldout in the 

back of the testimony, has all the projects shown and the color 

code. Some is major rehab. We’re doing major rehab west of Bowman as we speak, minor rehab which includes seal coats and thin 

lift overlays, seal coat structures and municipal items, and so you 

can see the entire Highway 85 corridor has something going on, all 

the way from the state line to Williston, and Bowman—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Francis, can I again just stop you on that point? 

I drove yesterday from Killdeer up to Williston for a meeting there 

and I can confirm that there is construction everywhere. I can also 

confirm these truck counts are really, really dramatic. I mean, we 

didn’t even try 85 until we got up to Watford City. We went over 

on 22 because of all the work that’s being done on 85. 

564 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. But you know how I say 

it, is that we love orange cones at DOT. It’s a sign of progress. 

We have about 32 million worth of projects included and scheduled for Highway 12. There’s major rehab, as I said, from Raymond 

to the Montana line and then overlays after that grading is finished. There are about $75 million in projects on Highway 85 and 

I have reported earlier 60 million on 65 but as we go down the road 

of designing the projects, they’re getting more expensive. We’re 

adding, we’re lengthening the passing lanes on the Super 2 Concept between Watford City and Williston. So the prices are going 

up as we speak and inflation, as I’ve shared with you before, Mr. 

Chairman, inflation is about 8.7 percent per year since 2001. So 

our purchasing power’s eroding as we speak. 

We have a lot of transportation system challenges. I met with 

Upper Great Plains and the public this past spring. We had eight 

regional meetings to get input from the public and basically the 

residents are looking for more transportation infrastructure across 

the state. They’re concerned about increased traffic, especially in 

the oil impact areas in Western North Dakota. 

At the top of Page 3, we also have a lot more public expectations 

for load-carrying capacity, increased shoulder width, and passing 

lanes. We have received requests from groups now to four lane 

Highways 85, 281, 52, and 23, and so a lot of money needs to be 

invested to make all of those things happen for the future. 

But our most critical challenges to date are providing a transportation system to move commodities year-round. We have to do load 

restrictions in the spring and that gets to be very difficult and adds 

to cost of doing business there. In the second bullet, just to give 

you an example, if a farmer hauled a load of wheat from Hettinger 

to Gladstone, the cost normally if you went with the outload restrictions, it’d be about $300 for that load, but if they have to make 

two trips, Upper Great Plains says it’s 1.62 times more. So it costs 

$486 to move that load of wheat from Hettinger to the Gladstone 

plant to get it off to the markets and the rail. 

Other issues, of course, is adding grade raises in the Devils Lake 

area. You mentioned that already, but we also have the Prairie 

Pothole Region that has had a lot of rain this spring. We had 22 

sites there where there’s water either on the road or on the shoulder of the road. Four sites it was over the road and we’re going to 

be working with Federal Highway Administration. That is $3.9 million to raise the grade where the water’s over the road and another 

24 million to raise the grades where the water’s right up to the 

shoulder. 

Then we have, on Point 3 there, the aging of the state’s transportation system. The department’s had to move to preventive maintenance. Preventive maintenance is basically putting on two-two and 

a half-three inches of pavement over the top of what’s there and 

what it does is it narrows the roadway and ultimately we lose the 

shoulder and so we’re getting a lot of comments about that, that 

people are looking for more grading so that we can widen those 

shoulders again. 

The CHAIRMAN. I can just say to you I noticed that on 8. We were 

just in Mott and Hettinger before being here in Bowman and I was 

saying to the people that were with me, you can see this is what 

565 

Francis has been talking about, right, where you—and, you know, 

you can see over time where that would become a growing concern 

because, in effect, you have a much sharper falloff to the shoulder. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. What do you call that? What’s the term of art? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. The term of art is it’s a pavement slough. 

The CHAIRMAN. Pavement slough. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. It’s the slough of the pavement. It’s not a term of 

art, but it’s lack of shoulders. 

We’re concerned about where we’re headed with that and the 

public is concerned about the fact that we want the shoulders back 

again, to have a little bit of reprieve in case of flat tire, whatever. 

On Point 4, Funding, the most recent multiyear Federal transportation bill provided authorizations through September 1909. 

Since then, Congress has passed a series of short-term extensions 

and that results in considerable uncertainty as we attempt to prepare ourselves as the Department of Transportation not only for 

Highway 85 and Highway 12 corridor construction but for all of the 

work that we do. 

So I guess what we’re asking, Mr. Chairman, if there are going 

to be further short-term extensions, that they be at least a year to 

18 months in length, so that the industry and the Department of 

Transportation can plan. 

On Page 4, Senator, in the interest of time, I’ll just ad lib. There 

are four points there that the Department of Transportation in 

North Dakota and other rural states have concerns with on the 

Federal legislation that’s there to reauthorize the Highway Transportation Programs. 

We know that that legislation’s there. We also appreciate what 

you’ve done, Senator, yourself, Mr. Chairman, Senator Kurt 

Barrasso and 11 others that says that if the new legislation is 

going to dedicate a lot of funding to major metropolitan areas, that 

about 33 percent of it needs to be dedicated to rural states and so 

we really do appreciate that. 

Clearly, our—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I think we got very good advice from your department on how we could do that. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Well, clearly, our ability to continue to invest in 

surface transportation in North Dakota depends on Federal surface 

transportation funding. 

Our AASHTO or our Association of State Highway Transpor- tation Officials has indicated that there’s a need for $375 billion for 

roads and bridges and 93 for transit. Unfortunately, the Federal 

Highway Trust Fund has been declining and currently the revenues are about 31 billion a year but they’re about 42 billion in expenditures and the reasons are, first of all, higher fuel taxes in 

1908 resulted in increased use of mass transit. 

I read an article just this weekend and people aren’t going back 

to their cars. They’re using mass transit and so there’s a downturn 

in the use there. The economic downturn has impacted highway 

travel. Travel actually declined a 108 million vehicle miles from 

1907 to 1908. 

Increased overall fuel efficiency of vehicles. Although increased 

fuel efficiency has positive environmental impacts and reduces our 

566 

dependence on foreign oil, it’s a negative impact on motor fuel tax 

collections, and then, of course, on top of Page 4, the increased use 

of hybrid and electric vehicles. 

As you’ve said previously, Senator, and we recognize it, that the 

Chevy Volt that’s going to be coming out this year, this fall, doesn’t 

pay any gas taxes but it certainly depends on the same transportation system we’re all using and so that’s a concern for us, and 

if you look at the fuel economy of the vehicles going from 20 to 25, 

that’s a 25 percent increase in the economy of the vehicle and obviously a corresponding decrease in the revenue to the Trust Fund. 

So those are some of the key reasons why the Trust Fund is reducing in value. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just stop you on that point, Francis, and 

indicate, as we’ve said in previous hearings but for the purposes of 

people who are here, what you and your fellow commissioners 

around the country and directors, transportation directors have determined is what’s necessary in a 6-year highway bill is a level of 

funding at about $78 billion a year. 

What is available from the Trust Fund, as you have correctly 

stated in your testimony, is $31 billion a year. So there is a shortfall there of $47 billion a year. That is a chasm and, you know, the 

director has quite accurately pointed out some of the reasons the 

Trust Fund is not anywhere close to matching the need and, you 

know, you got higher vehicle miles. You have more people going 

mass transit. You have electric vehicles, for example the Chevy 

Volt. So those are things that we need to understand as we approach the next transportation bill. 

As I asked you in a previous hearing, and I would ask you again, 

Francis, for the record here, if we were required to cut back to the 

level of funding available from the Trust Fund, what would be the 

implication for transportation funding here in North Dakota? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, the implication of the Trust Fund 

or the funding for North Dakota being based on $31 billion current 

revenues would cut our program about in half. 

The CHAIRMAN. So the funds for 85 and Highway 12 and all of 

the other high-priority corridors would be dramatically affected in 

a negative way obviously? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. What we’d have to 

do is reprioritize and take a look at our highest priorities and then 

go to work with the money that we have available. 

The CHAIRMAN. Director Ziegler, if I could just ask further, in 

your judgment, in your professional judgment, you’ve been at this 

a long time, you enjoy a high level of credibility both here in North 

Dakota and in Washington. 

I can tell you when you testify at a hearing like this, people in 

the Department of Transportation pay attention because you and 

your team have credibility. 

If we had to cut the program in half in North Dakota over the 

6-years of the next transportation bill, what would that mean for 

communities across the state? What would it mean to the traveling 

public? What would it mean to our agriculture and energy industries? What would it mean to tourism? What would be—you know, 

sometimes when we say something’s cut in half, what’s the qualitative effect in your judgment? How would you characterize it? 

567 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, the first thing the Department of 

Transportation does when we have a road that gets in trouble because we can’t fund it is to put on load restrictions and I’ve already 

talked about that. We would have to put on more and more load 

restrictions to keep the trucks lighter. 

Second, what we’re going to be encountering a whole lot more 

potholes. 

Mr. Chairman, you talked about the travel between Watford City 

and Williston that you took yesterday. Grant Levy, our Chief Engineer, is here and he had talked to Walt Peterson, our District Engineer at Williston, just this morning, and we had our materials folks 

look at that piece of road and it is deteriorating very quickly. Fifteen push-outs have happened in the last month. 

The CHAIRMAN. And can you tell the people and for the record 

what is a push-out? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. A push-out is where you start getting the pothole 

where, on the shoulder of the road, the loads are so heavy and so 

numerous that it starts pushing the pavement out toward the 

shoulder and once you have that type of failure, that means the entire structure is in trouble and we’re looking now at what it is that 

we’re going to have to do to maintain that. 

So if we don’t get the funding that we need, those kinds of situations are going to get us in bigger trouble and ultimately a system 

that just isn’t going to function. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Thank you. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, as I’ve testified previously, our next 

highway reauthorization legislation should certainly provide a longterm balanced bill and funding that addresses rural as well as metropolitan needs, increase the overall size of the program to address 

the growing needs and counteract the impacts of inflation, provide 

for rural states, and funding for the entire Federal aid system, not 

just the National Highway System, allocate an entire percentage 

through formula rather than discretionary, maintain a funding 

ratio of 4:1 for roads and bridges compared to transit, and streamline the program to the extent possible, and as I’ve mentioned to 

you that we’re working with Victor Mendez, who was the Director 

of Arizona. I got to know him personally. He’s now the Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration. He’s working on 

every day accounts initiative and so we’re working with him on 

that to try to streamline the process and get our projects done 

quicker. 

And then, of course, provide some flexibility to rural states to 

pursue solutions that are practical, if livability, complete streets, 

and climate change issues are advanced. We certainly recognize 

those issues. We do those in urban areas. I think you’re familiar 

with Memorial Bridge where we did a lot of work on bike trail. 

Right here in Bowman, North Dakota, we put a bike trail over the 

bridge or over the railroad, excuse me, along with the bridge and 

so we recognize those livability issues, but on rural highways, what 

we need, what we need on rural highways is just a lot of money 

to take care of the road itself. 

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my presentation or my testimony, 

and we feel, in conclusion, that it’s essential for Congress to recogVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00573 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
568 

nize the increased investment in highways and surface transportation in rural states is important and is in the national interests. 

This increased investment is important to all 50 states that deal 

with safely moving people. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ziegler follows:] 


58154.273
569 


58154.274
570 


58154.275
571 


58154.276
572 


58154.277
573 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, and one other question, if I could before we go on to Mayor James, and that is a question I was asked 

in Mott earlier today, meeting with leaders from that county, adjoining cities and towns, was about the Enchanted Highway and 

great concern on the part that is in their county. 

That is, Stark County has been able to do some work on the Enchanted Highway. The area from New England—well, it’s not in 

New England but going north in their county has—they just don’t 

have the funds to address it and that is not a state road. 

Is there anything that is available in a circumstance like that 

where we have kind of a special circumstance? The Enchanted 

Highway obviously hasten a great deal of attention for tourism purposes, increasingly important with the energy activity which is only 

going to grow because of the Three Forks Formation, in addition 

to the Bakken. 

Is there anything available for a circumstance like that? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, what the North Dakota Department 

of Transportation does is we share 25 percent of our Federal aid 

with cities and counties, local governments, and we will work with, 

certainly work with the county, if that’s one of their priorities, to 

help address that issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. They’re very concerned. I think they have 

about 15 miles that’s in their county. I think the rest is in Stark 

and Stark County has been able to address the situation on their 

side and it’s clearly quite a concern to them. 

We had a number of county commissioners there, mayors there, 

and quite a number of them raised the concern. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Well, we’ll work with them, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Next, we’ll go to Mayor James. Thank 

you, Mayor James, for all the attention and leadership you’ve provided this community and it’s really more broadly. 

I thought you did an excellent job in Williston yesterday—— 

Ms. JAMES. Thank you. 


58154.278
574 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Expressing the needs on housing 

which we were focused on there. 

So please proceed with your testimony and thanks again for your 

leadership. 

STATEMENT OF LYN JAMES, PRESIDENT, CITY COMMISSION, 

CITY OF BOWMAN, NORTH DAKOTA 

Ms. JAMES. Thank you. It’s a pleasure. Good afternoon, and 

thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak about transportation and the role it plays in our economic growth here in Bowman. 

The city of Bowman takes pride in the fact that we serve as the 

business hub for Southwestern North Dakota, Northwestern South 

Dakota, and Southeastern Montana. Being located at the crossroads of Highways 12 and 85 has put us in a unique position. 

Many small communities struggle to maintain their existing businesses together with their population. 

Bowman has the privilege of enjoying the commerce and trade 

that come with the traffic that funnels through our community. Of 

course, population growth has been a benefit, as well. 

Commerce is a key component in the success of our community. 

The intersecting highways bring many different trades to and 

through Bowman. Agriculture-related traffic supports our grain elevator, seed buyers and sellers, chemical suppliers and water sales, 

fuel suppliers, farm implement dealers, truck and auto dealers, 

automotive part sales, livestock auction market, farm and ranch 

sales, veterinarian services, and feed sales. 

The energy traffic supports some of those same businesses, as I 

mentioned previously, as well as welding shops, engine repair, 

trucking, construction business and tire sales. 

Some of the energy traffic originates from the Bowman area with 

the various oil-related businesses located here. 

The tourism traffic supports our motels, restaurants, fuel and 

convenience stores sales, as well as many main street businesses. 

Motels, restaurants, and bars also collect hospitality and lodging 

taxes which assist in funding various tourism-related projects and 

local promotions. 

Of course, the dollars spent in all of these areas trickle down to 

the healthcare providers, grocery stores, banking, the retail trade 

on our main street, the lumber yards, and contractors, and the list, 

of course, goes on and on. 

A strong economy also is a key factor in the support of our 

churches and our civic organizations. 

Highway 12 sometimes is lost in the shuffle due to the hot topic 

of Highway 85. Presently, Highway 12 west of Bowman is the route 

taken to the oil field in Bowman County, carrying numerous vehicles every day. The Three Forks Formation extends into Eastern 

Bowman County and when exploration gravitates in that direction 

Highway 12 East of Bowman will bear that same burden. 

Not only will Bowman see more commerce due to future exploration but Scranton and Gas Point in Eastern Bowman County will 

see some activity, as well, I’m sure. 

Safety is also a very important issue and I know we’ve addressed 

that before, but I would like to just speak of that again. Its imporVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00580 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
575 

tance parallels the economics of this transportation issue. Many 

members of our community and the surrounding area travel Highway 12, as well as Highway 85, to work each and every day. 

The enhancements that are being done today, as well as the proposed enhancements that are being researched at this time, are of 

great importance to the safety and well-being of the people who 

drive it. 

Future funding is critical to the continued growth of Bowman 

County and all of Western North Dakota. 

Chairman Conrad, thank you and I commend you for the time 

and attention you are giving to the issue of transportation here in 

Bowman or in Western North Dakota. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. James follows:] 

576 


58154.279
577 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mayor James. I appreciate very 

much your participating today. It’s very important to laying on the 

record the views of those who are elected representatives and it’s 

been made clear to us by the authorizing committees that if we 

want to have credibility, if we can have the Director of Transportation and local elected officials testify and lay on to the record 

that they think these are priorities, that makes a difference to our 

colleagues when they consider the really tough choices that are 

going to have to be made. 

Cal, welcome. Good to have you here. Please proceed. 

Ms. JAMES. Senator Conrad, before I give the mike to Cal, I just 

wanted to also mention that I have testimony that I have offered 

from Ashley Alderson who is our Economic Development Director. 

The CHAIRMAN. Great. Be happy to make that part of the record, 

as well. 

Ms. JAMES. And it is here in print, as well, for you to review. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very good. Without objection, we’ll make that 

part of the record, as well. 

[The information referred to follows:] 


58154.280
578 

The CHAIRMAN. Now, Cal, we’ve been debating whether we’d actually have you testify or not. 

Mr. KLEWIN. I can tell a story. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Welcome. It’s always good to have you here. 

STATEMENT OF CAL KLEWIN, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, 

THEODORE ROOSEVELT EXPRESSWAY ASSOCIATION 

Mr. KLEWIN. Thank you. I’m Cal Klewin, Executive Director of 

the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway, the Northern Leg of the Portsto-Plains Alliance, which stretches through America’s rural heartland, connecting North Dakota with the common north-south corridor, reaching domestically across nine states, from Texas to Montana, and internationally to markets in Canada and Mexico. 

Senator Conrad, thank you for coming to Southwestern North 

Dakota and holding a hearing on 12 and 85. You’ve always been 

a champion for transportation and we do appreciate you coming out 

here. 

A safe, sound, and efficient transportation is the foundation of a 

vibrant rural economy. With efficient transportation, the costs of 

inputs to agriculture and the cost of living for inhabitants of rural 

areas decreases, the net price to producers and manufacturers increases, market access of competitiveness increases, and job opportunities are increased. Successful businesses and producers contribute to the quality of life and increased opportunities for a living. 

Nowhere is the need for efficient transportation more evident 

than in Southwestern North Dakota where our primary east-west 

corridor, US Highway 12, and our primary north-south corridor, 

US Highway 85, are both under significant stress that stifles regional economic growth. 

A bit of history. US 12 was recognized in the early years of the 

automobile to have potential to move people from the state of 

Washington to Massachusetts. This northern tier system was promoted by the Yellowstone Trail Association to provide access to 

Yellowstone Park, a growing tourist destination. In those days, a 

two-lane road was adequate. 

Today, US 12 still moves people to Yellowstone Park, but the region’s economy is growing and much more diversified and a twolane road is no longer adequate. As you know, Mr. Chairman, 

North Dakota, including the Southwestern area, is an exporting region. We produce more energy and commodities than we consume. 

We must have modern, safe, and efficient roads to move these commodities to the U.S. and world markets, accommodating visiting 

tourists and local traffic. 

Our region helps to feed America. The agriculture industry, with 

the diversity of barley, pulse crops, and livestock, has led the regional economy. It relies heavily on trucks that use Highways 12 

and 85. For example, the livestock and grain industry of this region, from Billings, Montana, to Aberdeen, South Dakota, rely on 

US 12 for the delivery of product traveling to, from, and through 

North Dakota on US 12. 

US 12 provides service to grain terminals. Ninety- 5 percent of 

the trucks are large semis hauling up to 900 bushels each of grain 

to Bowman and Scranton. Scranton, the second largest terminal to 

579 

Gladstone located on 94, handled in excess of 10 million bushels of 

grain. These grain terminals load railroad unit trains for shipments to Minneapolis and the West Coast. 

Freight movements of grain to markets in Billings, Montana, and 

Minneapolis, Minnesota, move on a portion of US 12 and then link 

to the interstate system terminating at exporting terminals. These 

shipments are by large truck, including 105,000 pounds of grain 

commodity. 

The CHAIRMAN. If I could just stop you there, Cal. I would just 

say when we were on 12 driving over here, we had four huge custom combiners come down the road. We had to actually get off the 

road, go over into the ditch to get out of their way because they 

filled up the entire road. They had four large custom combines and 

then large truck and some other vehicles. 

You know, we were wondering what are we going to do here because it’s clear somebody’s going to have to give way and it wasn’t 

going to be them. 

Mr. KLEWIN. Well, I think that’s how it’s changed. I mean, now 

you’ve got those type of movements using pilot cars and, you know, 

there’s stress on the roads. 

That last paragraph that I did read, in those movements from 

Aberdeen to Billings, those movements by semis and agriculture 

commodities, it’s basically because maybe the elevators are full and 

can’t get unit cars, so they have to move to those markets because 

the market conditions are right and that’s the same way as I’ll 

point out to you later in the oil and gas. They’ll move where the 

money is. So that’s the part of that last paragraph we wanted to 

stress. 

Our region also helps to power America. The oil and gas industry 

also places significant demands on the local highway system, including Highways 12 and 85. Bowman County, until recently, was 

the Number 1 oil and gas- producing county in the state of North 

Dakota. 

With the new development of Bakken play in Northwestern 

North Dakota, it became Number 2 behind Montreal County. The 

production of oil and gas in the Cedar Hills, Marmarth, Badlands, 

and Little Beaver fields in Bowman County is served by US 12. 

They’re all west of here. They’re located south of US 12. That’s 

where the major production is in Bowman County. They connect 

the township and county roads that are also stressed. 

Delivery of the oil and gas production often moves by truck when 

pipelines are inadequate or market conditions are of a probable nature to move product north and south along US 85 and east and 

west along US 12 to pipelines in Guernsey, Wyoming, or north 

moving on US 12, then on to US 85 to Enbridge in Williams County. 

The exploration and production of oil and gas in Western North 

Dakota continues at increased record levels. This will increase the 

demands of surface transportation in this region. 

Each new oil well requires 1,250 trucks with 10 wheels or more 

from the beginning of the process until the well is put into production. With over a hundred drilling site operations, and I did this 

a week or two ago, I believe it was a 142 drilling rigs in the state 

of North Dakota today, is that correct? 

580 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. KLEWIN. So it increased so significantly and so fast that it 

puts almost a 125,000 large and often oversized trucks on our twolane highways on a monthly basis and this does not count the increased traffic associated with servicing the wells already in production or hauling oil to the pipeline locations. 

The coal industry relies on surface transportation as well and is 

placing significant demands on Highways 12 and 85. Surface transportation along the eastern portion of US 12 in Bowman County 

serves the lignite coal industry with huge deposits available for energy development as the technology for clean coal becomes available. 

American Colloid located on US 12 at Gascoyne also ships by 

truck. Many of their products, such as drilling mud, component 

products used for fertilizer from the plant located along Highway 

12, are shipped along the US 12 route. 

An industrial rail loop also located along US 12 receives pips and 

support equipment for various pipeline projects developing in the 

region. It is shipped by rail to the Gascoyne site, then disbursed 

to the constructionsite by truck by way of US 12 and other connecting routes. You may have seen that as you passed Gascoyne, 

saw the pipe. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. I sure did. 

Mr. KLEWIN. That’s the railroad I’m referring to and that transportation all goes on Highway 12 and then to the locations. 

In local distributing in Bowman, for example, Colorado Tubular 

is a company that relocated here from Colorado, expanded here, 

just off US Highway 12, west of Bowman. The pipe inventory is 

shipped into Bowman from the distribution yards located in Texas, 

Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Nebraska. 

Colorado Tubular has received a 135 truckloads of pipe rod and 

tubing during the month of July 2010 in the Bowman yard. The 

route to Bowman was west on US 85 and US 12. Keep in mind 

these trucks did have to return to the place of origin, most likely 

using the same routes. 

In July 2010, Colorado Tubular moved 97 shipments of pipe in 

the Williston Basin to locations south, west, and north using both 

12 and 85. 

Wind energy is another truck-intensive industry impacting Highways 12 and 85. Wind industry has been expanding into Western 

Bowman County with the 19.5 megawatts of wind energy at Cedar 

Hill. I need to make a correction to my testimony. Cedar Hill was 

developed by Montana Dakota Utilities and I have that on the next 

boiler point. So that particular expansion or that wind energy was 

developed by Montana Dakota Utilities. 

The CHAIRMAN. At Cedar Hill? 

Mr. KLEWIN. Yes. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. KLEWIN. Another proposed wind project, Diamond Willow, 

will be located in Eastern Montana and will be served by US Highway 12. 

It takes approximately eight oversized trucks per tower to haul 

the major components of each wind tower, not including the rebar, 

concrete, road materials, water, crane, and electrical components. 

581 

North Dakota’s growth, due to its wind potential, will lead to everincreasing stress for platforms, substations, and transmission systems. 

North Dakota is currently Number 10 in wind energy development and has the potential to be Number 1 in the nation. This potential development will put additional stress on an already-antiquated and stressed highway system. 

And, finally, tourism. Two popular national attractions, Mount 

Rushmore to the south and Theodore Roosevelt National Park to 

the north, are both located on the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway 

and connected to the east and west by US 12. 

Unfortunately, US 12 and 85 are narrow two-lane highways and 

were never designed for these loads and this kind of traffic. They 

are simply not adequate to carry the existing traffic along with 

trucks carrying freight through the region, trucks carrying food to 

our major cities, vehicles carrying tourists, and vehicles carrying 

our citizens to their jobs, healthcare, and schools. It is in this mix 

of vehicles and patterns of movement that increases our accident 

rates so significantly. 

If our economy is to continue to grow, these inadequate roads 

must be upgraded to modern four-lane highways capable of safely 

serving local, regional, and national needs. The new Federal transportation bill must provide the policies and resources to make this 

a reality, not only in this region but in other rural areas across 

America, as well. 

The sanctity and integrity of the Federal Highway Trust Fund be 

preserved and the Trust Fund must have adequate resources to 

meet the needs of rural areas as well as large metropolitan areas. 

It is also imperative that the transportation bill, as well as any 

climate change legislation Congress might enact, recognize that 

rural areas are different than major metropolitan areas and that 

additional highway capacity in rural America is critical if these 

areas are to be a part of the national and global economies. 

Senator Conrad, this concludes my testimony, but thank you for 

this opportunity to testify. Working together as North Dakotans 

and as Americans, we hope we can improve the surface transportation in this region and North Dakota can compete economically 

in a changing world economy. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Klewin follows:] 

582 


58154.281
583 


58154.282
584 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Cal. Thank you not only for your testimony but especially my thanks for your leadership over the years 

on developing this corridor. This is important certainly to our state, 

certainly to these communities, but I really believe it’s important 

to the country, as well. 


58154.283 58154.284
585 

If we do map, as you have done, and show where the major agricultural production of America is, where the major energy production of America is, it’s right on this corridor and that’s something 

we have to continue to educate our colleagues about because it is 

going to take a significantly increased investment if we’re going to 

do everything we could do to help our country reduce its dependence on foreign energy and develop the agricultural potential we 

have as well as our wind energy potential which you quite rightly 

indicate we’re Number 10 now in actual production but we’re Number 1 in potential. 

So I think, as you have done, anybody that examines this closely, 

it just jumps out at you the need for additional investment here. 

Let me go back to, if I could, for a moment to the Director, Director Ziegler. 

When we say there the Trust Fund is producing $31 billion a 

year, that’s based on a gas tax at what level? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that is based on a Federal gas tax 

of 18.4 cents per gallon. 

The CHAIRMAN. So 18.4 cents is producing $31 billion a year in 

revenue. To get to the level of funding that you and your colleagues 

have determined is important, which is $78 billion, that’s roughly 

two and a half times, if my math is right, roughly two and a half 

times what the current Trust Fund is producing. Is that your understanding? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. So if we did it all on gas tax, and I’m not suggesting we do, and I know you’re not suggesting that we do, two 

and a half times 18.4 cents would be 36 and 9, 45 cents, about 46 

cents a gallon, something like that, am I right? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. [Confirmed by Nodding.] 

The CHAIRMAN. So 46 cents a gallon, if it was all to be done on 

gas tax—now again I want to emphasize I don’t favor that. Director 

Ziegler is not testifying supporting that. That’s not the point here. 

I’m trying to put in perspective, if it was all to be done on gas 

tax where we’d have to go. It really doesn’t make sense to do it all 

on gas tax for the reasons the Director’s outlined. The gas tax is 

increasingly disconnected from the need and it’s increasingly disconnected from the cost of the cost. 

Why do I say that? Because of all the reasons Director Ziegler 

gave. When you increase the mileage of automobiles, when you’re 

increasingly going to have vehicles that don’t use gasoline at all, 

the Chevy Volt for 40 miles is going to pay nothing in gas tax, 

nothing. Most commutes in the country are less than 40 miles, are 

they not, Director Ziegler? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, we heard the General Motors President actually speak to that. The Chevy Volt was designed with the 

idea in mind that the average worker travels 30 miles to and from 

a job. That’s why they went with 40 to be sure they got there and 

back, so they could plug it back in. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that really goes right to the point. So we’ve 

got a reality that is increasingly disconnected from the funding 

source, the reality of the need increasingly disconnected from the 

funding source. 

586 

Director Ziegler, can you review what your organization, who are 

the Directors of Transportation around the country, have talked 

about in terms of alternatives to using the gas tax as the sole provider of revenue? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Yes, I can, Mr. Chairman. The SafetyLou, the bill 

that expired September 30th, 2009, required that a commission for 

transportation policy and funding be set up. That commission went 

around the country, I believe they had four or five hearings. I testified on one of those hearings, the one in Minneapolis, April 2007, 

and what their conclusion was that there isn’t one particular revenue source that can or should be used. 

Mr. Chairman, as you indicated, the gas tax, we already recognize the fact that we’re going to get more fuel efficiency out of vehicles, more electric vehicles. So they talked a lot about gas tax was 

one, even though it’s decreasing. They talked about VMT, which is 

Vehicle Miles Traveled, and so there’s two states, Oregon and Minnesota. Oregon has completed their pilot study on VMT. 

What that means is that there’s something on the vehicle that 

records and at every fill, gasoline fill you record as to how many 

miles you traveled and you pay taxes accordingly. So that’s another—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So this would be—just help me understand because I remember from a previous hearing you testifying on this 

vehicle mile travel concept. 

There would be something in your vehicle that would keep track 

of how many miles you’ve gone and you would pay based on vehicle 

miles, not on—you wouldn’t be paying gas tax the way we do now? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. Or maybe it’d be some combination? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. It could be a combination, Mr. Chairman, but that 

is the idea. There’s a tracking device on the vehicle that says how 

many miles you’ve traveled. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Then there are others. Public/private partnerships 

and those the Secretary, current Secretary of Transportation is also 

talking about those. Mr. Chairman, the State of North Dakota is 

doing public/public partnerships. 

Cities of Fargo and West Fargo helped us build the last interchange that was built on 9th Street in between Fargo and West 

Fargo. Fargo, the city of, is also helping the Department of Transportation pay for the added lane on I–94. So that’s a significant 

public/public partnership that we have with Fargo and West Fargo. 

All the urban areas that we’ve built, whether it’s at Wahpeton, 

whether it’s at Bowman, there is local participation up to the 

amount of 20 percent, but those communities and those public/public partnerships and the public/private partnerships that the Secretary of Transportation’s talking about would have more investment from the private sector. 

The CHAIRMAN. If we were looking at—one of the things that’s 

been recommended is toll roads and when I was in Mott earlier 

today, they told me on the Enchanted Highway, for example, that 

somebody had recommended to them toll roads. Well, you know, 

that doesn’t work out here for lots of reasons, but, Director Ziegler, 

can you tell us why? Tolls have been analyzed here, right? 

587 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, that was about the fourth or fifth 

item that the commission talked about, was toll roads, and here in 

North Dakota we don’t have enough traffic to support the system 

with toll roads alone, and kind of facetiously, Mr. Chairman, I 

made the statement that if we started tolling our roads, our section 

lines would get pretty heavy use. 

But the fact is that we don’t have enough vehicles to pay for the 

roads. 

The CHAIRMAN. And is there a rule of thumb, Director Ziegler, 

with respect to, on this issue of toll roads, at what level of traffic 

you have to have to make that a practical alternative? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, what our department has studied is 

what it takes just to maintain our system. When we finished with 

our last budget, we analyzed what it’s going to cost us to just maintain it. Those are the orange trucks, the materials that they use, 

and that does not include the investment in the infrastructure, but 

it takes 2,700 vehicles a day to make that happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. 2,700 vehicles a day just to—that’s the gas tax 

return on those vehicles—— 

Mr. ZIEGLER. That is correct. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Just to do the maintenance. 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Just to do the maintenance. 

The CHAIRMAN. One other thing I should have to enter the record 

is the rule of thumb with respect to four-laning. 

I know there are rules of thumb for this in transportation circles. 

Can you help us understand what is the rule, the basic rule of 

thumb to justify four-laning, the level of traffic? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, different states have different rules 

of thumb and I know that South Dakota is at 6,000 vehicles a day. 

Our neighbors south, South Dakota, I talked to their director recently, they’re at 10,000 vehicles a day. Minnesota’s at 12,000 vehicles a day. Our AASHTO, our Association, studies those types of 

things and they recommend between 4 and 12,000 vehicles. You 

take a look at Super 2 and after 12,000, you look at four-laning. 

The CHAIRMAN. After 12,000. Now just to put that in perspective, 

what do we have on 85 and Highway 12? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. 85 and Highway 12? Looking back on the chart, on 

85, South Dakota 294, we’re at an average of 1,302 vehicles per 

day. The high is 3,758 and the high is right here in Bowman proper where, as you can see if you drive around the city, there’s an 

influence of each one of the communities where people are traveling to businesses, back and forth, restaurants, schools, churches, 

and those types of things, but that’s within the communities. So 

that’s—but we work on the basis of averages. 

So from South Dakota to I–94, it’s 1,300 average. I–94 to Watford 

City it’s 1,748 average and that includes trucks, and then Watford 

City to Williston is 2,828, and that was one of the reasons that I 

had recommended a Super 2 so that we could get some quicker action so that we could get cars to be able to pass all the caravans 

of trucks that we have. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Let me just say this. We have just a few 

minutes left in this hearing. If there’s anybody here in the audience that would like to provide testimony to the committee, we will 

leave the record open for 10 days, but if somebody would want to 

588 

stand and be recognized now to make a statement for the record, 

we’d be happy to take that testimony at this point. 

Yes, sir. If you’d identify yourself for the record and who you’re 

affiliated with or if you’re just representing yourself? 

Mr. BOWMAN. Senator Conrad, I’m Senator Bowman. All of Highway 12 is within my district and three-fourths of 85. So I’m currently familiar with the traffic, but the one thing that’s been left 

out of this discussion is that the potential even for Bowman’s oil, 

after the pressure goes down, ConocoPhillips said they’re going to 

come in and re-energize the field. 

Well, here we go with all this traffic again and all these new 

trucks and all this equipment is going to be back in here. What’s 

the benefit of that? A lot more production for a lot longer time and 

that also has its toll on the roads that we’re discussing. 

We haven’t even talked about that up north yet because we’re 

just seeing the beginning of production, but the long term from 

what I’ve read, we’re going to see this for a long, long time and 

then we don’t know how much commerce is going to be developed 

because of the huge vast amount of oil. That can lead to a lot more 

truck traffic or other traffic down the road in 10 or 15 years. 

Are we preparing ourselves for the future or are we only going 

to talk about that? I think it’s important that we start to visualize 

the future out here and what great potential we have. 

With that, I thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Senator Bowman, and I think the 

point you’re making is very important because so much of what is 

done in terms of building is based on historic counts, isn’t it, and 

with the point that you’re making, which we really have to pay attention to, is where’s all this headed? 

Mr. BOWMAN. Correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. When we’ve got, by probably the most conservative estimate, 4.5 billion barrels that’s recoverable between 

Bakken and Three Forks, I say that’s very conservative. I believe 

it is substantially more than that that’s going to prove to be recoverable. 

So we really have to not only look in the rearview mirror, we got 

to look in the windshield at where we’re headed, and I think that’s 

the point Senator Bowman is making here, and we better be paying 

attention to where this is all headed because it’ll be upon us and 

then we’re reacting and we’ll be behind the curve. I think that’s the 

point Senator Bowman is making and he’s exactly right. 

Francis, would you like to respond? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, Senator Bowman’s comments are 

right on. We certainly need to look ahead and when I look ahead, 

Mr. Chairman, there are times when there’s an overwhelming feeling, the fact that the entire state’s infrastructure system’s suffering, whether it’s in the oil country, whether it’s in the Devils 

Lake area, Pothole Region, or where we were last week at 

Wahpeton. 

We have just an overwhelming job and I guess the best start that 

I can suggest is that we get a transportation bill, a long-term bill 

that will address the funding needs that we have. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just conclude the hearing on this note. 

Direct Ziegler’s pointed out what some of the more urban states are 

589 

trying to do. They are trying to, in effect, wall off a big chunk of 

highway spending and transit spending for them because the current formula recognizes that we’ve got a national transportation 

structure and that the more rural sparsely populated places of the 

country need more money. We get $2 for every dollar we send in. 

The more urban parts of the country see that and they want to 

get money that has traditionally come to us. I mean that’s what 

this is about. So they have come up with this new proposal, I could 

say—call it something else, but I’ll call it a proposal and they’re 

trying to wall off money for communities that have 500,000 people 

and more. 

Those of us who represent more rural areas have said, OK, if 

you’re going to do that, you got to dedicate at least a third of it 

to rural areas and that’s the proposal that Senator Barrasso and 

I introduced before this most recent break in Congress. We have 

11 of our colleagues have joined us, about evenly divided between 

Republicans and Democrats, all from more rural parts of the state. 

But, look, we understand. The House is based on population. The 

membership is based on population. So California’s got more than 

50 representatives in the House of Representatives. North Dakota’s 

got one. So we’ve got to use our position in the Senate where every 

state gets two in order to get any kind of fair result. That’s just 

reality and so that’s why these hearings are important. 

I want to thank all of the witnesses for taking their time to be 

here today, to help us build the record. I want to thank Senator 

Bowman for your testimony, as well, and to indicate we’re going to 

be a very tough fight. 

Before we conclude, Francis or any of the other witnesses, any 

final comment you’d want to make for the record? 

Mr. ZIEGLER. Mr. Chairman, again, I appreciate the opportunity 

to testify to you and your committee and certainly look forward to 

working with you for a long-term transportation bill. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. We’re going to have a challenge. 

Anything else you’d like to add, Mayor James or Cal? 

Mr. KLEWIN. Just quickly. One of the things that we’re trying to 

do as far as the Theodore Roosevelt Expressway and one of the 

things that I think you are familiar with, we’re working through 

a corridor management plan right now, taking a look at some of 

the things, the potential for economic development, issues as far as 

transportation, and that’s what we’re trying to do, is look into the 

future—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. KLEWIN [continuing]. And get a vision of that and we’re 

working on that as we can with our alliance and showing the entire 

corridor and hopefully we’ll get a vision of what the potential is 

with that corridor management plan. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for that and thank all of the witnesses. Director Ziegler, Mayor James, Cal, thank you very, very 

much. Thanks all of you for being here, and we’ll declare the hearing adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:09 p.m., the hearing was adjourned] 

(591) 

FIELD HEARING: STUMP LAKE FLOODING 

ISSUES 

FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, 

COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Lakota, North Dakota 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:19 a.m. in the 

Sunlac Inn, 310 4th Avenue, SE, Lakota, ND 58344, Hon. Kent 

Conrad, chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. The hearing will come to order. I want to welcome everyone this morning to this hearing of the Senate Budget 

Committee. This is an official hearing of the committee and so we 

will be operating by the Rules of the U.S. Senate. 

An official record of this hearing is being kept. The title of this 

hearing is The Devils Lake Basin Flooding Disaster: A Stump Lake 

Perspective. 

592 

I want to begin by welcoming our distinguished witnesses here 

today. Todd Sando, the State Engineer for the State Water Commission, no longer the Acting State Engineer but now the fully 

fledged State Engineer. Congratulations, Todd, and it’s good to 

have you here. 

Odell Flaagan, the Chairman of the Nelson County Board of 

Commissioners. Ben Varnson, the Chairman and Manager of the 

Upper Sheyenne Water Resource Board. Sharon Young, the Emergency Manager for Nelson County. 

Welcome to all of you. Thank you for testifying. I look forward 

to hearing from each of you and look forward very much to filling 

out the record in the series of hearings that we have been holding 

on the crisis in the Devils Lake Basin. 

As you know, we have held hearings in Devils Lake. We have 

held hearings in Valley City. We have had a hearing in Lisbon. We 

have had a hearing in West Fargo, and now Stump Lake completes 

this series of hearings. 

There will be a critically important meeting in Washington on 

September 3rd and everyone now has agreed to attend that meeting or be represented at that meeting, both upstream and downstream, the state leadership, the Governor, the congressional delegation, as well as the full membership of the Federal task force. 

As a result of the flooding, we know that tens of thousands of 

acres of productive farmland have been flooded and hundreds of 

homes have had to be moved. The transportation network, including the roads and rail line, has been disrupted and the local economy continues to take a hit. 


58154.427
593 

Here are NASA photographs showing the dramatic increase in 

the size of Stump Lake between August 1984 and September of 

2009. I don’t know if those in the back can see it but this shows 

the very dramatic expansion of Stump Lake. 


58154.428 58154.429
594 

Since 1996, Stump Lake has risen more than 50 feet. In 1999, 

Devils Lake began to flow into Stump Lake and in 2007 the lakes 

equalized. Since then, the combined lakes have continued to rise, 

reaching a record elevation this year of 1,452 feet. The lake is now 

within six feet of the natural overflow. Finding solutions to prevent 

an uncontrolled overflow is in everyone’s best interest. 

The next slides tell us what the experts are saying about the continuation of this wet cycle. They are saying that there is no way 

to predict exactly when a normal cycle will return, but they have 

told us there is a 72 percent chance that the wet cycle will continue 

for 10 years or more, a 37 percent chance it will continue for at 

least 30 years, and a 14 percent chance that it will continue for at 

least 60 years. 


58154.430
595 

Simulations show a substantial risk that the lake will reach the 

spill elevation of 1,458 feet. When this flooding crisis began, we 

worked cooperatively on a three-pronged strategy: upper basin storage, protecting infrastructure, and the construction of an outlet. It 

is a strategy that we have pursued aggressively. 

So far we have secured more than $700 million in Federal resources that have been allocated to protect the region and there 

will be an additional $200 million spent this year for a total of 

more than $900 million in Federal resources. Over $400 million to 

keep the road network intact. There has been FEMA expenditures 

of more than $84 million repairing damage to public infrastructure. 


58154.391
596 

The Corps of Engineers has spent $200 million since 1993 on the 

levee and evaluation of the Federal outlet and other protective 

measures. 

Just parenthetically, I want to say that in 2000–2001, the delegation secured agreement for a Federal outlet of 300 cfs. The cost 

at that time was over $200 million. When we shared that information—and, by the way, we got initial funding for the construction 

of that outlet, as well. When we shared that information with the 

state and local leadership, they determined that a 35 percent share 

of that $200 million was more than they can afford. Their share 

would have been $72 million. 

I regret very much that we did not go forward with that Federal 

outlet. We had the Federal funding secured. We had the approval 

of every level of the Federal Government, including the Council on 

Environmental Quality, but the determination was made that 72 

million of state and local costs was simply too much, that a state 

outlet could be constructed for less, and, of course, it could be constructed for less. 

But, of course, it was also an outlet with much less capacity. The 

initial capacity of the state outlet was a 100 cfs, now increased to 

250 cfs. The Federal outlet at 300 cfs, if that had been in place for 

these years, would have made a meaningful difference, but there’s 

no sense looking back because we’ve got to deal with what is today 

and what is today is we have the state outlet at 250 cfs and it is 

moving a substantial amount of water. Anyone who doubts that 

need only go look at the state outlet to see how much water is 

being moved. 

There are many options to be considered and the options going 

forward include what can we do about additional protective measVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00602 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.384
597 

ures, including raising roads and the levee, relocating threatened 

structures, providing other infrastructure protection. We can focus 

on maximizing operation of the state outlet. We can construct an 

east end outlet and/or control structure via the Jerusalem or Tolna 

Coulee. 

We are re-examining upper basin storage, although I think it’s 

quite clear that Mother Nature has done a pretty big job of upper 

basin storage. This lake has expanded from 49,000 acres to a 

180,000 acres. That’s a huge amount of storage just in the lake 

and, of course, anybody who’s gone north, and I think probably everyone in this room has, knows how much of the wetlands have 

been already filled by these incredibly wet conditions. 


58154.387
598 

Finally, should discharges out of the west end of the lake be enhanced and, if so, what are the best options to accomplish that? So 

there are many options to be considered and it will take time and 

a coordinated effort to choose the best ones going forward, and it 

will require close consultation and cooperation with downstream interests, as well. 

This is now much more than a Devils Lake Basin crisis. This is 

a crisis that threatens not only upstream but downstream, as well, 

and we’ve tried to make that point in hearings in Valley City and 

West Fargo and Lisbon, helping them see what could happen to 

them if there’s an uncontrolled release of water here. 

Since the May Flood Summit, the Administration has convened 

a working group at our request to evaluate all options and everything has been on the table, including every kind of suggestion that 

has come to us, everything from armoring the coulee on the east 

end to additional west end outlet and capacity to moving water to 

the oil fields of Western North Dakota. We’ve also looked at piping 

water directly over to the Red. So every conceivable option is being 

evaluated. 


58154.429
599 

The working group at the Federal level has representation from 

all of the relevant Federal agencies, including the Corps of Engineers, and in fact is led by the Corps of Engineers, FEMA, the Department of Transportation, USDA, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 

the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Geological Survey, 

and others. 

As I’ve indicated before, the group’s recommendations are now 

anticipated in September. We’d given them a deadline of September 9th. They were on track to report by September 7th, but 

in coordination and consultation with all of the relevant players, 

we have decided that it is critically important before they reach 

conclusion that we have another meeting in Washington on September 3rd and we have been advised, if we choose to do that, that 

that will put back the report until approximately September 20th. 

So we had to make a decision. Would we prefer to have a conference call and keep to the reporting date of September 7th or did 

we think it was so important that we have an additional face to 

face meeting on September 3rd which was the only date that we 

could coordinate everyone’s schedules, that the final report be put 

off to September 20th? We made the decision that it was so important that we have everyone together face to face that we would do 

the meeting on September 3rd, even though we know that that 

puts off the report until probably September 20th. 

I know there are those here today who favor an outlet at the 

Tolna Coulee. This option is being carefully considered by the 

working group and is clearly one of the options that is before us. 

I look forward to hearing this area’s perspectives today and intend to share what we learn at this hearing with all the participants. 


58154.386
600 

With that, we’ll turn to our witnesses and again want to thank 

them very much for being here today. Thank all of those who are 

in attendance, as well. 

Let me just say this is an official hearing. That means we follow 

the Rules of the U.S. Senate and the Rules are this. Number 1, 

that each of the witnesses is recognized in turn, that they are given 

a full chance to express their views, that we don’t express openly 

our agreement or disagreement with the views expressed, so that 

people feel that they can express their views fully and clearly without fear of being shouted at or harangued. That’s one of the rules 

that we follow. 

Second rule that we follow is that when the witnesses are done 

and the questioning period is done, we will open it up for public 

comment. That is, for additional testimony. If somebody wants to 

stand and be recognized and give their name, they will be permitted to testify, as well. 

So those are the Rules that we will follow today. With that, Todd, 

welcome. Good to have you here, and why don’t you proceed with 

your testimony? 

STATEMENT OF TODD SANDO, P.E., NORTH DAKOTA STATE ENGINEER, AND CHIEF ENGINEER-SECRETARY TO THE NORTH 

DAKOTA STATE WATER COMMISSION 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Thank you, Senator. My name’s Todd Sando. I’m 

the State Engineer and Chief Engineer and Secretary to the State 

Water Commission. 

I’ve been able to speak before you at four of the five hearings 

that started July 8th in Devils Lake and now almost 2 months 

later we’re here at Stump Lake. So my comments today, I’ll just 

summarize them, they’ll be more related to the east end and dealing with Tolna Coulee and Stump Lake. 

Just for a little background, I just want to point—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just interrupt you for 1 minute because I 

want to—— 

Mr. SANDO. Sure. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Introduce Andrea Trevnick who is 

here representing the Governor? Andrea, why don’t you stand? Andrea is the Senior Policy Analyst, I believe, for the Governor, and 

has been at others of our hearings. Of course, the Governor’s been 

at all of our hearings so far, could not be with us today, but we’re 

very glad that Andrea’s here. 

Thank you. I apologize. Go ahead, Todd. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. No problem. As you know, Devils Lake flooding 

is one of our most critical issues in the state of North Dakota and 

we’ve been at this for 17 years, fighting this flood, and as you 

pointed out with your graphs, you pointed out how Stump Lake has 

risen dramatically, from 1,401 up to 1,452. 

We’ve been working toward, like you said, a three- pronged solution and Stump Lake and Tolna Coulee is a critical part of our solutions for alleviating the flood situation here at Devils Lake and 

as you know, since 1993, lake after lake has been consumed by 

Devils Lake and it’s been spreading and spreading and now, you 

know, Stump Lake is part of Devils Lake, as well as Chain Lakes, 

Lake Alice, Lake Irvine, Dry Lake, Pelican Lake. They’ve all been 

601 

consumed by Devils Lake, and we’re approaching the natural overflow elevation and that is at 1,458. 

East Stump Lake and West Stump Lake are the bottom of the 

Devils Lake chain. So all the water moves from west to east and 

has been filling up all the Chain Lakes to the north and now it’s 

filled up Stump Lake and the current elevation of Devils Lake is 

at 1,451.6. So the last few weeks we’ve had some significant evaporation, so that’s been good, some winds. It’s been running hard at 

250 cfs, so we peaked out at 1,452. We’re at 1,451.6 right now. 

The issue at Tolna Coulee is all the divides at 1,412. A couple 

of years ago there’s a lot of sediment that’s been deposited and it 

was up around 1,459. The city of Devils Lakes bought the Tolna 

Coulee where it comes out of East Stump Lake and they did a 

project there. They lowered the divide elevation by removing the 

sediment that’s accumulated since statehood and they lowered that 

from 1,459 to 1,458. So that’s what the elevation is right now, the 

natural elevation that’s been determined is 1,458. So we’re about 

six feet from overflow. 

And the issue at hand with Tolna Coulee is a lot of it has to do 

with the water quality issues, too. As you know, Stump Lake has 

sulfate levels of 2,500 mg/l, where the main part of the lake and 

where we’re been taking water off of ground lake for the west end, 

all that is like 575 mg/l. So one of the issues we’ve had is receiving 

waters downstream which is the Sheyenne River where we’ve been 

taking water out of Devils Lake and we had a standard on the 

Upper Sheyenne of 450 mg/l and we had emergency rule put in 

place last year when we started running the outlet nonstop at a 

100 cfs. 

The emergency rule was able to put water with sulfate levels up 

to 750 mg/l. So we—— 

The CHAIRMAN. So let’s go over this math once again, Todd, because it’s very important that we understand the different sulfate 

levels. 

This lake, I think, kind of defies the common understanding of 

what a lake would be like. You know, in my mind’s eye, the quality 

of water in a lake would be pretty much from one part of the lake 

to another. That’s not the case in this lake, is it? 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. Most of the fresh water that comes in 

to the lake comes in through Mahvay Coulee, the northwest end of 

the lake, comes through the Chain of Lakes or through Channel A, 

through Dry Lake. So the fresher water comes in that way. So the 

fresher water is in the northwest and as you move from West Bay 

to Main Bay to East Bay to East Devils Lake to East Stump Lake 

to—the water quality deteriorates and the levels of sulfate increase. So there is a dramatic difference from one end of the lake 

to the other. 

The CHAIRMAN. Let me just say people in the back are having 

a hard time hearing. So if you can speak directly into the microphone as you can, can people hear that in the back? That’s OK? 

OK. So even hold it up would be fine, Todd. 

So let me ask you this. Let’s go over the numbers again. Sulfate 

levels in the west part of Devils Lake are what? 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Currently, sulfate levels at Brown Lake in the 

west part of the lake are at 575 mg/l or it’s equivalent to ppm, too. 

602 

The CHAIRMAN. 575 ppm. That’s sulfate levels in the western 

part of the lake which is where the state outlet is. 

Mr. SANDO. That’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. You are permitted to go to 750 ppm of sulfates? 

Mr. SANDO. Yep. That’s why we have the emergency rule in place 

for the Upper Sheyenne to one mile below Lake Ashtabula. We can 

go up to 750 mg/l and we haven’t had to push up to that because 

Devils Lake water is only 575. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. And why is there a limit on sulfates at 750 

ppm? 

Mr. SANDO. It’s related to municipal domestic use and to the environment and it’s an environmental and also issue with water 

quality for using for municipal irrigation, for all the other types of 

purposes downstream. 

The CHAIRMAN. And what would be wrong with having higher 

levels of sulfates than the 750 ppm? 

Mr. SANDO. Higher than 750? You know, that’s monitored by the 

health department and the health department has primacy over, 

EPA over the program for water quality standards. Above 750, I 

don’t know what the criteria are. I really couldn’t answer those 

questions. It’d have to be the state health department. 

The CHAIRMAN. At previous hearings, the state health department has said the general rule of thumb is you don’t want to go 

above 450 sulfate levels, that 750 is something that we can handle 

in terms of water treatment downstream, but when you go above 

that, you begin to have question about health issues and the ability 

of people’s systems to handle those higher sulfate levels, and, you 

know, the problem is if you go substantially higher, you then risk 

people getting sick downstream. 

So what are the sulfate levels out of Stump Lake, according to 

your measurements? 

Mr. SANDO. Our measurements, USGS does the measurements 

for us and most recent readings are 2,500 mg/l or ppm in Stump 

Lake. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. And in terms of places in between, so it goes 

from 575 ppm in the west to 2,500 in Stump Lake, how about 

places in between? 

Mr. SANDO. OK. We’ve been looking at the Main Lake and East 

Devils Lake and as you move from, you know, east back toward the 

west, the water quality does start improving and, for example, East 

Devils Lake, the sulfate levels in East Devils Lake are about 1,100 

ppm. So that’s significantly different than the 2,500 ppm in Stump 

Lake. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Please continue. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Regarding that, you know, when we’re talking 

sulfate levels, since the standard is this 750, we’re unable to discharge water above that number because—so right now, with the 

standards the way they are in the Sheyenne River, we wouldn’t be 

able to discharge any water from Stump Lake through Tolna Coulee and actually would not be able to discharge water from East 

Devils Lake unless, you know, we had water to blend and mix with 

it to bring it down to 750. 

So what we’ve been doing for the last couple years, we’ve built 

that outlet on the west end and we initially built it for a 100 cfs. 

603 

That completed construction in 2005. We were able to get a little 

bit of water up, but because of the constraints, the constraints at 

that time were 450, and we could hardly get any water out the 

west end outlet. 

In fact, in 2006 we were unable to even turn the west end outlet 

on. So in 2006 we did not even move any water out of Devils Lake. 

Then 2007 came and we started discharging a little bit of water 

and 2008 got a little bit more out. Then in the Winter of 2009, as 

everyone knows, that was one of our worst winters on record and 

we had record inflows into Devils Lake. We had 590,000 acre feed 

enter Devils Lake and the lake came up three feet and the emergency just got really, really critical. 

So at that point, that’s when we started to design upsizing the 

outlet to go from a 100 cfs to 250 cfs and this past winter we constructed it, did winter construction and upsized the outlet from a 

100 to 250 cfs and in June we started operations, additional operations by discharging 250 cfs instead of 100. So since the middle 

of June we’ve been running at 250 cfs. So we’ve been getting a significant amount of water out. 

As you know, you know, this has been ongoing for 17 years and 

the lake’s up 30 feet and there’s only six more feet to go. We’re 

kind of behind the eight ball now and the probabilities and risks, 

I’ve testified about that, how the risks of the overflow’s very significant. 

The CHAIRMAN. What—I think it’s important that you repeat 

that testimony here that you provided at previous hearings with respect to the risk. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Regarding risk, the stochastic model that the 

Federal Government, USGS, has been modeling Devils Lake with 

and they show that there’s a 13 percent probability that Devils 

Lake could overflow in the next—within the next 20 years. 

The CHAIRMAN. A 13 percent chance, 1–3. 

Mr. SANDO. Yeah. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, it seems odd to many of us that the 

odds—that they put the odds that low, given the fact the lake went 

up three and a half feet last year, went up two feet this year. 

How do they come up with the calculation that there’s only a 13 

percent chance that there is an uncontrolled release of water? 

Mr. SANDO. The period of record’s very critical in determining, 

you know, the risk and what the statistics show and they’ve been 

actually showing 1980 to current. So they actually—their statistics 

include a drought period, 1988 to 1992. 1988 was a very severe 

drought and that’s back when Devils Lake was down around 1,422 

and we’re worried about a major fish kill and so the GS has been 

using that 1980 to 2000, that 30-year period, as their record. 

So that’s why the probabilities look lower. In fact, now the GS 

has even taken another look at it, just taking wet years, 1993 to 

current, and the statistics and risk is even higher. I think the numbers are over 20 percent chance if you use the wetter period of it 

overflowing, not this 13 percent number, but they didn’t want to 

be seen as, you know, kind of like cooking the books and just taking the worst years. So they put in the 1980’s drought with their 

statistics. 

604 

The CHAIRMAN. Can I just say this? I mean, it just seems to me 

they’re not dealing with reality and I’ve seen this year after year 

after year. Their predictions have been wrong by a huge factor. 

Over and over they say you’ve got a 1:100 chance of it going up X 

feet and we do it. I mean, I went through this in a previous meeting. Their predictions of what the odds were about this lake going 

up and they have been so far off, they’re not even in the same ballpark as to what’s happened. 

So I think one message we need to send today is they need to 

throw these models out. They’ve been wrong by a country mile year 

after year after year. So I personally put about zero credibility behind their estimates. We know in 4,000 years of history that this 

lake has gone over three times and we are on the exact same trend 

line as what we’ve seen before. 

So this notion that there’s only a 13 percent risk to me just lacks 

credibility and I know that’s not your prediction. I’m not faulting 

you for that. This is a message we need to send to USGS. As far 

as I’m concerned, it just has no credibility. 

Mr. SANDO. And that’s why they did look at a wetter period now, 

too, to see what the potential is for overflow and the lake continuing to rise and they have to look at all the different—I mean, 

they look at 10,000 different traces. So they’ve looked at a whole 

range. I’m not here to defend them or anything, but that’s how they 

develop it. 

It’s not actual forecasts that they think the lake’s going to do 

that in a given year. They just say, OK, here’s the probabilities 

based on the longer-term trend. It’s not—— 

The CHAIRMAN. If we get predictions from them, I mean, I’ve 

read them at previous meetings, their predictions of what the lake 

would do and repeatedly—I mean, I remember at one point we had 

3 years in a row where they said it was a 100:1 shot that it would 

go up that much and we’ve done it. So they’ve got year by year predictions and none of them have been right. I mean not even close 

to being right. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. Continuing on then to talking about this risk, 

even this last 2 months, the probabilities have changed even in 

their model. Their models, I had testified earlier, if you had operated at 250 cfs in conjunction with the conditions out there, there’s 

a 9-percent—we’d reduce the risk from 13 to 9 percent—I mean to 

7 percent. 

Well, now that the summer’s been wet all summer long and the 

lake’s stayed, you know, high all summer, the risk now has gone 

from a 7-percent in my earlier testimonies to 9 percent, even with 

a 250 cfs outlet, and that does include the 1980’s drought period, 

too. So the risk is very high and, you know, when we develop 

floodplains, we’re worried about a 1-percent risk. 

So that’s why, you know, not to defend the GS and everything 

but when we start seeing numbers, you know, double digit numbers, it’s an extremely high risk. 

The CHAIRMAN. The other thing I just want to say before we go 

further, I want to make sure, Tracy, that when we have the meeting in September 3rd, that we have the year-by-years of what they 

said was the chance of the lake going up by the amounts that it 

has and that we have that for a presentation because if we don’t 

605 

start out with the proper evaluation of the risk, we’re not going to 

make the right decisions about how we avoid what would be a catastrophe not only here but for everybody downstream, as well. 

Mr. SANDO. OK. That kind of explains the risk and what’s been 

happening, getting back to things that are on the table. As I testified earlier, we’d like to try to move additional water out the west 

end, you know, upsizing, longer periods of operation. 

We’d also like to do something else somewhere out the east end 

and I want to talk about that a little bit more, what some of the 

options are there. Like you said, everything’s on the table. We’re 

looking every direction out in Devils Lake Basin to try and move 

water, if it’s the Forest River, if it’s the Goose River, if it’s the 

Sheyenne River, if it’s the Souris River. 

So we’ve been doing a lot of analyzing and one of them that’s 

been kind of coming to the forefront is trying to get water out of 

East Devils Lake because the water quality is significantly different there than actually in Stump Lake. So we’ve been looking 

at trying to design a gravity channel and I’d really like the Federal 

task force to give that very good consideration, trying to take water 

out of East Devils Lake through the Black Slough Area. 

You can follow right through the Black Slough. That is another 

area that the lake has overflowed in the last 10,000 years. The elevations there are higher than Tolna Coulee. Tolna Coulee is at 

1,458. We think the Black Slough Area’s at 1,465. So it’s like seven 

feet higher over in that area. 

The CHAIRMAN. And how much are we pumping? To what height 

are we pumping on the west end? 

Mr. SANDO. We’re—OK. To answer that question, we’re actually 

pumping it over a hundred-foot hill. So there’s a hundred feet that 

we’re going up. 

The CHAIRMAN. And that’s expensive to pump water. 

Mr. SANDO. Right. 

The CHAIRMAN. So if we could come out of East Devils Lake, we’d 

only have to pump up 10 feet? 

Mr. SANDO. If we could come out of East Devils Lake, I mean, 

you could have—if it’s at 65, ideally, I think we’d look at trying to 

cut a gravity channel so it would just flow out and naturally put 

a control structure of some type, a gate on it, and let it come out 

that way, and then there wouldn’t be any operating costs with electricity. For example, our west end outlet right now, it costs us $2 

million a year just in electricity to run the outlet. It’s $325,000 a 

month for 250. 

So if we go upsize the west end, let’s say if we want to double 

it, it’d cost us $4 million a year just in electricity costs just to run 

the outlet. So that’s why we’ve been—we’re trying to look at getting 

further to the east where we don’t have such hurdles of, you know, 

high hills and lifting so much water out. But as you move from 

west to east, the water quality deteriorates. 

So I think it’s a good balance over at East Devils Lake, you 

know. The water quality’s at 1,100. The lift isn’t much there. So 

we can get the water out a lot easier. So I’d really like the Federal 

task force to really give that a closer consideration. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

606 

Mr. SANDO. In conclusion, Tolna Coulee, there’s a lot of different 

perspectives out there. I just want to mention downstream people, 

we’ve got to take them into consideration, too. They are really concerned about the amount of water that would come out of Tolna 

Coulee and the quality of water. So there’s people downstream that 

are interested in hardening Tolna Coulee at the 1,458 elevation. 

There’s even people out there that would like to see it higher. 

The people in the Devils Lake Region would like to see a controlled structure/outlet out at Tolna Coulee and they’d like to see 

it lower. As you’ll hear from additional testimony today, you know, 

different perspectives. So it’s one of our most difficult decisions that 

needs to be made in water resources in our state right now, how 

to handle Tolna Coulee and how to get the water out, because it 

impacts people in so many different ways, from the people in the 

Devils Lake Region to the people downstream. So it’s going to 

have—we’re going to have to find some type of happy medium, but 

it’s a tough decision. 

So as of right now, there’s been resolutions from all different 

sides on this issue, from legislature, even the Water Commission 

staff, Water Commission members, you know, wanting to do certain 

things, and as you’ll hear today, there’s a lot of different perspectives. 

So that concludes my testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Sando follows:] 

607 


58154.305
608 


58154.306
609 


58154.307
610 


58154.308
611 


58154.309
612 


58154.310
613 


58154.311
614 


58154.312
615 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Thank you, Todd. Thank you very much. 

Next, we’ll go to Odell Flaagan. Odell, the Chairman of the Nelson County Commissioners and Park Board. 

Welcome, Odell. Thank you. Let me just say before you begin 

how much I appreciate the extraordinary amount of effort and time 

that you have dedicated to this issue. 

Year after year after year, you have been unflagging in coming 

to the meetings, giving Nelson County perspective to these difficult 

issues, and I just want to publicly thank you for your long leadership on these issues. 

STATEMENT OF ODELL FLAAGEN, CHAIRMAN OF NELSON 

COUNTY COMMISSIONERS AND PARK BOARD 

Mr. FLAAGAN. Thank you, Senator. Honorable Senator Conrad 

and Committee Members, for the record, my name is Odell 

Flaagan, Chairman of the Nelson County Commission and Park 

Board. 

I’m here today to discuss the flooding issues of Stump Lake and 

Nelson County. Our first roads went underwater on May 25th, 


58154.313
616 

2005, at 1425. Today, these roads are 27 feet underwater at 52. We 

have lost many farms, including thousands of acres of tillable farmlands, since the lake started to rise. 

On August 4th, 2010, we have 573,083 acre feet of water in 

Stump Lake that covers 16,756 acres. We have lost many thousands of dollars to property tax due to decreased land values. We 

have one east-west county road left in the north side of Stump 

Lake which is in trouble, causing concerns about the accessibility 

to fire, ambulance, school buses, mail carriers, and agricultural 

base. 

As of today, we have three new housing units being built in the 

South Shores of Stump Lake, one major camping park on the north 

side, and our county park which has 85 permanent campsites and 

45 additional weekend sites. 

A major concern of the developers in the county is we don’t want 

the lake to become a lagoon or a holding pond in Nelson County. 

Nelson County is proposing to the State Water Commission and the 

Corps of Engineers to build a control structure in the Tolna Coulee 

just northwest of Tolna on our County Road 4, Leval Township, 

Section 29 and 30. This location is approximately one and a half 

miles southeast of the property owned by the city of Devils Lake. 

The proposed outlet would be at 1,446 to 48, so the water would 

stay at a natural flow for the Jerusalem Coulee and the West Outlet of Stump Lake. We feel that if the outlet breaks out naturally, 

we would lose three major roads north and east of Tolna, including 

the railroad trestle, and eventually take every road between Stump 

Lake and West Fargo. 

Nelson County feels that the cheapest way to avoid this scenario 

is to have no pumping costs and the State of North Dakota to control the flow of water in the Sheyenne River. This letter is to clarify 

the views of Nelson County Commission regarding Stump Lake. 

We support control structure in the Tolna Coulee outlet at Sump 

Lake and the gradual drawdown of the water to 1,447 and 48. We 

do not support the armoring of the Tolna Coulee at the present elevation. The Tolna Coulee is a natural outlet to Stump Lake and 

would not require any pumping costs. The drawdown of water to 

this elevation of 1,447 would free up about 50,000 acres of agricultural land in the Devils Lake-Stump Lake Basin that is currently 

flooded. 

We, the Commission of Nelson County, strongly support the control structure on the Tolna Coulee and do not support the armoring 

of the Tolna Coulee. We ask for your support. 

Thank you for your time and cooperation, Senator Conrad and 

Committee Members. We appreciate your time and support given 

to us in Nelson County. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Flaagan follows:] 

617 


58154.295
618 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Odell. Thank you very much for that 

important testimony, and now we’ll go to our other witnesses. We 

appreciate very much their being here, as well. 

Ben Varnson, the Chairman and Manager of the Upper 

Sheyenne River Joint Water Resource Board. 

STATEMENT OF BEN VARNSON, CHAIRMAN, NELSON COUNTY 

WATER RESOURCE DISTRICT 

Mr. VARNSON. Thank you, Senator. Apparently I wear several 

hats. I’m a member of the Nelson County Water Resource District 

and vis a vis Chairman. I’m a representative and serve on the 

Upper Sheyenne Joint Board where I am also Chairman of the 11 

counties that make up that Upper Sheyenne and Symbollio Dam 

to Sheridan County, as you well know, and I’m pleased to represent 

those folks, as well. 

This is a brief overview from our Water Resource District that 

I will present to you at this time. Following this presentation, there 

is a resolution that the Red River Joint Board, that we are also 

members of and serve on, and the Upper Sheyenne are accompanying my remarks. I won’t be reading that but that should also 

be placed in the record. 

The CHAIRMAN. Without objection, that will be part of the record. 

Mr. VARNSON. Thank you, sir. The Nelson County Water Resource District has in the past and will continue to help our region 

and county from adverse impacts caused by flooding. We will continue to work in concert with our watershed partners, the Red 

River Joint Board, the Upper Sheyenne Joint Board, the Devils 

Lake Basin Joint Board, into the future. 


58154.296
619 

Our County Water Resource District is a member of all of these 

three joint boards. Most recently, the Nelson County Water Board 

helped develop and approved the Red River Joint Water Resource 

Board’s support of a resolution for a Devils Lake structural outlet. 

The Upper Sheyenne Joint Board has written a letter of concurrence of this resolution. A copy of this resolution, as previously 

stated, is accompanying these brief remarks. 

Our county has for the past 15 years been proactive in the need 

of a cleanout of the Tolna Coulee. We have been involved with 

minor work on and below that outlet divide. We have helped facilitate meetings with downstream folks, including Valley City, Cass 

County, and the city of Devils Lake, to name a few. 

Stump Lake began filling in 1993 with heavy rains. This extreme 

wet cycle has continued and weather experts report that it may 

continue five–10 years out, as you very eloquently portrayed at the 

beginning of the hearing, or for future years. 

In 1993 and the few years that followed, our Water Resource District was challenged with replacing a washed- out culvert in Dutch 

Point Road resulting from heavy rains. At that time the water elevation of Stump Lake was 1,396. Today, there are over 30 miles of 

township and county roads that are presently lost to Stump Lake. 

Our records show maybe 10 more miles than what may more accurately be portrayed in other documents, but in our view our work 

with landowners and so forth, section lines and other prairie trails, 

we enhance that mileage. 

The water has risen approximately 56 feet to its present elevation of almost 1,452. Landowners, farmers, and ranchers continue to feel these negative impacts. Financial and other personal 

losses are devastating families here and in the entire region. 

Programs need to be adjusted fast to make dollars available to 

compensate the people who are losing all or large portions of their 

livelihoods. A recent finding is that CRP enrollments may not be 

available if water looks to be permanent. This must be corrected 

now because these landowners need to pasture for the new condition of their land. It is important that this be handled correctly and 

not be too shortsighted. 

Any measures to help landowners for income lost during a disaster, such as this, seems to get removed. It is our hope that this 

will be corrected as agriculture and recreation development need to 

be balanced. 

Nelson County Water Resource District supports the economic 

development of Stump Lake and the surrounding area but we need 

a wise review of water elevations and a natural water course release. Our Board has supported using the Tolna Coulee and a control protection plan from 1,447 to 52 elevation. We have been delayed by bad judgments and avoidance as to what may happen in 

a natural and serious discharge of water. This is certainly now an 

Eastern North Dakota dilemma. 

This concludes my remarks, along with the resolution previously 

mentioned. 

Thank you, Senator. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Varnson follows:] 

620 


58154.297
621 


58154.298
622 


58154.299
623 


58154.300
624 


58154.301
625 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Ben. Thank you very much for that 

important testimony, and next we’ll go to Sharon Young, who is the 

Head of Emergency Management here in Nelson County. 

Welcome and please proceed, Sharon. 


58154.302
626 

STATEMENT OF SHARON YOUNG, EMERGENCY MANAGER, 

NELSON COUNTY EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT 

Ms. YOUNG. Thank you. Thank you, Senator Conrad. For the 

record, my name is Sharon Young, and I’m the Emergency Manager here at Nelson County. 

I thank you for this opportunity to present some testimony about 

the flooding issues and their impact within the Nelson County portion of the Devils Lake Basin and in particular the Stump Lake 

area. 

I also thank you for this opportunity to provide input as you 

work toward a plan of action to deal with the chronic flooding and 

the threat of an uncontrolled spill to the Sheyenne River. 

I’m more or less going to give you some history, Senator Conrad. 

Here are some of the things that have gone on in our county since 

I’ve become emergency manager. 

Stump Lake was at an elevation of 1,414.6 when I became Nelson County’s emergency manager in October of 2003. Earlier this 

summer, as it’s already been testified, it reached an all-time high 

of 1,452.1 on June 27th. That’s an increase of 37 and a half feet 

in the time that I’ve been emergency manager. 

The lake has risen almost 50 feet since the wet cycle began in 

1993 and in just the past 2 years it has risen almost five feet with 

an increase of 77,477 acre feet, an increase of 1,855 acres. That’s 

almost three sections of land that have disappeared under the 

water in just these last 2 years. 

Stump Lake flooding has taken homes, farm buildings, and productive ag land, along with its property tax valuation. Area residents have lost portions of their livelihood with little or no compensation for their loss. Some have relocated to nearby farmsteads 

and some have actually had to move their homes. 

The lake has devoured 18 miles of county and township roads. 

We have citizens that are traveling many miles out of their way 

because all their roads are either closed or underwater. County 

Road 23 north of the lake will be lost next if the water rises another two feet. The elevation of that road is 1,454.5. This is a major 

route between Lakota and Tolna and is very important also for our 

emergency responders. 

Flooding has resulted in increased response time for ambulance, 

fire, and law enforcement vehicles and also increased our travel 

distances for school bus routes, mail routes, and getting to work 

and for our farmers getting to and from their fields. 

Flooding has caused some mental health issues related to longterm stress. We have experienced problems with water on private 

driveways, water in basements, and the accompanying mold, mildew, and cleanup issues, damage to electrical systems, plumbing 

systems, furnaces, water heaters, appliances, furniture, and carpet. 

We have had requests for pumps and sandbags by citizens trying 

to fight the flood fight. 

Rising Stump Lake has also created issues at Stump Lake Park. 

Stump Lake Park is county-owned and as such is a critical source 

of revenue for Nelson County. Over 16,000 people use our park annually, enjoying the park’s 100 campsites, three ball diamonds, 

docks, fishing stations, cafe, pavilion, and Pioneer Village. 

627 

The county has spent over $200,000 on improvements over the 

last few years and the park property, its buildings and infrastructure are currently valued at two million. Our 90-year-old pavilion 

is a historic landmark and was recently added to the National Register of Historic Places. 

Much of Northern Nelson County, which is also in the Devils 

Lake Basin, has been flooding for more than a decade, also a result 

of the prolonged wet cycle. The flooding has washed out roads, 

flooded crops and forced some rural residents from their homes. 

Over the past several years, Lake Loretta and McHugh Slough 

have spread over thousands of acres of land. The high water table 

in this part of the county has taxed water and sewer systems in 

the city of Michigan. The city has a drain that moves water from 

town to Lake Loretta in the northwest and in May, heavy rains 

along with lagoon problems, caused a water emergency wherein 

that city was without water for over a week. 

With that said as far as historical things, Nelson County has had 

Presidential declarations in 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 

1999, 2000, 2001, and we skipped till 2004, 2005, and last in 2009 

and 2010, all for flooding and ground saturation. We have received 

public assistance for each of those years but individual assistance 

for only two. 

With all that said, though, Nelson County has been proactive in 

its approach to the flood fight. In 2005, the County Commission 

and others lobbied the legislature for funding and received a half 

million earmarked for Nelson County flooding, over half of which 

was used for road repairs and the other half for water management 

projects. 

In November of 2009, again because of numerous flooding problems, Nelson County residents voted their approval to increase by 

10 mils to fund the maintenance of our farm-to-market roads. 

The county also contracted with the Red River Regional Council 

and the U.S. Department of Agriculture in May of 2009 to develop 

the Stump Lake Master Plan. The purpose of this document was 

to review the existing park facilities and make recommendations on 

how to develop future activities. Relocation of the pavilion and the 

cafe were addressed in this plan. 

Nelson County has recently requested assistance from the U.S. 

Corps of Engineers, Army Corps of Engineers, in constructing a 

permanent levee in Stump Lake Park. HESCO barrier was installed in May of 2009 and does provide protection to 1,453 but this 

is a temporary solution and the HESCO barrier began leaking and 

eroding this spring due to wave action. 

Governor Hoeven has sent a letter on our behalf to the Corps requesting flood protection techniques, emergency construction methods and inspection of existing flood projects. 

Nelson County has supported and sponsored a buyout or home 

acquisition through the hazard mitigation grant for one of our residents with historic flooding. Our county has obtained and 

prepositioned sandbags, Red Cross cleanup kits and maintained a 

close working association with the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, 

and the other voluntary organizations active in disaster. 

Our County Road Department and its road superintendent and 

staff have worked diligently maintaining and repairing our roads, 

628 

working within the oftentimes cumbersome parameters of FEMA 

requirements. 

The last proactive measure I’m going to mention is that recently 

our landowners voted to approve a $2.6 million Michigan spillway 

control project to divert pooling sheet water away from that city 

and also relieve about 40,000 acres of ag land and rural road flooding. 

This project is estimated to lower the level of Lake Loretta by 

about seven feet and if the spillway can operate at 50 cubic feet 

per second, it will remove about 18,000 acre feet annually. 

In conclusion, the state faces water quantity and water quality 

challenges in its quest for a workable solution to Devils Lake flooding. Ground saturation level is so high that we are just a couple 

rains, heavy rains away from a possible uncontrolled overflow. We 

need a control structure on the natural outlet from Stump Lake to 

Tolna Coulee to the Sheyenne River to manage water releases. 

When I first became emergency manager, one of my tasks was 

to go through the things in the office from the past years and to 

sort through and reorganize the office. I have an entire file drawer 

full of past studies done on the Devils Lake Basin, the Devils Lake 

flooding situation. 

Studies provide important information to those having to make 

big decisions and those trying to come up with the best solution 

that is best for all but we’ve just about run out of time for more 

studies. 

Senator Conrad and your Committee Members, we need your 

help now. We need to be a part of the solution here, too. Nelson 

County asks for your support of a control structure on the Tolna 

Coulee. 

Thank you for your time and effort. 

[The prepared statement of Ms. Young follows:] 

629 


58154.292
630 


58154.293
631 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Sharon, for really excellent testimony. I wish every member of the task force could have heard that 

for themselves and hear the testimony of this panel. It is very powerful about what’s happened here in Nelson County and the risk 

that exists to even further damage. I think it just is clear as it can 

be from the testimony of this panel. 

Let me ask if there’s any further comment that any of the witnesses here would want to make before we open it for testimony 

from those who are here in the audience. Odell? 

Mr. FLAAGAN. Senator, yes. I’ve had this comment that you 

heard before. It’s not the quality of water that’s killing us in Stump 

Lake. It’s the quantity and something’s got to be done with that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. You know, it is an enormously complicated 

situation, isn’t it, because we have so many different interests and 

they’re weighing in now with resolutions, as you quite appropriately have. We’ve got a need to prevent an uncontrolled release 

out of the east end. 

I think all of us would agree on that. I think downstream, not 

unanimously, there are people who have testified at these hearings 

in opposition to doing that. They just want to armor the Tolna Coulee. That is not a solution. That is not a solution. 


58154.294
632 

Water will find a way to move and we all know that and so just 

armoring Tolna Coulee, I must say with respect to those downstream who’ve advocated that, that is not a solution to the problems that we confront here. There are other outlets from this lake, 

other than through Stump Lake and the Tolna Coulee. We know 

that. So I just don’t see—some are saying just armor Tolna Coulee. 

That doesn’t solve the problem. 

Second. We have the issue here of the Stump Lake now being 

full and, you know, what is the future? 

Odell, you had in your testimony very clearly, you want this just 

to become a stagnant lake that’s not refreshed. Its water quality 

is not improved by the natural flow of this lake. That is a legitimate, very legitimate concern, and in fairness to the downstream, 

it is also fair to say they have a legitimate concern about the quality of water coming toward them. 

Already, we are spending millions of dollars to upgrade the water 

treatment at Valley City, but we know this water, if it comes out 

either side the lake, goes downstream and will have an effect on 

water quality and water quality is hugely important to everyone. 

So this is a very complicated set of issues and enormous resources have already been spent. As I indicated, the Federal Government has already spent $700 million, by the end of this year 

will have spent 900 million. Some have said, well, that’s a waste 

of money. I disagree. If we hadn’t spent that money, Devils Lake 

would be under 20 feet of water today. If we hadn’t done these 

things, Devils Lake would be cutoff already, and I do wish that the 

Federal outlet had been constructed. I wish that had been done. 

I think the 70 million that would have been state and local costs 

would have been money well spent, but, look, the decision was 

made to go in a different direction. We got to deal with what is. 

We got to deal with the circumstance we face now, and the circumstance we face now at 1,452 feet or close to that really requires 

urgent action. 

It requires urgent action to move water. That’s in all of our interests. That’s in the interest of Devils Lake. That’s in the interest of 

Stump Lake. That’s in the interest of Ramsay County, of Nelson 

County, and of every county downstream. 

As I tried to emphasize in the hearings in Valley City and the 

hearings in Lisbon and the hearings in West Fargo, we are all in 

this together. We are all in this together. Anybody downstream 

that thinks, well, you can just wall the water off up here and it’s 

not coming their way, I’ll tell you that’s not what history tells us. 

That is not what history tells us. 

So we together have to find actions that we can take and that 

is the agenda for the September 3rd meeting in Washington that 

many of you will participate in. 

Let me now open it to those who are here in the audience. If anybody would like to provide testimony under the Rules, stand, be 

recognized, give your name, who you represent. If you just represent yourself, so state, and then say for the record. We’d ask you 

to confine it 2 minutes. Say whatever you think is important to be 

part of this record. 

Would anybody like to be recognized? Let me just indicate I will 

also leave the hearing record open for 10 days. So if you want to 

633 

send a letter, you want to send—doesn’t have to be a formal letter. 

If you want to jot down some notes about what you think should 

be done, I would be happy to make that part of the formal record, 

and as I say I will leave the record open for 10 days so that people 

have an opportunity. If you leave here and you think, gee, I wish 

I would have said this or I wish I’d haveten this on to the record, 

you don’t have to provide it to us today to be included. 

Would anybody like to be recognized? Yes. Yes, sir. 

Mr. BERG. Senator, I’m Harold Berg from Lakota. I think, as you 

wonder about accountability and the rise of this lake, you’re right 

on target. It’s faulty data. I suggest to you that the people who are 

providing that data ought to be taken into consideration. We may 

need a period of time of change which would totally modify all of 

the projections because the climate has changed in this county. 

When I became a citizen here in 1993, 

[off microphone] and I’d suggest that whoever has some expertise 

ought to think about that factor, as well, as they consider the probability of the rise of this lake. 

I think you are right that we can’t depend on the old data. It is 

based on history, recurrent history, and that is not adequate. We 

have no basis for knowing what’s going to happen. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I thank you for that. I hope I’ve been as 

clear as I can be. I personally have no confidence in the projections 

on what the level of risk is. I don’t believe it’s a 13 percent risk. 

I don’t believe it’s a 20 percent risk. I believe it is approaching a 

100 percent level of risk. 

Now I can’t quantify that, but I look at history and the scientists 

tell us at least three times in 4,000 years this lake has gone 

through a cycle where it’s had an uncontrolled release of water and 

I think it’s just irresponsible to be betting against that happening. 

You know, I mean, I hear—I am so tired of hearing people tell 

me this lake’s going to stop rising. I mean, how long have we heard 

that? It’s going to stop rising. Well, it hasn’t. It hasn’t stopped rising and if you do a map and you show the trajectory that this lake 

has followed at least three times in 4,000 year, we are right on that 

trajectory. 

So to me, this notion that we can bet on this lake going to stop 

some way, well, it stopped between 2000–2008. That gave a lot of 

ammunition to those who have told us over the years it’s going to 

stop rising. 

The problem is it was filling up Stump Lake. So sure it quit rising. Stump Lake, the water all coming in to Stump Lake. Stump 

Lake went up 50 feet. Now Stump Lake’s full. Where’s it going 

now? 

So we’ve got to deal with reality, not what we hope, not what we 

wish it were. We’ve got to deal with what is happening. 

Others who might want to—yes? 

Ms. QUOM. I’m Darlene Quom, and I live by the lake. You said 

we’re in all this together. To me, if they send it out the east, the 

south end of East Stump Lake, you’re abandoning Stump Lake. We 

need a lagoon. If you send the water where it’s intended to go, just 

the way it’s going now, to Tolna Coulee, put a control structure in 

there so we can protect the downstream people, it would freshen 

our lake with fresh water flow through, eventually it would imVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00639 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
634 

prove our water quality more. It’s been improving over the years. 

It would be a win-win situation for the people around Stump Lake. 

We could develop land. We could contribute to our economic aspect 

of what happens around the lake. We could develop our fishery. We 

could do a lot of things, but as the way it is now, we don’t know 

what’s going to happen. 

We may be ending up with a lagoon or we may end up with no 

water. We may end up with God only knows, but to me it’s the 

common sense approach of let it go the way God intended it to go 

and the quality will only improve. As I learned in General Science 

in 8th Grade, that moving water purifies itself. 

There may be a time when it’s not so good but eventually it 

would freshen and everybody would benefit. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. All right. Thank you. Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. CLUTE. I’m Delores Clute, and I’m on the City Council. 

The CHAIRMAN. Could you spell your name for the transcriber so 

they get it right? 

Ms. CLUTE. C-l-u-t-e. 

The CHAIRMAN. C-l-u-t-e. All right. 

Ms. CLUTE. And I’m also—my son and I are landowners and I’ve 

sat and watched this lake get just like a giant coming along and 

I can talk of water down where—my farm is right across the south 

end of Stump Lake Park and down on our area, there are two fresh 

water lakes now that are underwater. The springs have come up 

underneath and all along the west of our land, our spring’s fresh 

water. 

We have a government well on the south end of our yard. It’s the 

best water. Two of them in North Dakota. That’s one well that’s 

the best water and that’s the water that’s coming up in Stump 

Lake at that south end, but they have never taken a sample out 

of that south end. 

Also, I watched the water come up to our farmstead this summer, starting with a little tiny spot like this, due to the tornado 

that went through here and over the summer it just spread. So 

now it’s going out into the farmland on the south of the road. It’s 

gone up to our buildings which have been in our family for four 

generations and I know it’s a problem for everybody. 

This spring I had, since 1993, all the studies of the engineers and 

they talk about this high. I’m sorry but I burned them all because 

they didn’t do anything and so I’m sorry but it’s awful to me and 

there’s no stopping it and at the rate we’re losing roads now, we 

might as well get out of Tolna pretty soon. Those people, Darlene, 

are like four-five miles from town. They drive 18 miles to get to 

town. Farmers can’t get to their fields. It’s a terrible situation. 

The CHAIRMAN. That’s very good testimony. Thank you for doing 

it. 

Anyone else that would want to be recognized? Yes, sir. 

Mr. UGLEM. Hi. I’m Don Uglem. I have a question. 

The CHAIRMAN. Can you just spell for the record? 

Mr. UGLEM. U-g-l-e-m. As far as water quality of the lake, what’s 

the water quality actually going to be like after the water leaves 

Devils Lake at 1,450? I assume that it’s still going to be relatively 

the same. 

635 

Mr. SANDO. I can try to answer that. Every year what happens 

at Lake Ashtabula, it freshens up when you get the snow melt in 

the spring time. So the water quality in Ashtabula Lake this spring 

was between 2 and 250 mg/l ppm. 

As we’ve been operating the outlet this summer now, the water 

at Cooperstown and the headwaters in Lake Ashtabula, the salinity levels are changing and the sulfate levels are in the low 400’s 

now. 

So what happens, you know, we’re going to have to monitor that 

closely as the fall goes along because we had the issue of 450 

standard below Balt Hill Dam. So what will happen this winter 

when Lake Ashtabula freezes, the concentration of sulfates even 

goes higher then and so we’ll have our highest levels in the winter 

time and then when the ice goes back out next spring we’ll get inflow again that will refreshen Ashtabula and the whole cycle will 

start again with the way we’re operating the outlet. 

Mr. UGLEM. When you talk about hardening Tolna Coulee, 

wouldn’t it be better to put in a little flow pipe dam so that when 

you have excess salinity you could use—it could go—it could freshen Stump Lake to some extent by letting out some higher-level salt 

water to blend with the spring flow or whatever after spring flow? 

And also going east, if you could put in a small flow that wouldn’t 

probably affect the Goose River or the Forest River, that you could 

start getting some water out of the lake? Doesn’t have to be a big 

yield, just get started getting the salinity out and the further it 

goes down each year. 

Mr. SANDO. Those are very good points because the water quality 

in Stump Lake has been freshening all along. As you look, when 

the lake was back at 1,396, it was well over 10,000 ppm. Now we’re 

down to 2,500. So if you can bleed water and move water out of 

Stump Lake, it will continue to freshen. So that’s correct. 

The CHAIRMAN. I’ll tell you one thing that I’ve been persuaded 

of from all these hearings is I think we’ve got to have a 

multipronged approach. I think we’ve got to move, continue to 

move water out of the west end, maybe even increase that. 

I think we’ve also got to move water out of the east end for all 

the reasons that have been given here. It really—I don’t think it 

would be good to, as Odell says, create a lagoon or a pond out of 

Stump Lake. It needs to be naturally freshened and move water 

out, but we’re going to have to do that and not have a big problem 

downstream. We’re going to have to blend. 

So the more I hear, the more I see, the more convinced I am that 

we need to blend west end water that’s at 500 with water out of 

the east end and maybe even we need to be taking water not only 

from Stump Lake but we need to be maybe taking some water from 

east end of Devils Lake. That’s at about, what, 1,100, Todd? 

You know, the more I hear, I don’t think just a one approach 

works here. I think we’re going to have to continue to take water 

out of the west end, which gives us water that’s below the 750 ppm 

limit, take water out of Stump Lake, so that continues to be refreshed, so that doesn’t become stagnant, take water maybe even 

out of east end of Devils Lake, so that the combined effect is we 

move more water, blend it to make sure we meet the water quality 

standards, and at the same time meet some of the objections of 

636 

downstream people because they’ve got a legitimate concern about 

water quality and, of course, water quality affects us all. 

Anyone else that wants to be recognized? Yes, sir. 

Mr. EAGEN. Thank you, Senator Conrad, for giving this matter 

your attention. I’m Bob Eagen from Tolna. I’ve served many years 

on the Town and City Council. For many years I’ve operated the 

bank at Tolna. 

I don’t think anyone here today would argue of the adverse effects of this flooding, how it’s impacted our communities. Farmers, 

landowners, homeowners live on the lake, it’s impacted everyone. 

Fire departments, emergency services. 

One of the things that’s getting passed over, I believe, is the unimaginable economic opportunity that this lake has given us. For 

years, our community, the city of Tolna, the bank, has tried to operate with less and less and less, less students in our schools, less, 

less, less. How do we grow in a shrinking market? 

Some years ago, we quietly accepted water coming from Devils 

Lake into Stump Lake without raising opposition to hold that 

water back. We’ve accepted that water and taken our lumps. 

We’re in a position right now to make something good out of 

something that’s evil. This lake, like the development that’s been 

on Devils Lake, has driven our community to a community that it 

wouldn’t have been without it. Yes, a lot of farmland has been lost 

but it’s lost. Short of lowering the lake, that land is not coming 

back. 

Now, an approach to lower the level of the lake to some acceptable level and to bring water through the whole system, everyone 

in this region would—it seems that money has never been the obstacle in fighting the Devils Lake flooding, whether it’s building a 

west end outlet, increasing dyke levels in Devils Lake. 

I don’t know how the dyke’s going to hold water back the way 

it is. I would hate to be sleeping below a 20-foot wall of water. I 

couldn’t do it. 

Anyway, my point is I think we have an opportunity here for this 

community to finally strive toward growing rather than shrinking. 

We are already seeing that happen, whether it’s traffic through 

this hotel that we’re in right now, traffic through the Tolna area, 

housing developments being built. We’ve got about 75 houses, lots 

being plotted right now for development. 

I realize that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And where are those, Bob? 

Mr. EAGEN. There’s one development right directly north of 

Tolna, two and a half miles. There’s another development approximately 10 miles northeast of Tolna, and then the Eichland development which is about 15 miles northeast of Tolna just on Highway 

1 North, and the Shrader Capsize north of town, there’s another 

proposed campsite of Tolna of a hundred units. 

The CHAIRMAN. And why are those things happening? 

Mr. EAGEN. Because our lake has become one of the best fisheries in the country. 

The CHAIRMAN. So it makes it attractive for people to develop? 

Mr. EAGEN. Absolutely. We see boats come through our main 

street every morning from Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, all over 

the country, and even downstream people are coming to Tolna to 

637 

go fishing. So it isn’t the—the science says the quality it is what 

it is but it does support the magnificent fishery and homes are 

being built. People are moving to our community, not just fishermen but people are moving here. 

The CHAIRMAN. So part of this response, I don’t want to put 

words in your mouth, but what I hear you saying is part of this 

response needs to be to, while we’re dealing with the flood threat, 

to take advantage of the opportunity that’s been presented, as well. 

Mr. EAGEN. We’ve accepted the devastation already. Let’s do 

something good with it. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. And, Bob, can you spell your last name, so 

they get it for the record. 

Mr. EAGEN. Eagen, E-a-g-e-n. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Anyone else that 

wants to be recognized? Yes, ma’am? 

Ms. SCHMIDT. Janice Schmidt from Petersburg. I just want to acknowledge the research that’s been done to move water to Western 

North Dakota. There’s a shortage of water out there. 

The CHAIRMAN. A great deal of research has now been done because one of the ideas that was given to us fairly early on in this 

process was that. So that is part of what the Federal team is reviewing, to see if it would be feasible to take water out of the west 

end of the lake for the oil fields in Western North Dakota. 

There are major challenges to that, the geography of our state 

and the high lift that’s required to get to Western North Dakota 

and the pumping costs associated with that, but that is being very 

closely analyzed. 

Any other? I know that we are to be out of here in 5 minutes, 

but I want to make sure if there’s anybody else who wants to be 

recognized. Yes, sir? 

Mr. JOHNSON. I’m Roger Johnson. I’m on the high part of the 

Tolna Coulee of Devils Lake and I saw on a sheet of paper where 

a separate outfit took soil or water samples and they were down 

to 800 and some, 7 and 800. 

Mr. FLAAGAN. I can answer that, Senator. 

The CHAIRMAN. Odell. 

Mr. FLAAGAN. We had our Water Commission take some the 

other day. We sent them to Northwood and they give us some reports back and they forgot to tell us you got to multiply them by 

three cause Bruce Inglehart from the Water Commission called us 

and we didn’t know at the time but that’s what it comes out. So 

it comes out to about 2,400. So it was a mistake. We talked to 

Northwood and they said they should explain it to us and they 

didn’t and State Water Commission caught it and it is true it’s 

multiplied by three, comes out about right. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. JOHNSON. And there’s a slough that had been marked all 

summer long and that had struck higher than it ever has been and 

it’s only about a quarter of a mile from the lake. I’ve never seen 

it stay up that high for this time of the year. There must be water 

coming in from underneath. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. Anyone else that would want to be recognized, and again I want to repeat if you leave here and you say, 

gee, I wish I would have said something, if I had some idea that 

638 

I want to make sure that they think about, don’t hesitate to get 

in touch with my offices and we’ll make it part of the record. It 

doesn’t have to be a formal letter. If you just jot down some notes 

about something that you’re thinking about, we’ll make sure it becomes part of the record. 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Anything, Todd, Odell, Ben, Sharon, 

anything you’d like to add? 

Mr. VARNSON. Senator, there’s a comment. As we work with our 

neighboring counties, Water Resource Districts and Road Departments, about 20 minutes ago some comments were mentioned regarding something newly developing concerns east of Devils Lake 

or Ramsay County coming through Nelson, Western Walsh. 

The term that’s coming to mind is that the whole region outside 

and near the lakes, north of Devils and Stump Lake, is liquefying. 

Our roads are—railroads are—well, the infrastructure and the 

water isn’t seeping through these minor watersheds but help needs 

to be looked at and I know drainage should not go into Stump Lake 

or Devils Lake but a view of releasing water over roadways may 

need to take place. It’s not going to get any better. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I was in Candu yesterday and they 

tell me there, they’re seeing effects of the water table rising, pressure on basements, water in basements that haven’t had water before. It’s like the whole watershed is just, you know, chock-a-block 

full of water, and, you know, it’s creating issues in places that 

we’ve not previously seen it. 

Mr. VARNSON. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Any other last-minute? 

[No response.] 

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you, 

Todd. Thank you, Odell. Thank you, Ben. Thank you, Sharon, for 

your testifying. Thanks, all of you, for being here. Thanks to everyone who stood up and was recognized and provided additional testimony. I appreciate that very much. 

With that, the hearing will stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

(639) 

WRITING THE NEXT FARM BILL 

MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2010 

U.S. SENATE, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET

Mohall, N.D. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:05 p.m. in the 

Mohall Emergency Services Facility Community Room, 104 Central 

Avenue North, Mohall, North Dakota 58761, Hon. Kent Conrad, 

chairman of the committee, presiding. 

Present: Senator Conrad. 

[presiding]. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CONRAD 

The CHAIRMAN. Hearing will come to order. 

I want to welcome everyone here today. This is a hearing—official hearing of the U.S. Senate Budget Committee. As an official 

hearing, we will be operating under the rules of the U.S. Senate. 

An official record is being kept. 

The title of this hearing is Writing the Next Farm Bill. I’m 

pleased to say this is the very first hearing in North Dakota looking ahead to the next farm bill. So this is the beginning of a long 

process we’re beginning right here in Mohall—Mohall. 

I want to begin by wel—welcoming our distinguished witnesses 

today: Robert Carlson, President of the North Dakota Farmers 

Union; Scott Backes, a farmer from Glenburn; Larry Neubauer, 

President of the U.S. Durum Growers Association; Steve 

Edwardson, Executive Director of the North Dakota Barley Council; Ryan Pederson, Northern Canola Growers Association President; and Jeff Oberholtzer, a Director with the National Sunflower 

Association. 

This is truly a distinguished panel, and I am deeply appreciative 

that you’ve all agreed to testify here today. 

Before I turn to our witnesses, I’d like to just reflect on the last 

farm bill and how important and good it has been for North Dakota. During the August recess, I visited 45 counties across North 

Dakota, and what I saw in every corner of our state was that North 

Dakota is looking as prosperous as I’ve ever seen it. 

Now, one of the reasons is we’ve got the development of the 

Bakken Formation, and only God can take credit for that. None of 

us had a thing to do with placing that oil under our ground, but 

thank goodness for it. 

But we also have the agricultural sector, and agriculture is still 

the No. 1 part of our economy. The farm bill plays a big role in how 

640 

effective agriculture—the agricultural economy is for our state. And 

I’m pleased to report to you that North Dakota came out No. 1 in 

terms of per capita payments under the farm bill, and we are No. 

1 by a big margin. The next state, South Dakota, they got half as 

much per capita as we get. So we’re talking $700 million in a year 

flowing to North Dakota producers through the farm bill. 

This is absolutely the best farm bill we’ve ever had for North Dakota, and part of the reason was—was, of course, Congressman 

Pomeroy and I were at the table; Congressman Pomeroy, because 

he is on both the Agricultural Committee and the Ways and Means 

Committee that provides some of the money to fund the farm bill, 

and I was there in my role on the Finance Committee, senior member there, senior member on the Agriculture Committee, and 

Chairman of the Budget Committee. 

Always before, it’s been the Southerners at the table when the 

final farm bill was written. This time, Congressman Pomeroy and 

I were there, joined by Collin Peterson, our neighbor in Minnesota, 

Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, and, of course, Max 

Baucus, Chairman of the Finance Committee. So the first time 

ever, we had Northerners in the final negotiations, not just a group 

of Southerners, and it made a profound difference in the result. 

The 2008 farm bill has been a big win for farm and ranch families. Our per capita payments are $2,628 per person per year; 

again, more than double second-place South Dakota. And according 

to USDA data, since 2000, farm safety net payments accounted for 

almost 50 percent of net farm income in North Dakota. Let me repeat that. Those who are running around the countryside saying, 

‘‘Well, let’s just eliminate the farm program,’’ what would the conVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00646 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH

58154.360
641 

sequence be in North Dakota? It would reduce farm income, if the 

past is any guide, by 50 percent. Fifty percent of net farm income 

is accounted for by payments under the farm bill. 

As a state, agriculture leads North Dakota’s economic engine. We 

lead the Nation in the production of 15 different crops, including 

wheat, barley, sunflowers, canola, dry edible peas, crops that are 

familiar to growers right here in Renville County. 

In 2009, North Dakota’s farm and ranch families produced almost $7.3 billion in crops, livestock, and other agricultural goods 

on 32,000 farms. Producers also paid 4.8 billion for various farm 

inputs, hired labor, land rent, interest payments. North Dakota exported almost 3.2 billion in agricultural commodities in 2009. 

Now, just in 2009 the total domestic state product for North Dakota, the total economic output of this state, was $32 billion. Agriculture, 7.3 billion. 

By the way, payments and remittances by the Federal Government, $8.6 billion in 2009. Twenty-five percent of this state’s economy are payments from the Federal Government: Social security, 

Medicare, farm program payments, activity at our air bases, highway construction, education. And anybody that doesn’t think the 

Federal Government is playing a huge role in the economic lifeblood of North Dakota just hasn’t done their homework, and agriculture is critically important to our long-range economic prosperity. 


58154.361
642 

The importance of agriculture is no different here in Renville 

County. Crop and livestock sales totaled 150 million in Renville 

County in 2008. Renville County produced 7 million bushels of barley on 95,000 acres, enough to produce almost 2.6 billion bottles of 

beer, and that’s why I’ve asked Scott Backes here to testify. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. No, that’s not true. That’s a joke. But isn’t that 

amazing? That’s a lot of beer, even in Renville County, 2.6 billion 

bottles of beer. 

Renville County also produced almost 86 million pounds of 

canola and 58 million pounds of sunflowers. Those are big numbers, and Renville County can be justifiably proud of how productive they’ve been. 

But as good as these numbers are, we all know that sometimes 

our hopes for a bumper crop fall short and producers need a backstop. Here in North Dakota, things aren’t any different. From 

floods to droughts, we have seen it all, and North Dakota farmers 

need help when Mother Nature turns against us. 

Even though it seems like we just passed the last farm bill, we’re 

beginning to see the debate on the 2012 farm bill already begin to 

take shape. No surprise, Chairman Peterson has told me he 

helps—he hopes to write most of the bill next year. Now, that will 

be very unusual if it happens because usually farm bills are delayed, not written ahead of time, but Chairman Peterson has already talked to me about what he thinks is the importance of moving quickly. 

And there is an important reason to move quickly, and that is 

the budget pressure that we are going to be under. Make no mistake, I think we all understand that we’re on an unsustainable 


58154.362
643 

force as a country with our deficits and debt. I am part of the commission, the Fiscal Commission. There are 18 of us given the responsibility to come up with a plan to deal with our debt. We have 

been given the responsibility to come up with a plan by December 

1, and I’m spending a great deal of my time in the work of that 

commission. 

And, you know, every part of the Federal budget is being scrutinized for cuts, and it is going to have to be done because we are 

borrowing 40 cents of every dollar we spend. That cannot be continued. We understand at a time of economic downturn, Federal Government has to step forward; otherwise, we’d have faced a collapse. 

But now, we’re going to have to turn our attention to focus on 

bringing down the deficit and the debt, and every part of the budget is being scrutinized. I can testify to that because I’ve been working at least 1 day a week on the work of this commission. 

It’s important—so important that we share the facts of the farm 

bill with our colleagues. How much of the Federal budget is devoted to supporting farm income? As a percentage of total Federal 

spending, farm programs, crop insurance, disaster assistance make 

up less than one-half of 1 percent of Federal spending. Said another way, for every dollar the Federal Government spends, less 

than half of a penny, one-half of a penny, goes for farm programs. 

These programs provide our country with the safest, most affordable, most abundant food supply on the face of the earth. One-half 

of one cent is a pretty good deal for the taxpayers of this country. 


58154.363
644 

Another misconception that we face is where is the money going? 

Most people seem to think that a large majority of farm bill spending goes to support farm and ranch families. They could not be 

more wrong. The numbers tell a very different story. As you can 

see, for the current fiscal year, almost four out of every five farm 

bill dollars goes to support nutrition programs. Farm supports, crop 

insurance, the disaster programs account for less than 18 percent, 

one eight, 18 percent of the farm bill. 

Here you see it, nutrition programs are absorbing 76.9 percent 

of all the money that’s in the farm bill. So if you have your friends 

in more urban states say, ‘‘Oh, all that money’s going to farm and 

ranch families,’’ no, it’s not. The money is being spread all across 

the Nation in every district. In every part of every state, those nutrition dollars are flowing. 76.9 percent of the farm bill spending 

is for nutrition programs that go into every community, large and 

small, all across the country. 

And I want to emphasize, when we wrote this farm bill, we did 

not add one penny to the debt. It is completely paid for. In fact, 

we more than paid for it. We actually helped reduce the deficit a 

little bit because we produced more savings and more pay-fors than 

we did impose cost. So anybody tells you the farm bill is adding to 

the deficit and the debt, no, it is not. That is absolutely untrue. We 

didn’t add a dime to the deficit, and I’m proud of it. 

If you listen to the critics, you’d never know that almost 80 percent of the farm bill goes to support the nutritional needs of our 

citizens. The way they describe it, the farm bill only supports corporate agribusiness millionaires. The facts and the—and the—the 

details tell a very different story. 


58154.364
645 

It’s also worth noting how our biggest competitors, the Europeans, subsidize their producers. If you make a—an equal comparison what we do for our producers and what they do for theirs, here 

is the comparison according to the international scorekeeper, the 

OECD, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. They are the international scorekeepers on farm support. 

Here’s what they report: The United States, $23 billion in farm 

support for 2008; the European Union, $150 billion. That is more 

than six times as much what the Europeans are doing for their 

producers compared to what we’re doing for ours. 

So don’t let anybody tell you that somehow the United States is 

out there buying these markets. The fact is we are trying to provide somewhat of a fair fighting chance for our producers up 

against the European juggernaut, which truly is out trying to buy 

these markets. 

As you can see, we face many challenges as we enter this farm 

bill debate, but as producers, you have an incredibly good story to 

tell. You produce the safest, most affordable, most abundant food 

supply in the world. You contribute enormously to our economic 

well-being. Not only does agriculture have a positive trade balance, 

but agriculture has weathered the economic downturn much better 

than other industries. 

Now I’d like to hear from our witnesses about what they think 

of the current farm bill and what they think we should do for the 

future. Establishing common objectives and priorities will give us 

an advantage once formal negotiations begin. That’s why today’s 

hearing is so important, the very first hearing on the farm bill in 

the state of North Dakota, and we’re doing it right here in Renville 

County. 


58154.365
646 

With that, I’d like to turn to our distinguished witnesses, and 

we’ll start with Robert Carlson. My intention is to go right down 

the table, so we go to you next, Scott, and then we’ll go to Steve 

and right on down. We’ll have the testimony from each of you and 

then we’ll open it up to questions, and we’ll also have time at the 

end to hear from people who are here in the audience, any testimony that you might want to provide. 

With that, Robert, we turn to you. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF ROBERT CARLSON, PRESIDENT, NORTH 

DAKOTA FARMERS UNION, JAMESTOWN, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. CARLSON. Well, thank you very much, Senator Conrad, and 

welcome to this beautiful part of North Dakota, which is near 

where my farm is, just across the line in Ward County. So we’re 

glad that you came up and we’re glad that Scott Backes arranged 

the day to be so nice for us to all be here. 

On a—on a serious note, thank you, Senator Conrad, along with 

Congressman Pomeroy, for the work you did in getting the SURE 

program included in the farm bill. That was a major step forward 

to get a permanent disaster program and, as I’m sure you know, 

it has really paid off for North Dakota. I just heard on the news 

driving up here this morning, on the farm news, that North Dakota, for the 2008 year, received almost $250 million in SURE payments, and included in that is something we don’t think about too 

often, and that is that about 80—a little over $80 million of that 

total was stimulus—so-called stimulus money. So that has been 

very important, especially for the livestock producers in our state 

and in—actually, to all of animal—agriculture, in particular, to 

have that SURE program included. So thanks for that, and I sure 

hope we can continue that in this upcoming farm bill. I think it’s 

very important to maintaining a base of family farm agriculture 

and ranching in the United States and—and in North Dakota as 

well. 

To answer your question about the farm bill, I think the 2007 

farm bill is working well and I think it’s popular. I think that we 

were very fortunate to get that bill passed with the elements that 

are in it in 2007. Looking ahead, I think if you ask most North Dakota farmers what they want, they’d say, ‘‘Let’s just continue that.’’ 

I recognize, though, that the political realities and the budget realities are a little bit different this time around, so we may need to 

look at spending that money that we have in the farm bill a little 

bit smarter and we may need to view the politics of getting it 

passed a little bit—a little bit differently. So I think looking ahead, 

we need to continue the safety net for SURE in a new farm bill. 

New factors in the mix since 2007 are that we do have a tight 

budget, as everybody recognizes, and so we should—we should, I 

think with justification, protect agriculture’s baseline in the budget. And I know that sounds sort of technical to most of us in North 

Dakota, but in the budget process in Washington, protecting what 

is in the baseline—and the baseline is where you sort of start in 

negotiations on a new spending bill with Congress—is very important, and if we have that historical precedent, it usually gives us 

some—some credibility going in to fight for the number that you’ve 

gotten before. So I think we need to protect the baseline. 

647 

Our members would like to see a change in the farm program in 

that the money that’s in the baseline for direct payments be rolled 

into counter-cyclical and loan rate improvements so that we get 

paid when prices are poor and we need the help and not get an 

automatic direct payment. 

Now, I know we like to get—and, as a farmer, I can’t say that 

I ever threw away the check I got in the mailbox, either, for a direct payment, but I think in the upcoming budget, if we have to 

give someplace, that would be a place to give. Not give the money 

up, but put it into the loan rate or into the counter-cyclical payment so that we get those payments when we really need them. 

And in the years when prices are good, like they’ve been generally 

for the last 3 years, we wouldn’t get so much in terms of price support. 

Second thing I think we need to be sensitive to are the press reports. I think you alluded to, Senator, about certain individuals or 

corporate interests who haveten multimillion dollar payments 

under the farm program, and that’s always good fodder for the 

news. I know that it doesn’t amount to much in the aggregate, but 

it makes us look bad as—as farmers. I think the—the payment limits on direct payments and on counter-cyclical payments are good 

limits; however, on the loan—on the loan program, that’s basically 

unlimited. I think we need to look at doing some kind of a targeted 

program for those loan—the loan program. 

I recognize, at the same time, that the South needs to be appreciated, if I can put it that way. We need to—we need their support 

to pass the farm bill, so I know it isn’t—it isn’t easy to pick a number. But I do know that we can’t continually stand the bad publicity of people manipulating rules and collecting amounts beyond 

congressional intent. 

On the second part of what I have to say, and I’ll try to keep 

within my time—or I will keep within my time limits, I suppose 

this message, Senator, is maybe really more for farmers and ranchers and my—my fellow farm leaders at this table and other places, 

and that would be a message that there’s a lot at stake for farmers 

and ranchers in a new farm bill. There’s a lot at stake in this election because the upcoming Congress will write the new farm bill. 

We’ve done quite well in agriculture in North Dakota since 2007. 

There have been exceptions, and I know there will probably be 

some of you who will call me right after this meeting and tell me 

that you’re an exception, but, generally, since 2007, we’ve had pretty good production, we’ve had pretty good prices, we’ve done quite 

well. We shouldn’t allow that to lull us into complacency. We 

shouldn’t—we shouldn’t, if we’re kind of so-called fat and happy, 

not pay attention to what’s going on as we write a new farm bill 

because historically we need it. And I have lived through at least 

three times when we thought we were in a new plateau and a new 

era when prices rose and we thought this is going to continue and 

every time we thought that, we’ve been proven wrong and it’s come 

close to bringing us to disaster: The late 1970’s, one case; after the 

1996 farm bill, another case. We thought the future was paved 

with gold. We overproduced, we wrecked the markets, and we had 

nowhere to turn because all we had gotten in that 1996 farm bill 

were decoupled payments. And I spent the next four or 5 years as 

648 

the new president of North Dakota Farmers Union going and trying to get emergency payments or disaster payments, and that 

wasn’t any fun, and I—I don’t want to go back to that. So let’s not 

take our eye off this farm bill. 

And I think, further, we need to tell voters about farming and 

tell them what a good deal for them that ag programs are, not just 

for farmers, but for the whole country. And I’m worried about the 

revival of antigovernment sentiment, which has sort of morphed 

now. Nothing new about antigovernment sentiment, I guess, but 

the fact that it’s kind of morphed into a political movement is new. 

It’s not wrong. It’s not wrong for citizens in a democracy to take 

their goals and try to make a political movement out of it. There’s 

nothing wrong with that. But I think there is wrong—something 

wrong with the sentiment that’s behind it or the assumptions or 

the history that they’re trying to show. 

Their cry is get the government out of everything, deregulate all 

economic activity, including agriculture. To them, I would say when 

was the last time that agriculture let you down? When was the last 

time you went hungry? When was the last time you went to the 

grocery store and there wasn’t bread on the shelf, or milk or sugar, 

or meat in the meat case? Well, the answer is never. Ag has never 

let you down. 

Why is that? It’s because almost since the founding of this country, we have had the Federal Government involved in agriculture. 

In the early—very early 1800’s, of course, we had the Louisiana 

Purchase. President Jefferson purchased that so that—he thought 

it would be hundreds of years in which farmers could move westward. Well, it didn’t take us that long, but it took us a few generations to populate and—and make agricultural land out of the West, 

including North Dakota. We’ve had, in the 1800’s, import tariffs 

and quotas to protect agriculture. In the 1850’s we had a giant leap 

forward with government support for ag when President Lincoln 

established the agricultural land-grant university system, college 

system for ag experiment stations, established the U.S. Department of Agriculture, I think in 1862 or something like that, and 

created, of course, the Homestead Act that many of our ancestors— 

or predecessors used to begin farming. So we’ve had at least 150 

years of very active government involvement in agriculture. 

Since then, we’ve added food inspection services. We’ve added export promotion. We’ve had programs to manage surplus production. 

We’ve had dozens of programs to support, preserve, and improve ag 

production in this country, and it has worked. We’ve had a history 

of using the Federal Government to support farmers and ranchers 

and it has assured consumers of a bountiful and affordable food 

supply. There’s nothing more important to a society than food security. We have it. We should be grateful for it. We shouldn’t—if I 

can use a colloquialism, we shouldn’t screw it up. It would be extremely foolish to threaten that food security by losing a farm program in 2012. 

And if we sit idly by because we’re contented right now and let 

this nascent antigovernment movement set the agenda for the next 

Congress, we’ll pay a heavy price in North Dakota. Let’s not forget 

that the last farm bill got passed over President Bush’s veto twice. 

649 

Thanks to congressional leadership, we got it passed over a veto. 

So elections do matter. 

Senator Conrad, we look forward at Farmers Union to working 

with you and other Members of Congress as we develop this new 

farm bill, and I’ll be happy to, I guess, answer questions or assist 

on that in any way. 

Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Carlson follows:] 


58154.367
650 


58154.368
651 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Next we’ll go to Scott Backes. Scott, 

welcome and please go ahead with your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT BACKES, NORTH DAKOTA FARMER, 

GLENBURN, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. BACKES. Thank you for having this field hearing today, Senator. I’ve been farming in the Glenburn area for approximately 35 

years, and I’m testifying today in support of the farm bill, particularly the last one that you helped pass. 

The safety net has helped farmers re—remain viable. Some 

years, you are going to—in some years in farming, you’re going to 

have certain crops don’t do well—very well and you’re simply going 

to take a loss, but the farm safety net, particularly the preventive 

plant portion of it that was implemented after the last farm bill, 


58154.369
652 

is used in the event of a catastrophic loss of a crop, such as hail, 

fire, or wind or severe flooding. 

And in farming there’s always the unknown, such as a hailstorm 

that wipes out two-thirds of your crop or 17 inches of rain in 2009 

and 30 inches of rain on my farm in 2010. 

If—if—if you don’t have a Federal crop program in place to cover 

you in the event of a catastrophic failure, you will not survive financially. It cannot be done. Young farmers that there’s a lot less 

of these days cannot get loans to—to seed their crops unless their 

father or somebody else is willing to, you know, back them up, and 

that’s why that portion of the farm bill is very—what I feel is the 

most important portion of it. It helps farmers in the time of catastrophic failures remain viable and remain on land, because we 

have nowhere else to turn, Senator. There is no private insurance 

that will come out, aside from just hail insurance, to back me up 

in the case of a failure. And all’s we have right now of that portion 

is—is what we use and it’s not designed to make money on. It’s designed to give you three-quarters back of your expenses and to 

keep you viable on the land for the next year. 

Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Backes follows:] 


58154.366
653 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think a critically important point. I—I 

just want to stop at this point because I want to rivet the point 

Scott’s making. 

We have to preserve crop insurance. Without crop insurance, we 

cannot get financing. What Scott is saying, and I think said very 

well, is if we didn’t have crop insurance assistance, when we do 

suffer a crop failure because of natural disaster, what happens? 

Without crop insurance as a foundation, you wouldn’t get the financing to begin with. 

And the lenders have made this very clear to us. I mean just saying testimony I have had on the previous farm bill all across North 

Dakota, the major lenders have made it very clear to us without 

that crop insurance backstop and, frankly, without a good disaster 

program, financing would be infinitely harder to get and only those 

with the highest equity positions would be able to secure the financing that’s needed. 

So the—the—the point Scott’s making here is absolutely critical. 

Let’s go to Steve Edwardson, representing the North Dakota Barley Council. He is the executive director. Welcome, Steve, and 

please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF STEVE EDWARDSON, EXECUTIVE ADMINISTRATOR, NORTH DAKOTA BARLEY COUNCIL, FARGO, NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Mr. EDWARDSON. Thank you, Senator, and thank you very much, 

of course, for the opportunity to—to be able to provide testimony 

and—and, hopefully, some facts and figures that are helpful as we 

start to move forward to the—to the next farm bill. 

I’ve basically taken my remarks and tried to put them into I 

hope what is somewhat of a story format. I want to look with barley, just briefly review some of the trends we’ve had, what farm 

policy is toward barley and how it’s impacted it, and then looking 

ahead toward risk management mostly through improved crop insurance programs because this is the direction that we’ll clearly 

need to be moving. 

Just a little history lesson here on some of the trends. First off, 

as far as barley production goes, North Dakota is the major player. 

Thirty-five percent of U.S. production; we are the—are the largest 

producer in the nation. But nationally, we have watched our production drop. In the mid-1980’s we produced, as a nation, approximately 600 million bushels. In 2010, we were down to around 200 

million bushels. That’s a 65 percent drop in the past approximately 

25 years. That’s—that’s significant. 

Acres harvested. Mid-1980’s, 11.4 million acres were harvested in 

the U.S. This year, 2.4 million acres harvested in the U.S. North 

Dakota used to raise over 4 million and we’re—we’re well under 

that. Our acres followed a very similar story, and we’ve seen our 

acres come from, oh, that late 1990’s, when we thought things 

would turn around, to a million and a half to 2 million acres. This 

year we were at 650,000 harvested acres in the state. So we’ve 

dropped off. 

And what—what’s caused some of this? Well, part of it is we’ve 

seen less utilization of feed barley, more shifting toward corn. 

We’ve seen more efficiency in malt extraction, malting technology. 

654 

Competition in the global marketplace for feed barley exports has 

been equally difficult. We’ve seen our own production trends drop. 

We’ve dropped—as a state, we’ve dropped 50 percent in our—in our 

production since 2008. So we’re starting to see inductive volatility 

in this marketplace. 

Prices have been volatile as well. I—I found this interesting that in January of 2006, malt barley price was at $2.10 a bushel in this 

particular region and feed barley was at $1.25. By February of 

2008, we were at approximately 5.50 a bushel for feed barley and 

over $7 a bushel for—or up to $7 a bushel for malt. Now our trend 

is similar. We’re still in the two- to three-dollar range between both 

crops. So we—we’re starting to see more volatility in the marketplace, but we’ve got to try to stabilize that somehow. 

If we look at Federal farm program spending, as—as it—as 

you’ve clearly pointed out, the farm programs are relatively minor 

in the big—in the big scheme of the budget, and of the farm program payments, barley is—receives approximately 2 percent of 

total farm program expenditures. So we’re—we’re—we’re down toward the bottom. 

Direct payments, those account for roughly 84 percent of the 

farm program payments that are allocated to barley; and the marketing loans, they’re a good tool. It was raised from $1.85 to $1.95 

a bushel in the last farm bill and it generates some cash-flow while 

the growers wait for the markets to improve, but they’re used relatively sporadically. Strengthening and rebalancing of that program, it’s a good start that we probably need to take another look 

at in this next go-around. 

If we look at our farm bill, trying to harmonize the components, 

we think from a grower’s standpoint would—would make some 

sense. ACRE has its place. SURE has its place. The loan programs, 

crop insurance all individually provide a safety net that, if harmonized maybe a little bit more comprehensively and holistically, 

could provide a—hopefully, something that’s more stable and secure, maybe a little easier for USDA to administer, because we 

have to look at it through those—through their eyes too. 

Risk management tools. I think every grower in the room 

would—would agree that without crop insurance, trying to have operating capital is just about an impossibility. But we’ve seen a 

change in barley because in the 1980’s the majority of barley planted in the U.S. was utilized for feed. Now approximately two-thirds 

of the barley planted in the United States is utilized for malting 

and brewing purposes. And as that has shifted, we’re shifting in 

our—our pricing mechanisms as well. 

If we’re going to integrate that with risk management, there’s 

basically three things that we need to consider, and this would 

work for barley, but is a consideration for—for any crop in the farm 

program. Particularly with regard to—that’s probably a little more 

barley specific is price. Risk Management Agency current—currently utilizes an antiquated formula where they take the Chicago 

Board of Trade December corn futures, multiply it by a factor of 

.821, and that becomes the barley price. That’s OK, but we need 

better—we just simply have to do new research to re—revitalize 

that price derivation. That decision that was made was right at the 

time of the mid-1980’s when you had 10 to 15 million acres of barVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00660 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
655 

ley in the U.S. When you’re under 3 million and it’s become more 

specialized, that—that factor has to be reevaluated. Corn may not 

be the best proxy crop on comparison. It may be spring wheat or 

something else. So we’re starting to actually take some steps in 

that direction. 

Visiting with growers, most will indicate that one thing they 

need to protect is the gross margin. We try to protect the yield. We 

try to protect price or gross revenue by—through some type of a 

revenue assurance with a price-yield combination. But being able 

to protect the margin is absolutely critical. And some of the next 

generation crop insurance products that need to be considered and 

are currently being—being considered would look at a way to indirectly insure some of the energy costs because the volatility occurs 

in the fertilizer, the fuel, a lot of those particular areas where 

growers just have absolutely no control over it. Think of the fuel 

price spikes in 2005 and what that did to a lot of people, especially 

at harvesttime. 

Mar—margin coverage concept for spring wheat. Currently we’ve 

got something like that in the development, and that’s largely 

thanks to the efforts of yourself and Congressman Pomeroy in 

changing Section 508(h) of the Ag Risk Protection Act of 2000, and 

we got that changed through the last farm bill. That was—that was 

critical and—and, as growers, we thank you for that. That was— 

that’s—we’re starting to get a good step in the right direction. But 

as spring wheat achieves something, it will be good for the other 

crops. We think barley needs to have something similar, maybe not 

identical, but sim—similar. 

Finally, disaster. Don’t have to tell the growers in Renville County that—I know Scott would probably like to have lakefront property on his 17 inches of—of—of rain, but probably not right out his 

backyard. We know those environmental conditions, it’s beyond the 

growers’ control. There’s not much—there’s nothing they can really 

do about it. SURE is a very good step. Taking SURE and harmonizing it a little bit more closely with crop insurance may provide 

that balancing act that—that we need to get this to move forward 

in a—in a good, positive manner. 

Holistic safety net, absolutely critical, and the risk management 

products, coupled with our current system, we’re guardedly optimistic that we’re looking at a good future, but we—we do need the 

safety net in place. 

So with that, I close. I thank you for this opportunity. I’ll entertain questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Edwardson follows:] 

656 


58154.371
657 


58154.372
658 


58154.373
659 


58154.374
660 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Thank you, Steve, very much. Excellent testimony. 


58154.375
661 

Let’s go next to Larry Neubauer, U.S. Durum Growers Association President. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF LARRY NEUBAUER, PRESIDENT, U.S. DURUM 

GROWERS ASSOCIATION, BOTTINEAU, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. NEUBAUER. Thank you, Senator Conrad, for the opportunity 

to testify today. I’m going to—I represent durum today. I want to 

point out that I am a third-generation farmer from Bottineau and 

I have four children, all of which have participated in crop production in their years coming up through high school, junior high, and 

on. This particular year, I can honestly say that three of my sons 

out of three raised durum, so we have a perspective. I guess I believe in promoting durum. 

One of the biggest concerns that durum has been focused on in 

the last several years is the declining acreage that’s been seeded 

of durum in the United States, primarily in North Dakota. And 

there is a factor that has been responsible for most of this and it 

is Fusarium head—head blight or scab. 

There is not a genetic answer to this yet for durum, as there is 

with spring wheat. So our association looked in—very hard trying 

to find ways to lower that risk or offset the risk or some opportunities here to ensure that durum would be produced in North Dakota. 

Historically, North Dakota produced 90 percent of the durum in 

the United States. Currently, we are down to just under 70 percent. The decrease has been in North Dakota. The Desert Southwest has maintained their acres. 

Not only is durum important to us as producers, but to the state 

of North Dakota. North Dakota mills more than 85,000 bushels a 

day of durum and—and is the home to several pasta plants. 

A little background on Fusarium and our efforts to combat the 

problem. I’m going to address you, Senator, and with thanks for 

championing our Durum Wheat Quality Program in the last farm 

bill, and not only getting it in the farm bill, but the efforts of you 

and your staff. I have to personally mention John Fuher. And—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Gee, I wish you hadn’t done that because I’m just 

in salary negotiations with John and, you know, anything positive 

you say about him here will probably be thrown right back at me 

when I get back. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NEUBAUER. He has—he’s been very helpful. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NEUBAUER. There, John, I told him I would take—told you 

I would take care of you. 

[Laughter.] 

Mr. NEUBAUER. Also with your—the efforts of your colleagues. 

Senator Dorgan has been very helpful in the money side of getting 

this program. 

This program was authorized for $3 million this particular year. 

The regulations finally got put in place for implementation of this 

program this summer. This is a very—in the heart of durum area. 

There are probably several producers here that has used the 

Durum Wheat Quality Program this year. We look forward to the 

continuation of this. 

662 

We do hope that in the next farm bill that this program could 

be continued, and I guess it’s our request if there is some way that 

it could be with the lack of having to have annual appropriations 

requests because what—for the people in the—here, we annually 

request—make a request with applications and go through the 

process and a lot of times a decision from Washington on how 

much of the up to $10 million that’s in the program, farm bill, how 

much of that will we get, and it’s difficult to take to the producers. 

It’s—you know, the producers want to know when it’s fungicide application time, ‘‘Is’’—you know, ‘‘Is this program in effect? Will 

there be dollars here for me this year?’’ So—and I have not heard 

any final data on—on how many request dollars there were this 

year, if the $3 million was consumed. I assume it is and look forward to more usage of it in the future. 

Another factor declining—or contributing to the decline of durum 

production was the lack of adequate price coverage and crop insurance products for durum. Steve highlighted some of these crops 

and—and the problem of price coverage. One thing that—that the 

Durum Growers have done is we went to RMA and we talked to 

them, explaining to them that historically durum has a price premium in the marketplace over spring wheat, and their factoring or 

their formulas for determining pricing of these price selections for 

durum kind of got muddled when there were no futures for durum 

in the Minneapolis Grain Exchange. 

So what we did is we did a study. We had Dr. Won Koo in—at 

NDSU went through and—and with the help of the North Dakota 

Wheat Commission and mills in—in the state of North Dakota, 

which we have more than one, and we determined the historical 

price premium for durum, and understanding that, yes, sometimes 

durum is worth less than spring wheat; sometimes it is worth 

more. But historically, we came up with a number in that 16 to 18 

percent. 

So it prompted RMA to do their own study, and in conversations 

with—and dialog with them, they did agree to address this. It did 

not get for the revenue and the APH products in 1909 because they 

have a different time factor of when they have to be discovered for 

their price. But in 1909, we did see a 95-cent price premium for 

durum with the APH product of crop insurance. For 2010, the price 

premium on the revenue side was $1.03 a bushel and on the APH 

side was $1.10. And they have indicated to us that—that they have 

their—their formula. They won’t, of course, disclose what it is, but 

they were comfortable going forward with this and, needless to say, 

there was a lot of scrutiny that they come under before approving 

it. 

I think that maybe this is something for barley to look at, malt 

versus feed. I mean there are some examples that we can learn 

from each other on. 

I think that both of these policy and program changes can encourage and incentivize farmers to raise durum. 

You know, pasta industry, we think of here locally where we 

have some in-state pasta. We have limited knowledge of out-ofstate. There are actually pasta milling industries in Arizona, California, Montana, North Dakota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Virginia, 

Iowa, South Carolina, and Minnesota. And I think it’s important 

663 

for all commodities that we look for these states and these key people that can provide assistance for these. It’s not just the raw product. We have to look into the—the end product or into the industry 

side of it. 

One thing that, I guess, looking at the—what we’d like to see 

going forward is we, too, voice adequate crop insurance coverage. 

There is some concern that crop insurance quality factors don’t necessarily mirror those used by the government for loans and LDPs. 

I do know that falling numbers is going to be in—addressed in crop 

insurance for 2011. That’s an example of how we can, you know, 

look at addressing some of these differences. 

I had mentioned the Durum Wheat Quality Fact—Program. 

We also support a permanent disaster program, whether it be a 

combination of—of—of current ones that are implemented, but I 

think the—the big message from producers on the disaster programs are, whether it’s the livestock program that covered a lot of 

losses in two—a little over 2 years ago in the Southwest or if it’s 

the SURE program that targeted more on the crop side of it, if 

there’s a disaster program, we need to see it be implementable soon 

after the disaster. You know, these 2 years later created a lot of 

economic burdens for—for producers. 

We have also always advocated higher loan rates. I know Steve 

kind of touched on loan rates for barley, you know, indicating a 

slight increase, but, still, it’s just kind of temporary. 

One thing that was mentioned last that—for the 2007–8 farm 

bill, there was a mention from the—from leadership to the commodity groups, like for wheat, for instance, asking would we be 

look—satisfied with a $5 loan rate? Needless to say, we didn’t take 

a $5 loan rate. 

Is this loan rate important? We believe it is. For our commodity 

especially, durum, last year and this year, the commodity prices 

have been less than the loan rate and there have been—in 2009, 

there was over a hundred million dollars worth of loan deficiency 

payments that were paid out to producers of durum. That hundred 

million dollars was very critical to durum producers. This year with 

LDP being a—received by producers and the fact that durum loan 

rate is an option there for revenue, the—durum believes that the 

loan rate is very important and that maybe the direct payments 

are of much of a less importance. 

It was mentioned here that if the direct payments were—I think 

Robert Carlson mentioned that if the direct payments were—were 

withheld and still kept as far as baseline, but use that to fund 

other angles here for disaster, I guess that’s what durum would 

support. 

So we appreciate—appreciate your invite to this hearing for us 

to testify and understand that the environment in any congressional arena is leaning continually toward more hostility toward 

ag, and if there’s anything that we can do to assist or work with 

other commodity groups, we’re—we’re fully willing. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neubauer follows:] 

664 


58154.432
665 


58154.433
666 


58154.434
667 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, thank you. 

On that point, let me just say that I think our unity is more important than ever before. It is absolutely critically important that 

agriculture America stand together as we work on this new farm 

bill. 

We did in the last farm bill more successfully than I have ever 

seen. It was pretty good the previous farm bill; even better in the 

most recent one. It is absolutely essential. If we—if we look ahead 

here at what we confront, with the budget pressure on the one side 

and the increasing demands to be included in the farm bill on the 

other, because, you know, now crops that were never program crops 

are asking to be included, and we’re seeing a growing momentum 

in that direction. We’re going to see tremendous pressure on the 

nutrition side. 

So you’ve put it all together. We face, I think, one of the toughest 

challenges we’ll ever have in writing this next farm bill. Already 

we’re down, John tells me today, $5.9 billion on the baseline. What 

Robert started by discussing is the baseline. That is, if you continued the programs as they are, what would it cost? That is the baseline. We are 5.9 billion below that already because of the changes 

to crop insurance. And we don’t get credit for those savings. That 

doesn’t—that money does not come back to us. That money goes 

into the general fund of the United States. So we’ve already lost almost $6 billion off of the baseline. The baseline is roughly $140 billion. So we’ve already taken a substantial hit before we ever begin to write a new farm bill, and it’s important for people to understand that. 

Next we’ll go to Jeff Oberholtzer, National Sunflower Association 

Director. Welcome. It’s good to have you here, and I think you’re 

attired in the right color and ready to go. 

STATEMENT OF JEFF OBERHOLTZER, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL 

SUNFLOWER ASSOCIATION, MOHALL, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. OBERHOLTZER. Yeah, thank you, Senator, for the opportunity 

to speak at this hearing today. 

The National Sunflower Association is a combined grower and industry commodity group representing growers from the Canadian 

border all the way to southern Texas. At this time, we have not formulated any specific recommendations for the new farm bill—for 

the next farm bill, but we have agreed to general principles. 

First of all, the board is made up of five—growers from five different states and five industry representatives from the processors 

and com—seed company side. We all have agreed, too, that the current farm bill is working in providing a safety net for sunflower 

producers and the crops that fall in the rotation. 

Obviously, it is much easier to come to a general agreement 

when the environment and when the com—commodity—commodity 

prices are higher than the established loan—loan rates and target 

prices. 

The following are some specific points I’d like to address that the 

board of directors have agreed to. 

The first one is crop insurance. This is the No. 1 tool for sunflower producers to use to protect farm income. Further strengthening of crop insurance programs will be supported by the NSA. 

668 

We have worked hard to make crop insurance relevant to our producers. 

Some key provisions that have made the program more workable 

is the separate insurance programs for confection and oil-type sunflowers. Also, RMA maintained the revenue assurance program 

after they initially recommended it to be eliminated. Also, RMA increased the revenue value of oil-type sunflowers after acreage was 

shifted to the higher value NuSun type. 

The second one is direct payments. There is a general agreement 

among the board that direct payments should be reinvented if this 

is the lightning rod for farm program opponents. Obviously, no one 

is going to want to give up the income stream that comes from direct payments, but if it’s viewed negatively by the public, then 

some readjustments should be made. We would support redirecting 

at least a portion of these payments to further strengthen crop insurance programs or possibly SURE and ACRE programs. 

The third one is counter-cyclical program. The structure of this 

program for minor oilseeds largely eliminates an income support 

for sunflowers. It—this program does have a safety net potential, 

but does need to be redefined. And at this time we’re not sure if 

that will be necessary. 

The fourth one is ACRE. Overall, this program has good merits 

and potential, but it does need some tinkering to make it more appealing to producers. Participation in this program has been disappointing. 

Some suggestions that the board has come up with for possible 

improvements is breaking down state boundaries where state geographies are highly diverse. An example of this can be northern and 

southern Minnesota. And also maybe having crop reporting districts to more represent the demographics of the area. 

And another point is reduce the administration oversight, if possible, of the ACRE program. The board did hear a lot of producers 

report that the amount of paperwork required is one of the reasons 

they opted out of the program. 

And adjust T yields to recognize rotation for crops like sunflowers where it’s only grown every fourth or fifth year. 

The fifth one is the SURE and disaster programs. We have not 

had much experience with the SURE program, but do give Congress high marks for putting in a permanent disaster program. We 

do—we do assume amendments can be made to this program to 

make it a better overall program. But we do believe the recent commitment of funds to cover a portion of 2008 losses incurred by some 

producers is a bad precedent and could jeop—easily jeopardize 

meaningful and needed programs in the future. 

The sixth is market loans. This program has proven itself as a 

key provision in providing a safety net. However, the established 

loan levels are too low. We understand budget implications and the 

WTO compliance issues. This has not been discussed in detail, but 

our organization may be willing to support a higher loan rate in 

exchange for reduced direct payments. 

Overall, the existing farm program is working well. We are sensitive to the amount of money that was taken from the baseline 

and hope that further reductions will not be necessary. It is imporVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00674 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
669 

tant that all commodities be treated equally to eliminate nonmarket planting signals. 

As a young farmer, I am sensitive to what my urban friends 

think of farm program budgets. The future looks very bright for 

production agriculture with record crops combined with record demand and attractive prices. But I’m fully aware that production 

and market disasters do occur. For that reason, a Federal safety 

net and insurance program is required to keep me producing for an 

ever-increasing hungry world. 

The CHAIRMAN. Very—— 

Mr. OBERHOLTZER. Thank you. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Oberholtzer follows:] 

670 


58154.376
671 

The CHAIRMAN. Very, very good testimony. I appreciate it, Jeff. 

I take to heart very much the suggestions of you and your board. 

I think they’re right on point, and thank you for it. 

Next we’ll go to Ryan Pederson, the Northern Canola Growers 

Association President. Good to have you here. 


58154.377
672 

STATEMENT OF RYAN PEDERSON, PRESIDENT, NORTHERN 

CANOLA GROWERS ASSOCIATION, VICE PRESIDENT, U.S. 

CANOLA ASSOCIATION, ROLETTE, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. PEDERSON. Good afternoon. Thank you for inviting us. And 

if I may take a moment—you complimented Jeff’s shirt—I’d like to 

compliment Steve on his exquisite eye for fashion, if you will. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I noticed that you guys coordinated before. I—I 

thought we probably should have you two seated together. 

Mr. PEDERSON. Well, John said this was a dress code, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, yeah. Yeah. 

Mr. PEDERSON [continuing]. In his e-mail, so—— 

Mr. EDWARDSON. Part of the small grains Mafia. 

Mr. PEDERSON. But, no, thank you again. I’m Ryan Pederson. I 

farm in Rolette, North Dakota, in partnership with my father. We 

do canola, wheat, barley, soybeans, and have done flax in the past. 

I currently serve as President of the Northern Canola Growers, 

Vice President of the U.S. Canola Association. I would just like to 

take a few minutes to share our ideas in the next farm bill as we 

move forward. 

As many of us know, canola has enjoyed good press lately for 

being a healthy vegetable oil and as the country moves into the 

health-consciousness and the trans-fat ban, we need canola oil, 

sunflower oil, and currently we have to import canola oil to meet 

the U.S. demand. Over the past 10 years, canola has seen a wide 

variation of planted acres. This year we had over one and a half 

million acres, similar to what we saw in 2000. But during this 10- 

year period, we have had acres down as low as 700,000. 

And if we’re going to satisfy this demand the American consumers put on our crop, we need to figure out ways to stabilize production and increase it, and that’s what our organization has been 

working on. 

But we also understand that as Congress moves forward in writing the next farm bill, we have a responsibility to make recommendations to a farm bill that’s going to be defensible to the 

American public and to be efficient. And with that, I just have 

some ideas on the current provisions in the farm bill. 

First, marketing loans. We need to make sure, No. 1, they’re equitable. As I mentioned, in the middle of the decade our acres really suffered, half of what we have now, and some of that could be 

tied into nonmarket signals that were given to other crops as far 

as planting intentions. And we need to make sure that as we look 

at loan rates—and hopefully we’re able to adjust them higher because right now they’re kind of a nonfactor in our farm—they need 

to be equitable so crops are grown based on what the market is demanding, not what the loan rates suggest. So that would be our 

suggestion on that. 

The next one, I think the most important one, is crop insurance. 

We need an adequate crop insurance. Crop insurance is good now, 

but there’s always room for improvement. You know, in this area, 

it was really hit with spring rain, and for my crop, canola, it’s 

not—no crop needs to be mudded in, but canola really suffers if you 

try to mud it in. And we’ve been working with RMA to try to extend the planting dates for canola and it’s a bit of a struggle. And 

673 

the struggle with canola, it’s a relatively young crop as far as genetic breeding. We’re just now getting into seeding hybrids and as 

these hybrids come onto the market, they can handle summer heat 

better than the open-pollinateds could in the past and we need to 

work with RMA and they need to understand that the genetics are 

changing so we can put our seeding dates later and still expect 

good yields. 

The next one, and when I wrote this, I wasn’t sure how the rest 

of the panel would be, and I’m—I guess I’m relieved, but it’s direct 

payments. Like Robert Carlson said, we always like getting the direct payments, but they are tough to defend, you know, and if direct payments need to come out, we definitely want them redistributed into risk management, counter-cyclical-type activity because 

that’s—that’s what we’re going to need moving forward. 

And as far as the ACRE program goes, a lot of farmers I talked 

to said they didn’t go into it because it was confusing. Some farmers didn’t think so, but most of them thought it was confusing. You 

have the state trigger, your local trigger, and, as Jeff said, we 

think maybe let’s get—get it more down to a smaller recording area 

instead of just the whole state level. 

And, also, the reduction in loan rates concerns certain farmers, 

so that would be something to look at. 

The CHAIRMAN. Could I stop you right on the point on ACRE, because I don’t want to lose this point, and as I—I think it’s very, 

very important for the hearing record. 

ACRE, I think, as a concept, has enormous potential. The problem is there is a tremendous difference if it’s applied nationally, at 

the state level, or closer to home. The closer to home it gets, the 

more expensive it becomes. That’s the reality that we have to confront here. 

We had a tremendous fight behind the scenes on ACRE because 

some wanted to impose it as a national program. That would have 

been potentially a disaster for us because we have more variability 

in production than the ‘‘I’’ states, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois. They 

would love to have a national program. But you think about what 

it could mean to us. If we had severe losses here, but we were 

being measured by a national standard, we might get nothing. We 

might get nothing. The rest of the country does well, we have a disaster, we get nothing. And, believe me, these guys understood exactly who was going to be the beneficiary and who was going to be 

left holding the bag, those who were advocating and pushing this. 

So we really have to have our heads up when we go into these 

negotiations and into this fight with respect to how it’s applied. We 

insisted on at least a state level, and we knew all along that we 

would be better off with a smaller reporting subset. I mean that— 

that really is what you need to have to make this program make 

the most sense. Because even at a state level, you could have most 

of the state do well, one part of the state do poorly, and, you know, 

you not get anything, you not get any help. 

So this—this is something that we’ve got to be very, very sensitive to as we go into this fight. And I wanted to make the point 

as you raised it so it’s very clear on the hearing record that out 

here we get it. We understand what the implications are for us and 

we’re not going to buy a pig in a poke. We’re not going to have, 

674 

you know, the big national boys roll in here and write us up for 

a program that then leaves us holding the bag if we just have a 

regional or a subregional failure. 

So just enough said, but I wanted to make sure that’s on the 

record at this point. 

Mr. PEDERSON. Absolutely, and we appreciate it—appreciate 

that. 

Next one is SURE. My only thoughts on SURE, it’s—it’s great to 

have it in there, but it brings up a point that was brought up earlier. As we move forward on these farm bills, we need to make sure 

that our county offices are supported adequately. In our county, we 

still have producers, myself included, that don’t know if we qualified for the SURE. And it’s not that they’re not doing their job. It’s 

just they need to be supported to have the staff and the infrastructure there. So these disaster bills or programs, if they come and 

you get the check 2 years later, the damage is already done. 

Finally, I’d like to talk about something of a commodity title, but 

on a conservation title. Programs like CSP have been gaining popularity and I can see them as being more easily defendable because, 

as a farmer, in order to qualify for these, we need to make capital 

investments in our farm, whether it be different machineries or different planting techniques, and they’re—they’re defendable that 

way and it’s doing what we’ve always done as farmers, taking care 

of our natural resources. But when we look at funding these, we 

need to make sure that the funding there doesn’t come at the expense of the commodity title and that they aren’t—they’re not 

counter-cyclical. So they need to be, you know, thought of that way. 

And then the only other thing is when these programs are written, we can’t punish the producers who are already doing conservation, you know, and only give the money to the producers who start 

doing it after the program’s out, but—— 

In summary, you started the hearing very well in saying that 

North Dakota is as prosperous as you’ve seen it, and I think as 

farmers, as we help with the farm bill, we can’t deny that. I think 

it would be foolish and somewhat selfish to do so. But whenever 

I start feeling too good, Dad reminds me that the 1980’s weren’t 

that far away. I don’t remember them, but he does. And he said, 

‘‘Things aren’t always going to be this good, and with the increase 

in input costs, we’re one bad year away from having a disaster.’’ 

So our top priority in this next farm bill would be risk management. 

Again, I appreciate the time. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Pederson follows:] 

675 


58154.378
676 


58154.379
677 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I think—I—I want—the testimony has 

been very consistent here today. I think it’s about as clear as it can 

be. One after another of you have testified risk management is at 

the top of your list. Risk management. Witness after witness, risk 

management at the top of your list, and it really has to be. 

You know, it’s always hard to know what we will confront when 

we go into a farm bill fight, but I don’t think this farm bill is going 

to get any easier to write the more we wait. 

We always have those voices in a farm bill fight who say, ‘‘Wait. 

Wait.’’ And in the last two bills, if we’d have followed their advice, 

it would have been a disaster for agriculture because in both cases, 

the money dried up, and had we waited, we would have been left 

with far less than what we were able to achieve. 

So I’m always very wary of those who counsel and suggest that 

we ought to delay, and I believe it’s true again this time. We simply cannot wait. 

The thing with the budget of the United States is only going to 

get worse. What I mean by that is the pressure is only going to 

build because we’re going to have to do more and more to rein in 

bud—budget deficits and debt as we go into the outer years. The 

next 2 years, there’s going to be less pressure because people understand if you cut too quickly, you endanger putting the economy 

back in a recession. So we’re probably going to get the best result 

sooner rather than later. 

And one thing I’d like to do is go to each of the witnesses and 

talk a little more about ACRE and the basic concept of a revenue 

program. A number of you—I think, Steve, you mentioned this, you 

used the word ‘‘harmonize,’’ as I recall. What do you mean by that? 

Mr. EDWARDSON. If you look at—if you look at ACRE, you look 

at SURE, you look at crop insurance, you look at direct payments, 

you look at the marketing program, each one in and of itself is a 

safety net in its own right. 

The discussions that we’ve been having amongst barley and others as well, if you have five general components that are attempting to do the same thing, but shore up the—the safety net in a different manner, is there a way to have those harmonized a little bit 

closer so that, one, there’s no overlap in it and, No. 2, any program 

that would be maybe a little bit administratively cumbersome, you 

could remove that by letting one of the other programs provide the 

strength. So if you’re—if you’re going to have a true net, all five 

of them, or six components, however you wish to view it, is fine. 

It’s just a matter of looking at some of the administrative efficiencies in it, and that—that’s one of the first steps I think we have 

to take. 


58154.380
678 

ACRE conceptually is a very good idea, and as—if I—if I look at 

it from an Iowa corn and soybean farmer where your variability of 

production is relatively minimal, it’s a fairly straightforward thing. 

If I’m a North Dakota farmer that raises nine different crops, I’ve 

got a battle on my hands because that program is incredibly farm 

specific. You just can’t give a—it put FSA in a very difficult situation because you cannot make an absolute blanket recommendation 

for all growers. Each grower had to sit down and try to almost outguess what the—what the future was going to be, and I know my 

crystal ball is usually pretty cloudy, so it—it’s difficult. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

Mr. EDWARDSON. But that—that’s our take on it. 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. I—I’d be interested in others’ take on it, and 

then the reason I—I raise this is because conceptually it seems to 

have great promise and great potential, acknowledging the special 

challenges that we have here with any revenue assurance program. 

The—the concept of taking these disparate programs and harmonizing them in the sense of taking the resources and providing a 

program that is directed at assuring a revenue stream has at least 

superficially an attractiveness to it. 

Any other observations on that? Yeah, Larry. 

Mr. NEUBAUER. Senator, Larry Neubauer with the U.S. Durum 

Growers. We have discussed this as a board and a lot of the input 

that we get from our directors back, several concerns. One is that 

most of the crops up here that we raise—I mean on my farm, we 

raise five or six different crops in a rotation, and determining 

your—your yields are difficult when you don’t get credit for consecutive—you know, the requirement for consecutive years of production for yield, and we might only have that crop on there once 

out of every three, 4 years. 

So it—it leaves a—a gap there of which we don’t actually get 

credit for. We still have—we feel that we have our production, our 

yields, whether we raise them once out of 5 years or if we raised 

them every year on the same unit. 

Another—another issue that comes up, I have 13 different landlords. Try to explain it—it was confusing. I—I couldn’t really comfortably explain it to any of them. But the fact that it was locked 

in and that no changes in decision could be made rightfully scared 

a lot of them away and scared me from actually even introducing 

the topic to some of them. 

So I think, you know, there’s continual change in not necessarily 

land ownership, but operating or—and that locking in is—is a very 

difficult thing, looking into the future, with a—without a clear crystal ball. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, let me just say that as is, it’s not the answer, but I tell you, I think there’s going to be heightened interest 

in revenue assurance-type programs going forward for some of the 

reasons that Steve mentioned in talking about the need for harmonization because when you have these different attempts to provide 

safety-net treatment, there is complexity in that. There is confusion 

in that. 

Now, ACRE as it is has its own set of confusions and its own set 

of complexities, and I don’t think, unless it is dramatically improved, will it be very attractive to people here. I mean what— 

679 

what you just said is what I’ve heard all across the state of North 

Dakota, just too confusing. But the concept—the concept of a revenue assurance program is really what I’m trying to get at. Does 

it have appeal? Is it something we ought to pursue and see if we 

can perfect? That’s really the question I have. 

Robert. 

Mr. CARLSON. Well, we think a revenue program really has some 

merits, like you say, and—and that ACRE is worth working with. 

There are problems with it. The biggest one being—well, I think 

actually two of them are big problems. The biggest problem, perhaps, is—is that the—the—the trigger beyond your farm’s trigger, 

the next trigger being the state, it—it’s just too big of geographical 

area, like you say. Maybe the counties are too small for that to be 

cost effective. So what could be in between? Somebody in this panel 

suggested in their written testimony that it might be the crop reporting districts, of which there are nine in North Dakota. That— 

that’s an interesting idea and that might be worth doing a little 

analysis on. So that’s one issue. 

The CHAIRMAN. Who—whose testimony was that, crop reporting? 

Mr. PEDERSON. Jeff’s. 

The CHAIRMAN. Jeff. 

Mr. CARLSON. The—— 

The CHAIRMAN. I saw that too. 

Mr. CARLSON. Yeah. The other one is—is just plain information. 

Our organization did some information sessions on it, along with 

the FSA director, last year and there’s just a lot—there’s a lot of 

confusion about it. What Larry mentioned as far as the landlord is 

a really big issue. To go to an elderly landlord that you’re maybe 

cash renting from and try to explain the SURE program is—well, 

it’s just about impossible. So—so the administration part of it 

needs to be simplified. 

The other part is that it’s got kind of a—in parts of North Dakota, it has a bad reputation now because for durum producers in 

northwest—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You’re talking about ACRE now? 

Mr. CARLSON. ACRE. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. CARLSON. In northwest—— 

Did I say something—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You said SURE. 

Mr. CARLSON. I meant ACRE. I’m sorry. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thought maybe you were trying to confuse me. 

Mr. CARLSON. Well, I know that would be impossible, so I’d never 

try. No, I meant ACRE. 

And the other part of ACRE that—that gives it a little bit of a 

bad reputation is that in northwestern North Dakota some producers who were primarily durum producers signed up for ACRE 

thinking that their loan deficiency payments that they were eligible 

for would be reduced by 30 percent. They didn’t understand that 

the loan rate, the top rate, would be reduced by 30 percent. So we 

had some calls at our office from some people that were pretty 

upset about that and as—you maybe heard about Montana. That 

happened there too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mm-hmm. 

680 

Mr. CARLSON. So—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And it’s not hard to understand. 

Mr. CARLSON. It’s got some hurdles to—it has some hurdles to 

overcome, and you’re right; your—your bottom line that it’s not a 

good alternative the way it is is correct, but I think a revenue program is really worth working on. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, one of the things we’ve talked about 

is holding—you—you remember preparation for the 2008 farm bill, 

I held a summit, an agricultural summit. We had some of the top 

agricultural economists in the country. We had Larry Combest, the 

Chair—the former Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, 

here and it was really a good kickoff to the national farm bill debate. We had all the top agricultural publications in the country 

there at that summit. We had 26 Ph.D.s providing ideas, not that 

Ph.D.s have all the ideas on agriculture, but, certainly, there was 

a lot of out-of-the-box thinking that was helpful, I think, as we zeroed in on what we could actually achieve in the farm bill. 

We’ve been talking about having a—an agriculture summit next 

year here in North Dakota, bring in the major players from the 

committee, from the commodity groups, and really start talking 

about things we need to have more time to consider before we actually start writing the bill. And we—we talked about possibly doing 

this in the spring of next year. You know, re—remember, our—our 

summit leading into the 2008 farm bill was done in the fall. We— 

we need to consider when it’s done. But I—I think it’s absolutely 

essential that we provide kind of the thought leadership as well on 

writing that next farm bill. 

Any other observations from the panel? Anything that somebody 

heard somebody else say that they want to react to or anybody else 

have a—an observation with respect to a revenue program and 

whether that’s worth pursuing at least conceptually as we prepare 

for the run-up to the next farm bill? 

Mr. NEUBAUER. I—I guess I would. I probably didn’t directly 

state, but that’s—the ACRE program was of a great interest to— 

to myself as a producer and to others that I’m aware of that I’ve 

talked to, and the—the concept of simplifying to, as Steve’s indicated, you know, one type of safety net, but be it based on revenue 

of some—some structure, is, I think, producer-accepted widely 

across the state. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, the devil’s in the details, isn’t it? I 

mean, really, the devil is in the details. That program, the way it 

is, is just too—you know, the distance between your farm gate to 

the state border, that doesn’t work. But, you know, here—here’s 

what we were faced with. We were faced with those who were trying to impose a national. I mean you talk about a big distance between, I know, our individual farms and the national borders. I 

mean, boy, I tell you, there—there’s room for a real disaster for a 

state like ours that has so much variability. 

You know, the ‘‘I’’ states are just very different than we are. The 

‘‘I’’ states, Indiana, Iowa, Illinois, they have much less at—at risk. 

Their crop insurance, totally different circumstance. And remember 

what they tried to do to us in the last farm bill. They tried to pull 

themselves out of the national insurance program, have a separate 

risk pool just for them. Well, wouldn’t that have been sweet? And 

681 

I said to them during the discussion, I said, ‘‘Now, let me understand this. You want to take your low-risk situation, remove it 

from the pool that all the rest of us are part of, and then what happens to us and what happens to our rates?’’ Do you know what 

their answer was? ‘‘Nothing will happen to your rates. You’d all be 

ratable. It all will be treated’’—— 

And I—I said, ‘‘Look, I may look like I don’t get it, but I think 

I do. I think I know exactly what you guys are trying to do. You’re 

trying to put yourselves into a preferential pool and leave all the 

rest of us out there with much higher levels of risk, much higher 

rates, much higher costs, and’’—‘‘and,’’ you know, ‘‘we aren’t going 

for that.’’ I mean we’re the United States of America. We’re not the 

Separate States of America, and we’re not going to have a risk pool 

that’s just the ‘‘I’’ states and all the rest of us are off on the side. 

But that’s exactly what they tried to pull off in the last farm bill 

and, thank God, we were able to stop them. 

Any other—yeah, Scott. 

Mr. BACKES. One other thing that doesn’t pertain to insurance, 

but in writing the next farm bill, I’d like to see a clarification that 

would help me out in the wet years on Type 1 wetlands, what is 

consistent sheetwater on my farm. I don’t con—consider it a Type 

1 wetland, but the government does. I believe this needs to be 

changed so we can move some of this sheetwater in times of torrential rains, either on the lowland or move it downstream. We 

need to have them basically make a redetermination of that. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, let me just say it is one of the most 

frustrating parts of writing a farm bill because our experience with 

the realities of some of these definitions is so different from others 

in other parts of the country who have a different agenda. Let— 

let’s—— 

Mr. BACKES. Mm-hmm. 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. Let’s be very direct. They have a different agenda. And being able to—to move sheetwater, to me, is 

just common sense. But you know the fight that we have and it is 

a—it is—you—you—you talk about some tough fights that go on 

behind the scenes, these are the toughest of them all. I wish Scott 

Stofferahn was here. Scott, I think all of you know, was one of my 

two lead negotiators on the last bill, and we fought this behind the 

scenes for weeks and weeks and weeks. 

And, you know, the original Swampbuster—somebody was, yesterday, criticizing former Senator Andrews to me because 

Swampbuster got in the 1985 farm bill. And I said, you know, I 

went back and reviewed the record when I got to Senate Agriculture Committee to see if Senator Andrews had somehow let us 

down or misunderstood, and he did not. He was misled. He asked 

very directly in testimony before the committee, ‘‘Would 

Swampbuster apply to North Dakota?’’ He was assured in testimony that it would not. Well, we all know what happened. When 

the regulations were written, all of a sudden it did apply to North 

Dakota. 

So, you know, it’s not my job to defend former Senator Andrews 

who I defeated in election in 1986, but in fairness to him, he was 

absolutely misled. He was told directly it would not apply to North 

Dakota. 

682 

Mr. BACKES. Mm-hmm. 

The CHAIRMAN. So we know. The—there—these people have a 

different agenda and—and, you know, they are—they can be very 

unreasonable in terms of the application and—and the result when 

we’re out here on the farm and we’re dealing with overly wet conditions, you know, I—I don’t think they really understand the impact 

of the regulations they’re imposing on us. But they’re not reasonable. 

Mr. BACKES. Those regulations were mostly brought on by direct 

aid payments. Once you don’t have the direct aid payments anymore, you know, I wonder what they’re going to start thinking if— 

you know, they’re going to have to tie it to something else. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. BACKES. And that would be unfortunate if they were able to 

do that. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, let’s not—let’s not—let’s not help them figure that out. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. I—this is one of the things we’ve got to be prepared to deal with in this next farm bill, to try to—look, we all understand there is a conservation ethic. I think we all share it. We 

believe in it. It’s important, but it’s got to be reasonable, you know. 

It—it’s got to make some common sense. And some of these things 

defy common sense. 

Let’s open it up to those who are in the audience. If there’s anybody here that would like to testify, make a comment, we’d be 

happy to give you that opportunity at this point. Anybody that 

wants to be recognized, wants to give us some observations about 

writing the next farm bill, we’ll be happy to listen. 

Senator O’Connell, good to have you here. Welcome. 

STATEMENT OF HON. DAVID O’CONNELL, NORTH DAKOTA 

SENATOR, LANSFORD, NORTH DAKOTA 

Senator O’CONNELL. Welcome to District 6, Senator. Excellent 

testimony you had here today. And Scott and I, our operations are 

about three miles apart, so I get all his sheetwater, you know, 

so—— 

[Laughter.] 

Senator O’CONNELL. But all kidding aside, just so you’re aware, 

some of the conditions that we faced in Bottineau and—and 

Renville County up here is basically, I don’t think a bushel of grain 

was ever trucked out of the field. Representative Hunskor is sitting 

here too. He runs a grain cart for our operation. And the grain 

carts have been stuck and there’s a—a contractor from Maxbass 

that works in the oil field. Their winch truck has been out, and 

Scott can testify better to what I’d have because he’s around the 

guys more than I am, that winch truck is out every day just about 

all day long because four-wheel-drive tractors can’t pull these combines out. 

So, again, all the low areas are full of water yet, Senator. Normally we combine through them, but they’re all full of water, and 

the sheetwater has flooded out. In my area, at least a third of the 

crop has been drowned out and you can’t even get in there. I was 

on a payloader on Saturday. One scoop in and I dropped the front 

683 

wheels all the way—way in. It took a four-wheel-drive tractor with 

triples on to get me out. So that’s the kind of conditions we’ve got 

this year. 

By next summer or next spring with prevent plant and insurance, it’s really going to be critical to—to this area. Quality control 

is going to be—quality is going to be another big area. I just helped 

a neighbor combine. Winter wheat had been laying on the ground 

for two—for 2 months now in windrows and it’s green in the windrows that you’re trying to pick up. So quality loss is going to be 

a big—a big area again. 

I don’t know if rural water is going to be in the farm bill this 

time, Senator, or not, but the two ladies sitting in front—front of 

me from District 7, we were in Berthold last week and the NAWS 

project to bring rural water up through this whole area is really 

critical, Senator, so just to—I don’t want to get you off—off track 

here, but—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Don’t get me started. 

Senator O’CONNELL. No, we won’t. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, we just had 2 days of negotiations 

with our Canadian neighbors to the north on NAWS, on Devils 

Lake, and other vexing water issues. The—the—the dike that they 

call a road up in Canada and on the northeastern part of our state, 

we showed them pictures of that road that they’ve got signs up 

don’t drive on it. They don’t want to drive on it because it’s not a 

road. It’s a dike. It’s just as clear as it can be. Forty-four miles long 

and it’s blocking the water on the North Dakota side. 

And NAWS, you can imagine the exchange going back and forth 

for 2 days on NAWS and Devils Lake. And, you know, this was a 

negotiation with the Ambassador from Canada, with the Premier 

from Manitoba, with the American ambassador to Canada, and the 

Governor and Congressman Pomeroy and Governor—Senator Dorgan and myself, and it was very, very intense and very intense on 

both Devils Lake and NAWS. 

Look, we—we think we’ve put in place the best treatment of 

water on NAWS and that water would go in an enclosed pipeline 

to a treatment facility that would deliver drinking-quality water. 

Now, that’s the fact. 

And what they want to do is they want us to treat the water before it goes in the pipeline to drinking-quality status, then pipe it 

in a pipeline and treat it again. Wow! I mean you think about that. 

I said, ‘‘Well, do you guys want to pay for it? I mean if this is so 

important to do, why don’t you pay for it?’’ And it gets pretty quiet 

when that gets to be the choice. 

Let me just say that I’m very aware of the conditions that you’ve 

had here. Really, some of the most difficult conditions in the state 

this year are right here. It’s one of the reasons we wanted to come 

here for the first farm bill hearing. 

Others who might want to testify? Yes, sir. 

STATEMENT OF DEL GATES, DIRECTOR, U.S. DURUM GROWERS ASSOCIATION, AND DIRECTOR, NORTH DAKOTA CROP 

IMPROVEMENT & SEED ASSOCIATION, MOHALL, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. GATES. Senator Conrad—— 

684 

The CHAIRMAN. If you could—— 

Mr. GATES. —Del Gates. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, if you’d identify yourself for the record 

so—— 

Mr. GATES. Yep, Durum Grower Director, State Crop Improvement Director. 

One of the true—and—and I’ve had both. We’ve had prevent 

plant before and, well, we’ve had drowned-out. We’ve had to where 

you can seed wall to wall and everything. But one of the true tragedies of the—the crop insurance program is no protection on these 

drowned-out areas. That—you’ve got all the expense into it and 

there—there is a point in time where you do stop seeding. Because 

of prevent plant, the program, the benefits you can get from it, you 

say, ‘‘Well, the heck with it,’’ when there is people that are still trying to seed and then the rains come and drown that out, which 

there is no protection over. 

If you have 160 acres and lose 80 to—to drowned-out that’s 

there, now you take your yield of 80 acres times that and—and 

produce that off 160 acres you’ve seeded. So that is a true—true 

disaster all in all, and we need something to cover that, whether 

we’ve got—we can buy up to 70 percent on prevent plant, virtually, 

and you’re a hundred percent coverage if you’re fully seeded. Well, 

maybe there needs to be an 85 percent or something in there to 

make the person go seed and try to get it. There needs to be a coverage in there for what drowns out. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, I—I think you’re exactly right. You know, 

all of these things get to be a negotiation where we’ve got a dollar 

amount we’ve got to hit; all right? And I can tell you we looked at 

85 percent and we could not afford it in this bill. We set a standard 

early on that this bill had to be paid for. We’re not going to add 

anything to the deficit. Nobody’s going to be able to come and say 

to us, ‘‘You in agriculture added to the deficit.’’ And so that’s really 

where this fell out because, obviously, if you have that intermediary step, it’s additional cost, and, you know—but it makes perfect sense. We’ll fight very hard in the next to try to—to provide 

that kind of intermediate step. 

Mr. GATES. One other point, I think, in this harmonization talks 

of all of these mechanisms working. I go back, I guess, a little bit 

to—to 2004 when we were down in your office with a disaster and 

then we were having such a hard time with RMA coming there and 

not listening to us when we wanted to separate the durum and the 

wheat yields out. They wanted to separate, but we still couldn’t get 

identified yields on each one of those. 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. I remember it very well. 

Mr. GATES. Yep. And then in 2004, we had a teleconference—— 

The CHAIRMAN. We actually got the RMA director fired over that. 

Mr. GATES. Well, we did that, yeah, but we also had a teleconference and that’s what I—I tried getting that for so long. There had 

to be a board of farmers. And I think it was in August of 2004, we 

got a teleconference with the board that was crop improvement and 

they went down their list, and Keith Collins happened to even be 

sitting in there—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, I remember that. 

685 

Mr. GATES [continuing]. In the—in the room, yeah, as we were 

talking to him on the phone. But one of the things, the tobacco person says, ‘‘Well, I’m a South’’—‘‘from South Carolina’’—‘‘Carolina. 

I’m a tobacco grower.’’ And the one key one—everyone an—announced what they were, but one of the key ones was this guy from 

Iowa. He was a corn and bean farmer. And that’s kind of the one 

I wanted to identify with. I said—introduced myself then. I said, 

‘‘I’m Del Gates from Mohall, North Dakota, but,’’ I said, ‘‘I can’t 

identify myself as a corn and bean grower because North Dakota 

is No. 1 in 14 different crops and,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s not by not growing 

them.’’ 

And little did we know that we would end up coming with T 

yields then. But he was the key one and I—I said—you know, I 

said, ‘‘When you buy a quarter of land,’’ I said, ‘‘80 acres is seeded 

to’’—‘‘to beans and the other 80 acres is to corn and,’’ I said, ‘‘you 

rotate that so your history in 5 years is huge,’’ you know. And I 

said, ‘‘We don’t do that. So,’’ I said, ‘‘we need some other mechanism of backing.’’ 

Similar to like you say with the crop insurance. They want to be 

alone. Well, that’s the part. Same with this ACRE program. I think 

we do need, now that we’ve got T yields, maybe go back to the 

farm. It may be a little bit—look a little bit complex, but the harmonization, we’ve got crop insurance to the farm—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. GATES [continuing]. You know, to harmonize this and get it 

back to where the true economic return does come from so it is on 

how the producer does his job. 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, let me say this because I—I think it’s 

an important point. Technology is going to change everything. With 

better technology, I think we’re going to be able to get back to on 

a farm basis, which is really where it belongs, because then you’re 

really—you’re—you’re—you’re really at where the rubber meets the 

road. But we’re not there yet. I mean, USDA’s computer systems 

are in dreadful shape. You know, there was no money put into 

them for years and now we’ve got a lot of catching up to do. But 

with technology, we’re going to be able to really fine-tune things in 

a way we haven’t been able to do in the past, but it’s going to take 

time, and I doubt very much it will be done in time for this next 

farm bill. 

Yeah—— 

Mr. GATES. Even—— 

The CHAIRMAN. —Del. 

Mr. GATES. Even if we could on those drowned-outs, just another 

thought, go to our T yields or something on that, get coverage for 

T yields on—on those—you know, those areas or whatever. Get the 

T yield at least thrown in—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. GATES [continuing]. Instead of the actual yield going 

across—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. GATES [continuing]. The whole—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. No, I—I get it. It’s a very good—it’s a very 

rational point. 

686 

Mr. BACKES. Del, was—wasn’t 1 year they had flooded acres program? Didn’t we have 1 year of that at one time here several years 

ago and, I don’t know, whatever happened to it? 

Mr. GATES. Well, I think if we could get—get declared a national 

disaster, then doesn’t that flood program kind of kick in and then 

we’ll be able to go back and—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. GATES [continuing]. Kind of get credit? 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Mr. GATES. But it has to be a national, if I’m not mistaken. 

The CHAIRMAN. Got to be national. 

Mr. BACKES. You know, it can’t be a statewide? 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. BACKES. It’s got to be a national? 

The CHAIRMAN. Right. 

Mr. BACKES. OK. That’s why. 

The CHAIRMAN. And God forbid we have a national. You know, 

let’s pray we don’t have it. 

Any other—anybody else that wants to provide testimony, give 

an observation? We want to make sure that everybody has a 

chance. 

STATEMENT OF BECKY BRAATEN, INSURANCE AGENT, FARM 

CREDIT SERVICES OF NORTH DAKOTA, WESTHOPE, NORTH 

DAKOTA 

Ms. BRAATEN. Senator Conrad—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Ms. BRAATEN. —Becky Braaten with Farm Credit. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Ms. BRAATEN. I know several of the panel members have already 

addressed this, but I think the preservation of crop insurance is extremely important. Crop insurance already gave with the—you 

guys addressed—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, yes. 

Ms. BRAATEN [continuing]. This 6.9 billion off of the baseline, the 

SRA—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah. 

Ms. BRAATEN [continuing]. Negotiations. 

The complications that have come with crop insurance, the regulations, I think it’s critically important that we maintain the program. It does work. Yes, there are some things that need to be addressed, like prevent plant, the drown-out acres. But, again, the 

SRA negotiations, crop insurance already gave. 

The CHAIRMAN. We already gave at the office. 

Ms. BRAATEN. Exactly. 

The CHAIRMAN. And we gave big-time—— 

Ms. BRAATEN. And I appreciate you—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. In terms of the baseline. 

Ms. BRAATEN. In terms of the baseline. 

The CHAIRMAN. In terms of the baseline, right. 

Ms. BRAATEN. Yes. Exactly. 

And I think it’s critically important that we maintain the delivery service of the crop insurance program. I think if you talk to any 

of the farmers, competition is important, not only to keep the comVerDate Aug 31 2005 14:04 May 13, 2011 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00692 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 C:\DOCS\58154 SBUD1 PsN: TISH
687 

panies, but also the agents. And it’s a very complicated program, 

and I think Ryon can attest with me here that coming into a year 

of the COMBO policy, it’s not as easy as everybody says. Definitions have changed. Malt barley has changed. There’s a lot of 

things out there, and I think we need to keep that service out there 

and make sure that the agents are in business to help all of the 

farmers, so—— 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, that’s an important point. 

Anyone else? 

STATEMENT OF RYON BOEN, INSURANCE AGENT, WESTERN 

AGENCY, MINOT, NORTH DAKOTA 

Mr. BOEN. Just to expand on that a little bit—— 

The CHAIRMAN. And if you’d just give your name—— 

Mr. BOEN. Ryon—— 

The CHAIRMAN [continuing]. So she—— 

Mr. BOEN. Ryon Boen. 

You know, you guys talked a lot about risk management and it 

sure—why is there—and some of this is a question, why is there 

risk management through FSA and RMA? And it’s so duplicative. 

The—the clients just hate it. They—‘‘Just whatever I can do to not 

go into the FSA office,’’ is what I hear as a crop insurance agent 

all the time is, ‘‘I just’’—‘‘I’ve got to report my acres to you and 

then I’ve got to report it to them.’’ 

SURE and ACRE are trying to do similar things. They’re extending the revenue protection period for sure, but really what they’re 

just—they’re both doing ostensibly the same thing and you could 

probably combine those programs, your $6 billion that—that got 

cut out. Is there that much duplication? Probably not, but you 

might get half of it back by figuring out a way to streamline it. 

I would—you know, the FSA offices were not geared up for this 

program. I would be in constant communication with those guys to 

understand it so I could explain it to my clients. My clients come 

to me to explain to them a program that I don’t administer. But 

they—they’re not equipped for these changes that are prescribed 

through these farm bills, either. I think the private delivery of crop 

insurance is much more geared up toward these dynamic changes 

because it’s more—you know, it’s just—it’s just faster. You know, 

I think—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You know, I—I—let—let me be very blunt here. 

There are people who want the farm program to fail, and one way 

to make it fail is to starve the FSA system so it can’t be administered. 

Mr. BOEN. Mm-hmm. 

The CHAIRMAN. And I’ve had senators tell me flat-out, not in 

public, but they’ve told me in private, that that is exactly what 

they’re trying to do. They want the whole thing to fail because they 

absolutely don’t believe in it. 

I—I had a farmer—or a senator tell me that we shouldn’t farm 

in North Dakota. He’s on the Agriculture Committee. I mean he 

flat-out told me we shouldn’t be farming here. It’s too marginal. I 

said, ‘‘Have you ever been to the Red River Valley of North Dakota?’’ 

‘‘No.’’ 

688 

I said, you know, ‘‘When I was growing up, every time we drove 

through the Red River Valley, my grandfather used to say the 

same thing, ’Never been a crop failure in the Red River Valley,’ ’’ 

and my grandfather would say the same thing every time we drove 

through. 

Now, this guy, I—I won’t identify him further because I—I could 

tell you some more things that he said, but that would more further identify him. I mean he was dead-serious. I mean, and he said 

this to me more than once, ‘‘You should not be farming in North 

Dakota.’’ Wow! Now, that—that’s kind of the thing we’re up against 

here. We’ve got people who actually think like that. 

Yeah. 

Mr. PEDERSON. Ryan Pederson. To that point, I went to graduate 

school at Purdue, Indiana, and was at a speech with Senator Lugar 

and he made the same point, and I thought to myself—— 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. 

[Laughter.] 

The CHAIRMAN. OK. I was trying to protect him. Go ahead. 

Mr. CARLSON. He said it to me once too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Huh? Did he? 

Mr. CARLSON. He said it to me once too. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yeah, he—he said it—and he said it to me more 

than once. 

Mr. CARLSON. But he apologized later. He apologized later. 

Mr. PEDERSON. But you know we’ve—— 

The CHAIRMAN. He was—he was not kidding, either. 

Mr. PEDERSON. No, he wasn’t, I mean. 

And we’ve talked about water issues. You ask the people in the 

‘‘I’’ states where would they be without drain tile. 

Mr. CARLSON. Yeah. 

Mr. PEDERSON. You know, they had it all done before any of 

these rules came in. 

Mr. CARLSON. Yeah. 

Mr. PEDERSON. If they didn’t have the drain tile, they’d probably 

be in worse shape than we are. I just think that—— 

Mr. BACKES. They’re doing it now against the rules—— 

Mr. CARLSON. Yeah. 

Mr. BACKES [continuing]. And nobody does anything about it, either. 

Mr. CARLSON. No, they don’t. 

Mr. PEDERSON. So it’s—it’s something to remind them of that—— 

The CHAIRMAN. You know what he said to me, one of the things 

he said to me? Never been a crop failure on his farm. Never been 

a crop failure on his farm. Well, you know, you guys have been 

blessed. You’ve been blessed. But that is not all of American agriculture. And the idea that you would just say you don’t farm in 

North Dakota, I mean, really, what would the consequence of that 

be? That is twenty—25 percent of this state’s economy just out the 

window. And what would it mean to the country since we are the 

No. 1 producer in commodity after commodity? As I started my— 

my remarks today, 15 commodities, we’re No. 1. 

So this idea that somehow North Dakota should not be an agricultural producer because there is risk to production here is, to me, 

689 

absolutely detached from any economic reality. But, I mean, that— 

that is—that’s the kind of thing that we’re dealing with. 

Any other? I know that we’ve about come to the end of our time. 

I want to make sure anybody else that’s got something they want 

to testify to has a chance. 

If not, I want to again thank this panel. I appreciate very much 

your participating. As we think about a summit on agricultural policy for next year, we’ll be in conversation with all of you. Love to 

have you participate. I think it could be extremely important to 

farm bill deliberations to have North Dakota once again lead the 

way as we think through what the issues are. 

I want to thank everybody that’s in attendance here today. We 

certainly appreciate that. 

With that, the hearing will be adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 2:51 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.] 

Æ