Manitoba and North Dakota in a Border War?

[Lineman]

An Article in todays Winnipeg Free Press spoke of how NorthDakota Farmers along the Manitoba / North Dakota border are threatening to take a backhoe across at night and make cuts in a dike that runs along the Canadian side of the border to release water which has backed up on the American side. Manitoba claims it is a road and does not contravene any treaties or laws. The plot thickens. Both parties had reached a cross border agreement regarding boundary waters. North Dakota was to have installed a filter on the contraversial Devils Lake outlet to prevent foreign biota from entering the Red River and Lake Winnipeg. The outlet went into operation without the filter. Part of the same agreement was to have Manitoba install culverts along the road in question to releive the flooding. Though some culverts were installed Provincial crews plugged them while making some breach repairs last week.

If the Doer Government is quietly playing hardball with the North Dakotans it should continue. Manitoba has tried to negotiate with North Dakota for years regarding the Devils Lake outlet as it has potential to be an ecelogical disaster for Lake Winnipeg but only to be ignored. Maybe it's our turn to ignore the yappin from the other side. (sorry no link, requires subscription)

 

[jimmoyer]

Pretend this dispute was between two provinces
or two states, and you'll get an idea how local the
issue is. It gets the headlines because of the
international boundary and it turns even the local
heads because of the international boundary.

Imagine.

 

[Lineman]

Local for the time being but if Lake Winnipeg, one of the world's largest freshwater lakes starts to suffer major ecological damage the "headlines" will not stay local and they won't view North Dakota's decision too favorably. As for the flooding it appens every few years regardless. All the culvert will do is lessen the drainage time.

 

[BitWhys]

Any ecological damage by the diversion will be next to impossible to prove conclusively and the Americans know it. I'd comment further about the "respect" this shows but that would be...

what's the phrase?

oh yeah. anti-American.

sweet twist with the culverts. cry me a river. literally.

 

[Lineman]

I'm by no means Anti- American, but when a friend acts like an ass......

 

[jimmoyer]

The devil is in the details, folks. I wonder how much
it is within the power of anyone to prevent flooding,
and how much it takes to engineer it otherwise. And
I'm quite suspicious of the easy answers, because
this issue is quite local but gets all the ideological
spin because of the international boundary.

Like I say, the whole issue would look different
if it was an internal dispute between Provinces or
an internal dispute between States.

We're led by our noses on this one.

 

[Lineman]

Here's a link to the "Canadian" position
http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/can-am/main/shared_env/garrison-en.asp

 

[jimmoyer]

Devils Lake is a small, closed system in North Dakota, a sub-basin within the Hudson Bay drainage basin, but not connected to it (no water flows out). Record high water levels have caused extensive damage to the town of Devils Lake. North Dakota has lobbied for construction of an "emergency" outlet which would pump water from Devils Lake into the Sheyenne River, thence to the Red River and into Manitoba. In periods of drought, North Dakota has also lobbied for an inlet, which would draw water from the Missouri River and incidentally require completion of a feature of the Garrison Diversion.

----------------the last paragraph in Lineman's Link------


This paragraph explains why South Dakota has
a problem in both Wet and Dry times with that lake.

If it doesn't do it, they are screwed.

If they do do it, they piss off their neighbor.

In addition I seem to recall the late 80s and early
90s of severe Red River flooding coming in from
the Canada side to North Dakota.

Like I said earlier there is way too much Devil in the
Details to do this very local issue (that transcends in
an international border) any justice.

It will be hard to separate out the truth from all
the spin and the lobbying interests and the international
spin on this one.

 

[Curiosity]

Now Jim

Don't knock the flooding possibilities! Besides it's really difficult to politicize the wily ways of a river in spring. Nobody told the river !

Yet you are probably correct - it will be another international incident - which has been happening for as long as I remember and a lot longer.... but now everyone is in the habit of blaming others
(or George Bush in particular)...instead of accepting and understanding the ways of nature and working on fixing the problem.

I got to skip grade three because of flooding....let out of school early for five of the seven grades I spent in Manitoba.... came to think sandbagging was the beginning of summer....

Kids are so accepting.

 

[BitWhys]

you must have been in the sticks. Us big city folks know its summer when we have to close our windows because they're fogging for mosquitos.

The Garrison is international because it sets treaty precident and deserves everybody's attention. The schtick about the farmers and the culverts would be strictly local if it wasn't ironic, didn't smack of the Hatfields and the McCoys and wasn't so incredibly fricking petty. Its APRIL for gawds sake. You don't seed for at least three weeks still anyways. Crybabies.

 

[Lineman]

In three weeks the flood will likely be gone but the outflow from Devils Lake will still be there.....along with whatever is in it...Hopefully nothing...