Devils Lake devours N.D. land, buildings

[Xipe Totec]

Source: Associated Press

Devils Lake, N.D. -- It's been called a slow-growing monster: a huge lake that has steadily expanded over the past 20 years, swallowing up thousands of acres, hundreds of buildings and at least two towns in its rising waters.

Devils Lake keeps getting larger because it has no natural river or stream to carry away excess rain and snowmelt. Now it has climbed within 6 feet of overflowing, raising fears that some downstream communities could be washed away if the water level isn't reduced.

And those worries are compounded by another problem: Scientists believe the pattern of heavy rain and snow that filled the basin is likely to continue for at least another decade.

"It's a slow-moving torture," said 72-year-old Joe Belford, a lifelong resident of Devils Lake and a county commissioner who spends most of his time seeking a way to control the flooding and money to pay for it.

No other place in America has faced such a dilemma. The nation's only other significant "closed-basin" lake is the Great Salt Lake, which was in danger of flooding housing developments in the mid-1980s. But shortly after the state spent $70 million on huge pumps, a dry spell began. Those pumps now stand idle.

"We're unfortunately or fortunately -- I don't know what it is -- pretty unique," said Dick Johnson, mayor of Devils Lake, which has nearly 7,000 residents. The constant flooding "doesn't have the immediate impact that a hurricane or typhoon might have, but it's devastating."

Since the water began rising in the early 1990s, more than 400 homes around the lake have been relocated or destroyed.


Read more: http://detnews.com/article/20100923/NATION/9230389/1020/rss09

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Speaking of frogs in a pot, how's global warming working out for ya?

[GoddessOfGuinness]

1. We've got oil and gas pipelines...

Why don't we have water pipelines that will allow us to direct water from places that don't need it to drought-stricken areas?

[Xipe Totec]

2. It's a matter of cost

By the end of 2010, the federal government will have spent more than $1 billion to ease the threat, buying flooded property, building dikes and making other improvements. That figure does not include a $27 million floodwater-diversion channel built by the state on the west end of the lake.

It also costs $330,000 a month for the electricity for pumps to take 1 inch off the lake.

(eta) I know that in the case of gas pipelines, the pipelines use some of the gas to run the compressors that move the rest of the gas along. About 7% of the gas that flows into gas pipelines in Louisiana is consumed by the time the gas reaches New York.

[barbtries]

5. my first thought as well

we could use some water here in NC right now.

[slackmaster]

3. "excess rain and snowmelt"?

It's early and I haven't had my coffee yet, but my brain did a huge WTF on that one.

[Xipe Totec]

14. 20 years of it...

We're not talking about one snowstorm in Washington D.C.

This is a persistent weather change that has occurred over the past 20 years and is expected to continue for another 10 at least....

[slackmaster]

17. I wish some of that excess rain could be directed my way

Perhaps by using our best science and engineering minds we could all get together and figure out ways of capturing rain that falls where humans don't need it, and somehow channeling it to places where nature doesn't provide enough water for human needs.

Maybe large structures could be built across streams and rivers, to create artificial lakes. Channels could be dug, pipelines and storage tanks could be built, all to even out the distribution of precious fresh water.

No longer would low-lying areas be subject to flooding. The deserts could be turned into greenbelts. Crops could be grown where they couldn't otherwise survive.

Nah.

[OnlinePoker]

19. Or here's a better idea...

Stop building cities in the middle of deserts!

[Roland99]

4. Sounds like an evil plot by Canadians to drown us and steal our water!!

durn Canucks



;-)

[carlyhippy]

6. The water is too salty, they don't want it :(

There is a natural outlet, once it finally gets to that point it will eventually flow into the Red River, which flows south to north. Canada has concerns about water quality. Downstream cities in the path of the water in the rivers that lead to the Red, as well as the cities along the Red, are concerned about flooding from the excess water. This has been going on for years. That lake is huge now. It's a big mess.

[karmkay]

7. Oh sure...

...blame Canada.

[Regret My New Name]

15. Those Canadians are such pricks.

[Al Claybon]

8. Who could have created this terrible situation? Who would make a lake that cannot be drained

via natural means?

Who stands to profit from this?

Could

it

be










S A T A N?

[Moonwalk]

10. Nope. It has all the earmarks of being "god."

[slackmaster]

12. Maybe they could set up a system of tunnels and undersea pipelines to take water to the Aral Sea

Or even the Salton Sea here in Southern California.

[Alcibiades]

9. The water of the lake is laden with "nutrients"

So they cannot use the outlet the state has built to lower the level because of water quality issues. Tragic for this community, of course, but left to its own devices, gravity will solve this problem quickly enough, as it did 1,000 years ago, which is very recent, geologically speaking.

I know there's a tendency to blame everything that happens on global warming, but it's hard to blame this one on global warming, because the lake did overflow into Stump Lake and the Sheyenne River 1,000 years ago. Nonetheless, this does not mean that the hand of man is not evident in this: according to the wikipedia entry, conversion of the land from prairie to cropland has increased runoff into the lake, which may account for the rapid increase in water level.

It's a real hydrology paradox: there are legal reasons why the cannot just dump the problem onto their neighbors downstream, but if nothing is done, that's what will happen anyway.

[carlyhippy]

20. +1000 N/T

[snooper2]

11. I'm rooting for the lake

:P

[lonestarnot]

13. K & R!

[Hosnon]

16. Wow - Google shows this.

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Devils+Lake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=Devils+Lake,+ND&gl=us&ei=d3GbTIU0g7SVB_mH0M8J&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=image&resnum=1&ved=0CCsQ8gEwAA

Click between the "Map" version and the "Satellite" version...

[slackmaster]

18. So, they built a town in a flat, low-lying area next to a shallow lake that has no outflow channel

Brilliant.

[Alcibiades]

22. To be fair, it seems people are moving out

I doubt that this was much of an issue when the first house was built in 1882. The only other lake of any size in the US that meets this description is the Great Salt Lake, so it's not like this is a common phenomenon, one that your average settler in 1882 would have understood. The issue here is more likely the runoff from farms, as the native prairie was more absorbent.

Since it is a town of only 7,000 and yet is served by an Amtrak station, I'd guess the railroads probably had something to do with its creation--it's on the famous Empire Builder line, the remnant of the Great Northern Railway. Since the first house was built in 1882 and the mainline was completed in 1883, I'm guessing the town owes its origins to James Jerome Hill. Hill himself was the inspiration for the Ayn Rand character Nathaniel Taggart. In a way, then, this is a metaphor for the unsustainability of Rand's "Objectivist" project.

[Alcibiades]

21. +1 everyone interested should check this out

And don't forget to put the little googleman on the map to get an up-close look.