Flood diversion plans have some people ready for a fight. Rural landowners had a lot of questions for the army corps of engineers Wednesday night as it presented permanent flood protection plans for the F-M area.
Tuesday, the meeting was in Fargo and Wednesday was in Moorhead. There were a lot of concerned people, since one of the top three plans include a diversion on the Minnesota side of the Red River.
Hundreds of people filled an auditorium on the MSU-Moorhead campus. The majority of people say they are ready to move forward with a diversion plan on either side of the river, but the minority also voiced some concerns. Several rural landowners say they are worried about losing their land and the homesteads that have been in their families for generations.
"We have a farm just outside city limits," said Steve Sillers. "It's important to me and my family. We need to have a voice. Someone needs to say hey wait a minute, this isn't right."
James Nelson says, "I'm currently farming right now. You could pay $10,000 an acre, but by what it looks like we're going to lose. I have my whole lifetime to try and do something ."
People can see if their land falls into the diversion route, but officials warn the routes are not concrete at this point. As we've mentioned before, it will be January before a plan is at least tentatively selected. It will be the spring of 2012 before construction will start.
