News

Leaders attend NAWS meeting

By Scott Wagar

07/29/2014

Wednesday, July 23, played an important date for the residents of Bottineau County who have been waiting patiently for the Northwest Area Water Supply, or NAWS project, to start moving forward after seeing its wheels spin for decades; however, how far the project will advance still seems to be up in the air.

The Bureau of Reclamation held a statement meeting concerning NAWS in Minot on Wednesday to allow the public to make verbal or written statements on their feelings on NAWS. The statements will be turned over to a federal judge to make a final decision in allowing NAWS to move or not.   

The NAWS project started in 1988 with the intention to bring water from Lake Sakakawea to the city of Minot, and then on to a number of rural communities in north central North Dakota who are dealing with poor water quality, or the lack of water during a dry seasons.  

The plan calls for acquiring water from the Missouri River, to have it taken from Lake Sakakawea and then being pretreated before being piped to the city of Minot where the water will receive its final treatment. From there, water will be supplied to Minot to be utilized, along with the rural towns in the north central part of the state. The pipelines will go as far north as Sherwood and as far east as Bottineau with such towns as Westhope in between.

Once in these communities, there will also be evaporation pools set up as an extra precaution to remove biota, or biological organism from one specific region taken to another region on a larger scale. The water in the evaporation pools would eventually be placed back into the Souris River (or Mouse River) and flow north in to Canada.      

The primary road block for the NAWS project comes from Canada who filed a lawsuit in the 1990s to stop the project because they have concerns of a biota transfer back into Canada from the Souris River.

The litigation has been tied up for years in court, but two years ago a federal judge ordered the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation to gather supplemental environmental impact statements (SEIS) from both countries so the judge can study the statements and grant his decision on the lawsuit.

This past Wednesday evening, the Bureau of Reclamation held its final meeting to allow the public to grant statements on NAWS.

From here, the Bureau of Reclamation will take written comments on NAWS until September 10. When the SEIS is completed and filed, it will be turned over to a judge to make a final ruling on the lawsuit.

“The NAWS meeting went very well,” said Kenny Rogers of Maxbass who is a member of the NAWS Advisory Committee for the past 18 years. “The meeting was all positive. The promise of water goes back a long time and hopefully we have done everything we can to make it work. The good news is that the SEIS is completed and the process is moving.”

Rogers added that he believes the judge’s decision will be in favor of NAWS. With that, Rogers is now planning ahead of the judge’s decision to see if they can stop Canada from filing an appeal against the judge’s decision if its goes against their country.

“If the right PR is done I think we can get Canada not to pursue appeal in court,” Rogers said.

Bottineau’s city supervisor, Keith Fulsebakke, and Bottineau County Commissioner Dan Marquardt also attended the NAWS meeting and stated they felt the meeting was positive, but both said they had mixed feelings about the outcome and what Canada’s next plans are if the judge’s favor is for NAWS.

Fulsebakke and Marquardt are each presently preparing written statements in favor of NAWS, which they will send to the Bureau of Reclamation before Sept. 10.    

It is expected the judge will make the decision on NAWS by early next year. However, NAWS water isn’t expected to reach the local area for years, especially in the city of Bottineau considering it is the farthest site NAWS will have to go.

Rogers stated that if the federal judge decides in the U.S. favor he will try to speed up the process in Bottineau County through lobbying with the federal and state’s legislators.

For now, the SEIS is coming to a completion, bringing the judge’s decision closer.

However, the decision and any appeals that might be filed are still unclear. Where that leads to is anybody’s guess.