Construction on the 30-mile diversion channel that will carry floodwater safely past Fargo-Moorhead will require a workforce of 800 when the project reaches its peak.
Greg Yavicoli, construction manager for ASN Constructors, a consortium of companies working to design and build the $1.14 billion channel, said several dozen employees are now at work, and that number will continue to increase after construction starts next year.
“It will be a gradual increase, kind of like a bell curve,” with the number of workers peaking in 2024, then tapering, Yavicoli said at the Fargo Moorhead West Fargo Chamber’s eggs and issues at the Courtyard by Marriott in Moorhead on Wednesday, Dec. 15.
The Red River Valley Alliance partners already have spent $1 million buying equipment, including pickup trucks, all of which was purchased through local vendors, a practice that will continue, he said.
“One of our primary goals is to keep the revenue in Fargo and North Dakota,” he said. “We’re going to continue that.”
Besides the 30-mile channel, which will run west of the metro area then empty water downstream on the Red River near Georgetown, Minnesota, the alliance also will build 19 bridges and two aqueducts, essentially bridges to carry water over the Maple and Sheyenne rivers.
“There are going to be lots of employment opportunities in the community,” including long-term jobs, Yavicoli said.
The channel is part of the $3.2 billion Metro Flood Diversion Authority project, which also will include inlets, an embankment and gated control structures to regulate the flow of water along the Red River through the metro area during extreme floods.
At the same time construction of the diversion is happening, work also is being done to build the $1.22 billion Red River Valley Water Supply Project, which will carry Missouri River water to the valley via a 165-mile pipeline.
Workers are building the intake structure near Washburn, north of Bismarck, as well as a 1.2 mile section of pipe near Carrington and the outlet structure near Cooperstown, which will empty water into the Sheyenne River, a tributary of the Red.
The project will carry water to central and eastern North Dakota and will be capable of serving almost half of the state’s population.
Because of the severe drought, which last year caused Red River flows in Fargo to plunge to the 10th percentile, leaders are pushing to complete the project in six years instead of the originally envisioned 10 .
Accelerating construction will save about $100 million and reduce the risk of running short of water, said Merrie Mooridian, administrative officer of Garrison Diversion Conservancy District, which is overseeing the project.
If a 1930s drought struck today, 1,500 truckloads of water would be required daily to meet indoor water requirements — rising to 4,900 truckloads of water daily by 2075, she said.
“That’s not even possible to complete,” Mooridian said.
Local officials will appeal to the 2023 session of the North Dakota Legislature to enable a six-year construction timeline of the water supply project — a period that, coincidentally, would match the six-year diversion construction schedule.
“We all had a little scare this summer,” Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney said Wednesday. “We need to beef that up and bring it to six years. I think the state will have the capacity to help us out.”
The pipeline will deliver 165 cubic feet per second of water to meet residential and industrial water needs in central and eastern North Dakota.
If all the pipeline’s industrial capacity is used, that would result in a projected 7,700 annual employees, directly and indirectly, and $1.7 billion in annual economic impacts, said Grand Forks Mayor Brandon Bochenski.
“There’s just so much potential that can be unlocked,” he said.
The threat of droughts and floods that has long been a drag on recruiting businesses and workers to Fargo-Moorhead will be eliminated by the two infrastructure projects under construction, Mahoney said.
