Flood Diversion Board Approves Public-Private Partnership

Sorry, this video is no longer available

Leaders are talking about the next steps for funding the FM Diversion.

A top U.S. Army Corps of Engineers official was on hand to hear how a public and private partnership would benefit the project.

Here’s KVRR’s Brittany Ford.

The Flood Diversion Board of Authority unanimously voted to move forward with a public and private partnership to help finance and speed up the building process.

“You bring in the private sector funds…that enables us to reduce the public sector cost and in this case the federal shares. It enables us to build the project faster,” says North Dakota Senator John Hoeven.

If legislation in Washington approves the flood diversion plan, it will cut the building time in half.

Compared to a 16 year expected build time the diversion could be built in just 8 years.

The authority is asking the government to pay $50 million a year for nine years out of its 1.6 billion federal involvement budget to get the project going.

“Local involvement…we have our local tax, we have state involvement and the funding there, there is no other project that has stepped up to the plate. We have everything ready,” says Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney.

Lt. Gen Thomas Bostick of the U.S. Army Corps says these things are what make the plan more attractive for more funding.

“It’s pretty clean in that regard I think it’s pretty well set, and what we need to do at the national level is work with state and locals and say that it’s an acceptable partnership where the federal government can move forward with,” said Lt. Gen. Thomas Bostick U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Lt. General was also impressed by the 2009 flood prevention efforts.

“The fact that the community comes together in way I’m not used to seeing, and part of that may be because you’ve had to repeat this flood fight over and over,” says Lt. Gen. Bostick.

If approved, this would be the first public and private partnership that the government has ever funded.

Brittany Ford, KVRR News.

The authority is hoping to start construction in 2017.