The last twelve months haven’t been exactly stellar for the Army Corps of Engineers. They’ve been far worse for thousands of people who’ve had to deal with the results of their pooch-screw policies in regard to management of the Missouri River System. Their lack of credibility with people in the Dakotas was validated when the Argus Leader newspaper uncovered emails with bombshells such as Todd Lundquist’s quote saying, “I’m headed home. I no longer look people in the eye and tell them the forecast is 85,000 cfs from Garrison.” Later releases would reach nearly double that rate. While there was a lot of rumbling and grumbling going on, I stumbled upon a another sort of rumble:

I was surprised to find this event on the USGS earthquake watch website, an 3.5 magnitude quake west of Fort Peck which hit on July 1st. This was a day or so before an oil pipeline burst beneath the Yellowstone River far away near Billings, an event which grabbed all the headlines for a few days. While I don’t think this quake was directly related to the spill, I remember seeing some other quakes much closer to the pipeline leak at the time. What was interesting was that nobody spotted the 3.5 shaker and either tried to connect it to the pipeline failure or use it to sensationalize the possibility of a failure at Fort Peck.

Remember, this was about a month after environmental activist Bernard Shanks published a guest commentary on the St. Louis Today website outlining his fear of a “domino effect” on the Missouri River System. His nightmare scenario began with the failure of the Fort Peck Dam. While his article was very timely, it also coincided with one other important event: his publishing a book on the theory. I doubt that was a coincidence, but the whole thing gained a lot of traction in the Dakotas as we were already learning not to trust the Corps. Mr. Shanks appeared on local radio and links to his article were flying around Facebook rather furiously.

Then, of course, you have to wonder about this: an emergency bid being put out for the material which reinforces the Fort Peck Dam, the very one Mr. Shanks claims is the weak link and which was at 111% of capacity.

Naturally the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to any hype, so I just sat on my little discovery. I don’t deal in sensationalism and reliable information was already hard to come by in weary communities already made nervous by the fluidity of facts. Therefore I resolved to wait until the flood waters had receded and the threat of Mr. Shanks’ domino effect abated with them. I’ve watched as the river levels have fallen past the 9.79 feet of January 1st, 2011 and settled in the six-and-a-half foot range. While I think the event is certainly noteworthy, I certainly don’t think it was worth hysteria.

Here are a couple of links to the event for the curious. Its ID is event 11948206 for those of you who want to dart straight to Google for your own research.

USGS Earthquake event website entry

USGS Shakemap web page for #11948206

Now let’s hope that the management of the Missour River System doesn’t put us in the same precarious position next year. In the unfortunate event that we find ourselves in a flood fight again, I hope the Corps will be more forthcoming and that people will resist the urge to play loose & fast with information. Events like this are far harder to endure when sensationalism runs amok as well.

Here’s another angle at the historic Northern Pacific bridge along our receding Missouri River. This has been one of my favorite indicators of the river’s rise and decline.

As you can see, that’s a pretty tall watermark. The river is currently at under seven feet, after a height of approximately twenty. I don’t know how much longer this watermark will remain, but for now it’s a stark reminder of how the Big Muddy behaved in 2011.

Three months ago I visited Double Ditch to assess the impact of Missouri River flooding on the view. It was astounding; any trace of sandbars had vanished beneath a wide expanse of water. Now that access to the site is no longer prohibited, I was a little curious about what it looked like:

As you can see, we now have plenty of sandbar. In fact, there are plenty of other places along the Missouri that now have plenty of sand. Welcome to the new normal!

One other thing that’s noteworthy, and hard to discern from these photos because they’re framed so differently, is how much farther south the sun sets in mid-September compared to June. On the longest day of the year, just four days after the top photo was taken, the sun sets much farther north. As winter creeps closer and the days grow shorter, however, the sun’s track moves southward and peaks lower in the southern sky during midday. It may be interesting to return to Double Ditch on the shortest day of the year and see where it intersects the horizon; if I do so, you’ll see it here.

No, I’m not talking about the Enya album. I’m actually talking about indications of how high the river level has been. One of the best ways for someone who doesn’t live in a flood-affected area to get a handle on the water level is to find a familiar place which can give you a good point of reference. For many, including myself, Pioneer Park is one of those places. If you look at the photo above, you can tell that the water level has dropped significantly.

Picnic tables that were bobbing in the water before are protruding from the water quite nicely now.

The only thing monumental about these things is the the waste of tax money to produce them. In any case, there’s a good reference point here as well. A clear high water mark can be seen and the water was up to the signage at one point as well.

That’s not all: the pilings for the NP railroad bridge have a tale to tell as well. Note the turbulence along the side of the pillar. I’ve got some amazing photos and videos of that from earlier in the flood event, I just haven’t had time to share them…yet.

Even at good ol’ Fort Lincoln, there are signs of receding water. In addition to the birds-eye view of the flood from the top of the northeast blockhouse, there’s also this little slice of backwater.

Once again, the structure gives a good indication of water finally receding. There’s a beaver that hangs out in this little inlet who I think has been enjoying the high water levels and is in for some disappointment! A couple of weeks ago I watched him slap his tail as he swam back and forth.

With releases from the Garrison Dam continuing to diminish, I’m sure we’ll begin to see a major difference. I notice that the river gauge in Bismarck indicated 23.67 feet earlier today, but that’s obviously a glitch. Hopefully we’ll start a steady decline toward normal river levels soon!

This would appear to be a front-row seat to the Missouri River flooding. There’s only one problem: even though I took this photo a few short days ago, I believe this bench is now completely underwater along with the parking lot behind it!

The other day I hopped on one of my motorcycles for a short ride, and I happened upon the area near the Grant Marsh Bridge. There were a few photogenic things to capture in the area, and a motorcycle doesn’t take up much space, so I was able to pull over briefly without interrupting traffic on River Road or crossing any barricades.

This keelboat seems to have been built in just the right spot for a 500-year flood event. The water comes right up to it, but even at such record levels it doesn’t actually flood out the boat. It’s almost as if it was designed for a day like today.

Even the walkway is dry, despite flooded land all around. Too bad the area is blocked off, this would actually be a nice little tourist-y spot for all the gapers that have been driving 20 miles an hour up and down River Road for the past few weeks!

Here’s a good vantage point for the flood, if you’ve got waders on…or perhaps clothing and shoes you don’t mind getting wet. Which reminds me, my buddy and former coworker Mark Armstrong got the same idea I did, because I saw him there just after I went north to Pioneer Park and turned around to head back south into town. He was busy with his camcorder, so I didn’t stop to interrupt. Here’s the video he was shooting:

Great minds think alike…and so do ours!

One of the most dramatic and accessible (sorta) sites for local residents to gauge the impact of the Missouri River flooding has got to be Pioneer Park. It’s easy to get a point of reference as far as how high the water is, it’s right along the road, and it’s a feature that most residents have probably seen quite often before and since the flooding began.

Picnic tables have been relocated as they’ve become somewhat bouyant, getting hung up on other park features. The volleyball nets look more like tennis nets right now, and who knows what the sand in the courts will look like when the water recedes?

Don’t forget to call and make your reservation! Actually, I think the mosquitoes have this place booked solid for the next couple of months. It’s actually a CLOUD of bugs down there right now, and I’ve got the bites to prove it. In addition to water damage, Bismarck-Mandan is going to have a lot of insect control to perform with all this water. Those plans have already begun.

The state Water Commission has released a recent river profile and it has some very interesting results. Some areas have been dug deeper, some have been filled in, and overall the river is, as I’ve heard it described, “active.” Just what the Missouri River looks like, including the channel, banks, and sandbars (or lack thereof), will be very interesting once the waters recede. I don’t know of anyone making any solid predictions on that right now.

Let’s just hope we get through this without further loss of property and that we can begin the recovery process. Minot has it even worse than we do, but one remarkable statistic throughout all of this North Dakota flooding is that we have not lost one single life to the disaster. That’s got to be the best news so far.