ST. PAUL - Minnesota has asked a federal judge to block construction of the F-M Diversion project until it issues permits for the project.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held Monday in Horace, south of Fargo, at the site of a planned inlet structure. The dam is designed to control the flow of flood water, into the 30 mile long man-made channel around Fargo-Moorhead, the first phase of the $2.2 billion project. Full-scale construction is slated for later this year.
But Minnesota calls the project a risk to the environment. On Friday,the state asked U.S. District Judge John Tunheim to issue a preliminary injunction against construction until the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources grants a dam safety permit for the Minnesota side of the project, something the DNR denied last October.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has argued it does not need the permit to proceed with work on the North Dakota side.