WINNIPEG -- Testing of the Red River at the Manitoba-North Dakota border has shown levels of sulphate and salt are higher than they should be far more often since the Devils Lake outlet started working, Manitoba's top water expert said Thursday.
Dwight Williamson said that is why Manitoba is so concerned about North Dakota's plans to permanently ease the sulphate restrictions on the outlet and more than double the water the outlet pumps out of the lake.
He told the Winnipeg Free Press in a report out of Ottawa that the province intends to file a complaint to the state health commission.
It will be urged to reject the state water commission's request to permanently ease the sulphate restrictions on the outlet, at least until the state can show through environmental assessments doing so won't harm downstream waters.
"North Dakota has not done any assessment of the effect of this change on the Sheyenne (River) or on Manitoba," said Williamson, director of the water science and management branch of Manitoba Water Stewardship. "We will be pointing out to them that anything less than that is contrary to the Boundary Waters Treaty."
ADVERTISEMENT
The state is desperate to stop the rise of Devils Lake, which has no natural outlet and has come up 27 feet since 1993. It rose 3.5 feet this year alone, hitting record highs in July.
The outlet connects the highly-saline, sulphate-heavy Devils Lake, 150 kilometres west of Grand Forks, to the Red River basin via the Sheyenne River.
The outlet was completed in 2005 but operated only sporadically or at low outflows since then because the operating permit kept the pumps off unless sulphate levels in the Sheyenne were below a certain level.
The state already raised the sulphate limit once -- to 450 milligrams per litre of water from 300. In July, it raised it again to 700 on a temporary basis but it is now seeking to set 700 as the permanent limit.
The outlet has now run at or near capacity since July 16.
The department has held three public hearings in North Dakota and is accepting written comment until Nov. 6. It expects to make a decision by the end of the year.
If the 700 level becomes permanent, the state will add pumps to the outlet, increasing the amount of water it can pump out from 100 cubic feet per second now to 250 cubic feet per second.
So far in 2009, 684,327,292 cubic feet of water have been pumped out of the lake and into Manitoba via the Sheyenne.
ADVERTISEMENT
It is more than 14 times the amount of water pumped through the outlet in all of 2008.
