The government will spend up to $50 million over five years to reduce flooding and improve water quality, soil health,and wildlife habitat in the Red River of the North basin. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced the project at Moorhead, Minn, across the Red River from Fargo, ND. The initiative will draw on USDA programs to reduce runoff from fields and feedlots, to pay farmers who make soil, water and wildlife conservation part of their daily operations, and to buy conservation easements for farmland, forests and wetlands.
The Red River flows northward from Wahpeton, ND, and Breckenridge, Minn, for 545 miles to Lake Winnipeg in Canada. For most of its length, it is the boundary between North Dakota and Minnesota. In 1997, “unprecedented flooding” devastated the middle and lower Red River, particularly Grand Fork, ND, notes the Encyclopedia Britannica.