Had enough yet? Had enough of delays and studies and objections to a comprehensive flood-protection program for Fargo and the other cities in the Red River’s flood plain?

While river levels in the flood of 2009 are unprecedented (since records have been kept), big floods in the Red River Valley are anything but unprecedented. In fact, they are coming with greater frequency.

Of the 10 highest Red River crests since 1882, eight have occurred since 1978. Not all resulted in devastating floods, but all were high enough to cause major flooding along the main stem of the river.

Until the flood of 1997, which goes down as No. 3 when the current flood is added to the list, there had been no significant follow-through on effective flood protection proposals in the Fargo-Moorhead area of the valley. A few projects to ease flooding here and there were built — the Maple River Dam, the Sheyenne Diversion, the Wahpeton-Breckenridge floodway and others. They work. They protect specific areas, but they do not comprise an overall watershed/flood works effort that can protect the region’s largest population center.

The magnitude of the flood of 2009 will refocus attention on a long-term, effective solution to the problem. It can’t be flood walls alone. It can’t be building codes and zoning alone. It can’t be sandbagging alone, no matter how magnificent the effort.

Without overall watershed management that includes techniques to hold water on the land (the “waffle plan” in the northern Red River Valley shows promise), big floods will happen in wet years. Without diversion of floodwaters, Fargoans will be pressed into sandbag service again and again.

Let’s get serious about building flood protection systems that we know will work.

— The Forum of Fargo, March 29