Board reviews water complaint

Jamestown (CSi) At its meeting Wednesday, the Stutsman County Water Resource Board reviewed the complaint filed by the Winfield Township Board of Supervisors about a dam that was built in 1959 located on a property in the southwest quarter of Section 26, Township 139, Range 62 in Stutsman County.

In the complaint Chairman of the Winfield Township Board of Supervisors, Dale Marks, and member of the Stutsman County Commission, Mark Gehlhar and Russell Carlson, also members of the Winfield Township Board of Supervisors, claim that the dam was reworked approximately 10 years ago.  While Alan Lindberg built a road to his cabin on the property, a culvert was plugged, allowing more water to be retained in the dam, the complaint states. This plugged culvert has forced the water level higher behind the dam and has caused water to go over adjacent township roads. The complaint states visible water is “backed up” to the east all the way to Mud Lake on the Urbana road in Barnes County.

Russell Carlson said he and his brother own land northeast of the Lindberg property, and the clogged culvert on Lindberg’s property has led to water backup on Carlson’s and his brother’s properties.

Unable to attend Wednesday’s meeting,Lindberg provided the board with a written response, including a proposal to replace an existing 12-inch diameter culvert in the earth dam on Lindberg’s property with a 24-inch diameter culvert, which could alleviate the problem of water backup to the east.

The board will meet at the Stutsman County Courthouse at 8:30 a.m., Monday, May 2, 2016 with most board members riding out to the dam together. This meeting is a special meeting and Board Chairman, Joel Lees, said the board will likely not make a decision at this meeting.

The Stutsman County Water Resource Board will hold a special meeting Monday May 2, 2016, at 9 a.m. at the site of a dam on the property of Alan Lindberg in Winfield Township to address the complaint.

In other business, the board approved an application by Rep. Craig Headland, R-Montpelier, to install subsurface drainage tile over 174 acres in the southwest corner of Section 27 and the northwest corner of Section 34 in Ypsilanti Township.