DEVILS LAKE -- I must respectfully disagree with Barnes County (N.D.) Commissioner Cindy Schwehr, who was quoted in a recent news story as saying, "It's just as painful here as it is for the folks in Devils Lake."
While Barnes County has experienced flooding and disruption this year, I believe these events pale in comparison with the stress and loss to the north.
Barnes County hasn't had 170,000 acres of farmland lost permanently. Barnes County doesn't have pain equal to that of the elderly farmers of my region, who were counting on their Centennial farms for rental income in their retirement, and whose prime lands now are lake bottom without any compensation for the storage of this water.
Barnes County doesn't have almost every second vehicle on its arterial roads be a huge truck hauling fill or rocks, nor does the county have the damage that these heavy loads cause to the roads themselves.
More than 15 million cubic yards are being moved this year for road and dike raises, says Devils Lake's city engineer.
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Barnes County hasn't had almost all its hills denuded and flattened to provide this fill.
And Barnes County doesn't have its smaller towns being engulfed by water. The water table is so high even that homes protected by the dikes have their sump pumps running constantly.
About 450 homes and 650 other structures have had extensive damage or have been relocated or burned.
The people along the Sheyenne River haven't been saddled with a billion-dollar dilemma. But the Devils Lake basin has.
And most horribly, 23 lives have been lost to drowning since 1994 because of unstable roads and rising water in the Devils Lake basin.
Schwehr and her colleagues need to experience an aerial view of our region. They also need to watch the "Roads to Nowhere" and similar videos on youtube.com and dlbasin.com before making future comparisons.
I'm fairly certain the Ramsey and Benson county commissioners gladly would change places with their Barnes County counterparts on the issue of water problems.
Judy Goplen Ovre
