Question of Devils Lake elevation pits farming versus fishing

[lunkerslayer]

Yes pg answered my question thanks

 

[Davey Crockett]

How many more FOW would be enough to make it through ?

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Two ?

 

[dean nelson]

It's been a long time since I have given this any attention. The original plan was to run Missouri water into Devils Lake, through to Stump Lake, and then dump into the Sheyenne River. It's the biota from a totally different watershed that Canada objected to. I believe there was a treaty signed in 1914 against such things as this water into the Sheyenne. Since it's from a different watershed with a great geographic separation there could be organisms as destructive to their fisheries as small pox was to the native Americans.
I realize you ended your sentence with a period not a question Dean, just confirming.

My only question was what lunkerslayer didn't get about jumping the divide with Missouri River water? Although with the treaty you bring up brings up Allens point of someone to post a link to said treaty.

 

[raider]

How many more FOW would be enough to make it through ?

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Two ?

yup... on a calm day...

 

[PrairieGhost]

Dean maybe I got the year wrong. I searched for Boundary Waters Treaty and found this one of 1909. I remembered a publication by Farmes Union back in the 1970s when the debate on Garrison Diversion was going hot and heavy. I guess my memory back 40 years isn't that good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boundary_Waters_Treaty_of_1909

The Devils Lake thing is always interesting to me. I rambled around a lot of woods and prairie just two or three miles to the south as a kid with a 22 bolt action Marlin over my shoulder.

My Grandfather rode this to Devils Lake:

http://tourism.devilslakend.com/what-to-do/explore-history/minnie-h/

I believe he said it went from Ft. Totten, to Minnewaukan, to Churches Ferry, to Devils Lake. It actually sounded to me like the lake was much larger then than now. Not much draft on that boat I wouldn't have wanted to be on that lake in a wind. As I understand the original name was Minnewaukan meaning Spirit Water, not Devils Lake. Named for a bunch of native Americans that drown on the lake. Couldn't resist a little history.

 

[LBrandt]

Neat photo. Didn't know they had paddle wheels on Devils Lake.

 

[Davey Crockett]

That's the strange thing about the whole deal, What is "normal" ? We had an old neighbor when I was growing up who was quite the fisherman and he used to talk about how low Devils lake was and told me how the town of Churches ferry got it's name . At the time I couldn't imagine a ferry running on DL . Meanwhile almost every other lake in the state has had stable water levels. Holding capacity of Pelican and joining chains to North has been mentioned but it seems like either further up in the watershed or the outlet to stump or both something has changed. During the same time period as Devils Lake shrunk up In The Turtle Mountains the old timers drained a lot of ponds for farm/hay land .

 

[PrairieGhost]

What is "normal" ?

Yes, and the liberals whine about global warming. Through many means we can look back in history and it tells us how variable "normal" can be. Likewise Devils Lake fluctuates. I remember watching the national guard do tank maneuvers where there is now East Devils Lake. The current rise is abnormal and caused more by drainage than natural causes. I may get the year wrong again, but I think it was 1977 that the Wildlife Society warned about flooding with the introduction of channel A into Devils Lake. I hear people tell me little wetlands can't flood Devils Lake. I tell them I can make a five gallon bucket run over if I dump enough teaspoons of water in it. Then people tell me the wetlands north of Devils Lake are full. Well, the ones that are still wetlands are full the others may be appearing as nearly flat land with no water. When wetlands are drained you increase the watershed area. It's like a 1000 sq ft house and a 50 gallon rain barrel. If a half inch rain fills the barrel and you put an addition onto your house of 1000 sq ft the next half inch rain will run that barrel over.
I run some rough measurements on Channel A while fishing one day in June. That data told me there was more water coming down Channel A at that time than the Sheyenne River. One fellow on nodakoutdoors went bonkers with that statement. Shortly after a fellow by the name of Hardwaterman posted the water flows. Sure enough Channel A was dumping more water into Devils Lake than the Sheyenne River flow. Something has to give.

 

[lunkerslayer]

All the inlets which flow into the basin have been widened as well as deepen back in the 50 and the 60s Then in the 80s we hit a dry cycle for about a decade or so west of graham's island was grazing land and cat tails. The only man made channel that was dug was channel A to allow water from the Coulee to flow into Devils Lake. Now on the other side the mauvais Coulee was actually dammed of in two different places one is just north of hwy 19 mauvais Coulee bridge and the other was on Lake Alice for irrigation for the surrounding crops. The whole design of the Devils Lake basin was to allow farmers to help drain wetlands farther north into the basin north east of Devils Lake the Elmore and the starkweather Coulee flow into Morrison, Sweetwater, and then into caveneau like. The Corp, farmers, and the state wanted the water for Devils Lake tourism, finally was supposed to be apart of the bigger garrison diversion-Mcclusky canal. The canal would flow into Devils Lake since it is its own watershed. The water would naturally filter though a neutral water system and eventually flow into the red River for eastern development. The problem is we ran out of oil money in the 70s to keep paying for construction as well as legal fees. we won every major lawsuit at the time from farmers to international treaties.
Now the new pipeline that is proposed to link the Missouri River to Eastern ND would never touch natural ground it would be transferred through a system of pipe along the state hwy 94 to the adjacent cities. At least that is what I have read from past articles.

 

[dean nelson]

Devils Lake had a big drop in the 80's yeah....ah no! Started to drop some in 89 but the 80's were a general rise over all and the lake ended the decade with a net gain of something like 5 feet or so. Hell the low in 92 was still 13 feet higher then it was in 1970 and over 20 feet higher then 1940.

 

[Davey Crockett]

Minnawauken flats just south of Grahams Island used to be 3-4 feet in the early 80s If I remember right the road was partly exposed .

 

[dean nelson]

Back then I'm pretty sure the road was a road. Fished there allot as a kid living in Jamestown with an uncle that lived in DL. Pops used to talk about being at camp grafton when the lake was little more then a large slough out in the main basin.

 

[lunkerslayer]

Devils Lake had a big drop in the 80's yeah....ah no! Started to drop some in 89 but the 80's were a general rise over all and the lake ended the decade with a net gain of something like 5 feet or so. Hell the low in 92 was still 13 feet higher then it was in 1970 and over 20 feet higher then 1940.

I said there was a dry spell in the 80s as far as the lake was concerned it was saved by the channel A water project but a I bet some of them farmers north of Devils Lake still had those wetlands they drained for more crop lands.Well I spent my summers in Devils Lake during the late 80s fishing the 57 bridge. In creel bay they had to use the green turbines they use in the lagoons because the oxygen levels were so low. I remember 1 inch cracks in the ground back then, we had to get water from the neighbors because he was the only one who still had water in his well. The city of Walhalla had a water restrictions. The basins is still it5 own water shed right smack in between the continental divide which i believe was the reason why they wanted to use it as a filtrations system before it was released into the sheyenne river system.

 

[PrairieGhost]

Devils Lake had a big drop in the 80's yeah....ah no! Started to drop some in 89 but the 80's were a general rise over all and the lake ended the decade with a net gain of something like 5 feet or so. Hell the low in 92 was still 13 feet higher then it was in 1970 and over 20 feet higher then 1940.

I drove the road from Minnewaukan to Grahams Island most of the time. Actually when I started going out there you could not see water from that road. Then it flooded and everyone trolled along it and called it "The Golden Highway".

The canal would flow into Devils Lake since it is its own watershed.

Do you mean Devils Lake is it's own watershed? It is until overflow then it becomes Hudson Bay watershed. It is not in the same watershed as the Missouri. Somewhere they would have to pump and cross the Sheyenne River from McClusky canal. Crazy idea with 1940 technology that they didn't want to give up. I remember the big dreams when this all started and the farmers thought they would be shipping grain by barge down the canal. If I remember right it would have been a net loss for production since so little land is good for irrigation (porous enough for flushing leaving it susceptible to alkaline build up), and it flooded the lower fertile land. Oaks was a prime area for the irrigation.

Our soils make the canal a poor idea and the McClusky canal already requires extensive repair often.

 

[Davey Crockett]

I said there was a dry spell in the 80s as far as the lake was concerned it was saved by the channel A water project but a I bet some of them farmers north of Devils Lake still had those wetlands they drained for more crop lands.Well I spent my summers in Devils Lake during the late 80s fishing the 57 bridge. In creel bay they had to use the green turbines they use in the lagoons because the oxygen levels were so low. I remember 1 inch cracks in the ground back then, we had to get water from the neighbors because he was the only one who still had water in his well. The city of Walhalla had a water restrictions. The basins is still it5 own water shed right smack in between the continental divide which i believe was the reason why they wanted to use it as a filtrations system before it was released into the sheyenne river system.

WOW It would be fun to dig out some of my old hydrology books and compare back then to now , I drilled an industrial well at Walhalla a few years ago that pumps 250 GPM 24/7 .

 

[Davey Crockett]

I stumbled across this map, It's a treasure. I'm amazed at the quality based on the time period it was made and considering pictures were developed in a darkroom back then. It must have taken 5 years to photograph the state from 1957-1962 Fun looking at the changes that have occurred over the years, The ponds up here were drier than I can ever remember them. Devils lake was way smaller .


https://ndgishub.nd.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Imagery/AerialImage_ND_19571962/ImageServer?f=jsapi

 

[PrairieGhost]

Devils lake was way smaller .

Yes out where East Devils Lake is you would have to drill for water in 1957. There were a number of gas station, even a Dairy Queen type store on the west side of the highway in 1957. My old brain can't remember right now the name of the old fellow who had a store where the casino is now.
In 1957 air photos were taken of all of North Dakota and many other states. It's how we identify wetlands now long gone.

 

[raider]

this is all interesting reading...

i think i've written on here b4 that some are now wondering if this is the norm and the recent dry cycle was exactly that, a dry cycle... my mom and dad talked about the rains starting one fall in the mid 60's, and them getting most of the equipment out of the lake bottom between lakes alice and ervine... they had to leave 1 or 2 pieces there because the rains came that fall, and they haven't seen the sun since...

imagine the whole basin b4 the road grid was established and ag ruled for a 1/2 century of drought...

 

[Davey Crockett]

One thing I used to wonder about is how much water the aquifer took on, There had to be a lot of water wells that never got plugged. There was a mad rush to plug wells when the lake was still rising but it was too late to get to them. Some up towards Cando were pugged in the winter when the ice was thick enough to drive across

 

[dean nelson]

I stumbled across this map, It's a treasure. I'm amazed at the quality based on the time period it was made and considering pictures were developed in a darkroom back then. It must have taken 5 years to photograph the state from 1957-1962 Fun looking at the changes that have occurred over the years, The ponds up here were drier than I can ever remember them. Devils lake was way smaller .



https://ndgishub.nd.gov/arcgis/rest/services/Imagery/AerialImage_ND_19571962/ImageServer?f=jsapi

That is about the coolest map ever! Boy you sure can tell how salty the east end. This map will be extremely handy in finding rock piles in the new lakes