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Tensions are rising on both banks of the Red River over $2 billion flood control project that doesn't yet have Minnesota's blessing.

The massive Fargo-Moorhead Diversion project is an ambitious plan to divert the flood-prone Red River away from Fargo, the economic hub for the whole region. A 36-mile ditch would channel floodwaters around Fargo, while a dam across the Red would back floodwaters up into farmlands and prairie on both sides of the river to the south.

Minnesota wants those plans to stay on paper while the Department of Natural Resources conducts a lengthy environmental assessment. Impatient North Dakota officials want to start building before the next flood — and they say they have every right to do so on North Dakota land with North Dakota money. If Minnesota continues to balk, the state could lose its vote on the board that oversees the project.

"It's kind of a mess right now," said Rich Mattern, mayor of fast-growing West Fargo, N.D., one of the communities on both sides of the river balking at the idea of picking up their share of the tab for the massive project. Last month, West Fargo's city commission cast a symbolic vote in opposition to the new property tax assessments that are part of the project's local funding mechanism. "Everybody's mad; the upstream people, the downstream people."

Across the river in Barnesville, Minn., the board of the Buffalo-Red River Watershed District — one of six entities that oversee the Fargo-Moorhead Diversion Authority — has refused to approve the authority's $210.8 million operating budget for 2015, arguing that the only money being spent right now should go to fund the environmental impact study Minnesota is conducting of the project and its effect on Minnesota farmers and land.

The diversion project has been dogged by controversy, lawsuits and an angry Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton, who traveled to the banks of the Red River last year to warn North Dakota to stop "kick[ing] sand in the face of Minnesota" by pushing ahead with diversion-related construction before the environmental review is complete.

"They've been go-go-go, push-push-push on this project from the start," said Buffalo-Red River Watershed chairman Gerald Van Amburg. The watershed district, he said, may still approve a modified budget — one that steers millions of dollars for needed flood mitigation in Fargo, but offers no money to buy land or begin construction to prepare for a diversion that doesn't yet have the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources' approval.

The diversion authority is still pushing. In five years, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will come out with a new Red River flood plain map — one that could force thousands of property owners to buy expensive flood insurance unless new flood control measures are in place.

Diversion representatives head to Washington this week to pitch the idea of a private-public partnership that could speed up the construction and cut almost in half the federal government's $850 million share of the project. Unwilling to wait for the results of Minnesota Department of Natural Resources environmental impact assessment, the diversion authority plans to vote later this month on an amendment to its bylaws that would allow it to forge ahead with projects on the North Dakota side of the river, without a vote from Minnesota board members. The board will debate the proposal at its May 14 meeting.

"There are many things we need to do," said Diversion Authority Chairman Darrell Vanyo. "From my perspective, we can't put everything on hold for years [while Minnesota studies the issue.] It kind of puts us in a precarious positions. How in the world can we sit and do nothing?"

Jennifer Brooks • 612-673-4008