Compromise on Devil’s Lake Drainage

I haven’t seen many details yest, but I’m happy to see there’s an agreement on the Devil’s Lake drainage project. It was obvious that the North Dakota government was going to go ahead with the drainage regardless of what the Manitoba government did. In light of that, a compromise on a filter (and no Missouri water) is clearly as good as it was going to get.

What bothered me about this fight was the escalation of the rhetorical battle without (so it appeared) any formal discussion. I’ll admit that I don’t know a lot about the ecological issues but looking at the geography of Devil’s Lake it seems plausible that the basin contains some unique organisms. And, in any case, I don’t see the point of having a boundary waters treaty if it’s not invoked over a dispute like this one.

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