I first started at the Bemidji (Minn.) Pioneer as an intern in the summer of 1996. That would begin six years as a news reporter, sports reporter and copy editor for a small, six-day-per-week daily newspaper in northern Minnesota. I wrote a large range of stories from multiple beats, to features to sports, my favorite being the coverage of the Red Lake Reservation High School basketball team named the Warriors. Here is a collection of my stories from my time at the Pioneer.
Jan. 30, 2000
By Devlyn Brooks
As business owners and tourism officials lament this winter's mild weather, there is a group of Beltrami County homeowners and officials who are praising it.
The lack of snowfall has eased the fears of those who were inundated with groundwater flooding most of the last year, and who lost homes, garages, driveways, fields and dreams. in the public sector, incalculable damage was done to roads, dams, ditches, parks and buildings.
At the beginning of October, most of these people feared what was to happen when unusual amounts of snow fell on the area, as was predicted by the National Weather Service in Grand Forks, N.D.
But November came, and the snow didn't fall. Then December passed without snow, and finally January came -- basically three months that produced less precipitation than this area's 30-year average, according to information from the Beltrami County Soil and Water Conservation District office.
The so-called drought followed 12 consecutive months in which the Bemidji area had received above average precipitation, which produced flooding that literally seeped up from the ground.
The 300 homeowners who suffered flood damage, some of whom still have water in their basements, worried about where this winter's snow would go when it melted in the spring. With above average snow, as was predicted, many more homeowners would have lost the fight this spring.
"The limited rain in the fall and snow this winter will probably have less of an impact (on those suffering from the groundwater flooding)," said Beltrami County Emergency Services Director Marlys Eckman, who suffered in an official and personal capacity. Hers was one of the homes flooded. "Yes, the economic impact (due to the lack of snow) is something, but we're talking about people who may lose their homes. And it's not over yet," she said.
Another flooded homeowner, Cheryl Berglund, added, "If there's no snow, and it's a dry spring ... hallelujah! If there's a drought, it's because I've been praying for it."
40 days and 40 nights
The first warnings that there would be groundwater flooding problems last spring came from news releases issued by the SWCD office in April.
By observing the precipitation the area had received, District Manager Chris Parthun and his office knew that groundwater levels were going to rise. Not only had the precipitation levels for the previous six months been above average, the Bemidji area also had been enduring the wettest decade this century.
"Each month was above the average, and in nine years, we got like 10.5 years' worth of rain," Parthun recently said about the information the office was studying in spring 1999. "You pour that much water on the ground, it's gotta go somewhere."
But that information was of little consolation to those homeowners who had to gut their basements.
Eckman's Grant Valley Township home is demonstrative of last year's devastation.
In the 30 years since her home was built, she said there had never been a water problem, until April. That's when water started seeping into her basement, and it didn't stop until December.
The Eckmans pumped, using three sump pumps, for 10 straight months, but in between had to remove walls, furniture, wiring, carpeting and appliances.
"We just pulled the pumps a couple of weeks ago," she said, "but we can still see the water right below the floor."
Berglund's experience was much the same.
In her Eckles Township split-entry home, water entered her basement in late May. She and her husband also had to rip out the floor, wall board and furnishings, leaving the basement a gutted shell, which it still is.
"It's sort of like a dungeon. We ripped out all the ceiling and everything that could get moldy, yucky and stinky from all that water," she said. "That is a great portion of our living space. A split-entry (home) with no basement basically cuts our house in half."
But both Eckman and Berglund said they know other homeowners have it even worse because some still have water in their basements.
Judy Bjerke, who lives in Eckles Township, says her home started flooding three years ago, but last year was the worst. She said there's still 7 inches of water in her basement. In addition, the water has made her patio door useless; there are cracks in the walls; and her cupboards are pulling away from the wall. And that is just a portion of the damage.
"If we would have had one more half inch of water, our shop would have been lost," Bjerke said.
What's the problem?
The simple answer, some say, is there has been too much development in Bemidji, and along U.S. Highway 2 in particular.
Bjerke said the beginning of the water problems in her house coincided with the beginning of the major development of Highway 2 west of Bemidji three years ago.
Berglund said she agrees.
"There's been an awful lot of changes and growth in Bemidji, and there maybe hasn't been enough study as to how this affects aquifers," she said. "I'm not against progress at all. I love to see Bemidji thrive and do well, but we are in such a volatile area, we truly need to pay attention to the environment."
Soil and Waters' Parthun said, however, that the main causes of the groundwater flooding are most likely just natural -- Mother Nature keeping herself in check.
He said in addition to the 1990s being the wettest decade this century in Beltrami County, many of the flooded homeowners suffered at the hands of nature another way.
The area just west of Bemidji, including Eckles and Grant Valley townships, lies in the confluence of the Lake Bemidji Watershed and the Bemidji-Bagley Sand Plain Aquifer. What that means is that the surface water in Lake Bemidji's watershed and the groundwater in the sand plain -- which also drains into Lake Bemidji -- meet in the area west of town, to a lot of people's dismay.
Finally, Parthun said the soils in that area ae partly to blame. There is a bed of clay in that area anywhere from 5 to 30 feet below ground. Last year, in areas where the water table was above that clay, the problem was exacerbated. Because it's more difficult for water to move through clay, that clay bed only served as a hard surface not allowing the water to move vertically.
Although the Highway 2 development was a contributing factor the flooding last year, Parthun said, the main problems probably were not manmade at all.
"It's a natural process," he said. "That's just the way it works."
Waiting and praying
No one knows what to expect this year. Parthun says the dry trend the last three months is a good sign, but weather officials had predicted lots of snow this winter. So, who knows?
If the dry trend continues, the water tables will decrease, Parthun said, as they have this winter. If not, homeowners should brace themselves.
"It's really a function of the weather at this point," he said, "and there are a lot of agencies and homeowners who are praying the dry trend will continue."
Meanwhile, Beltrami County is beginning the process of hiring an engineering firm to study the problem. Eckman said if an engineering firm can offer some solutions, some homes may be saved. The problem, however, is time. A detailed investigation of the groundwater problem could take months.
"We hope that they will be able to make an assessment of the groundwater flooding problem, identify the problems and offer some solutions," she said.
Lessons learned
Parthun said, most importantly, what last year's flooding problem should teach us is to be beter stewards of the land.
First, he said, we need to heed the lesson that short-term planning is ill advised. We need to think about what the long-term consequences of our land use decisions are. For instance, if the climate works in a 90-year cycle in terms of wetness and dryness -- which studies seem to prove -- we need to know that building on land that has been dry for 30 years isn't necessarily safe.
And second, we need to plan our land use activity more according to geography, meaning we need to live more within our environment.
"What it boils down to, really, is taking care of the land and learning to be good stewards," he said.
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