North Dakota
Upstream landowners ponder discrepancies between North Dakota, Minnesota F-M Diversion payouts
CHRISTINE, N.D. — Josh Granholt has spent much of his life on quiet farmland tucked into the bends of the Red River.
His family has farmed land near Christine for more than 100 years. Those fields give way to forested groves along the river, where he and his parents live today.
Despite their proximity to the river, the main houses on the Granholt family’s farmsteads have never flooded, even in years where cities to the north were inundated with water.
“The old timers put a house where it made sense and didn’t flood, not where it looked cool, because they didn’t want to deal with it,” Granholt said.
The construction of the
Fargo-Moorhead Area Diversion
upstream will change how Granholt’s land floods. He hopes to get compensated fairly for newly flooded land — and equally to landowners on the Minnesota side of the river.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
The diversion is a $3.2 billion flood control project designed to protect the Fargo-Moorhead metro from extreme floods. When operational, the project will hold water south of the metro behind a 22-mile earthen embankment. Three gated structures will control the release of floodwater into the Red River, the Wild Rice River and a 30-mile diversion channel that arcs west around the cities.
In order to hold water south of the embankment, the Metro Flood Diversion Authority, a governmental entity that oversees parts of the project, needs to secure property rights to store water on the land south of the dam. It has been doing so in the form of flowage easements. Property owners are paid for giving the Diversion Authority the right to flood their land.
The Granholt family properties are among those the Diversion Authority is in the process of securing property rights for through the eminent domain process, which allows a government to take land for public use.
Proposed flowage easements on Granholt family land pay for flooding in places that have never flooded before. But on the Minnesota side of the Red River, flowage easements cover far more land and stretch farther south along the river.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Different states, different rules
In Minnesota, maps for the project show the Diversion Authority is acquiring flowage easements well into Wilkin County, about 30 miles south of Moorhead.
In North Dakota, a majority of flowage easements are in Cass County. Flowage easements in Richland County are along the Red River or waterways that flow into the Red River. The southernmost flowage easements in North Dakota are southeast of Christine, across the river from Wolverton, Minn. Wolverton is about 22 miles south of Moorhead.
Differences in flowage easements between North Dakota and Minnesota come down to the fact that the project involves two different states with different permitting requirements, Diversion Authority Executive Director Jason Benson said.
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources permit requires property mitigation for up to a tenth of a foot of impact of the principal maximum flood, Benson said, which is “kind of the biblical flood, something that’s hard to comprehend.”
On the North Dakota side, the state requires mitigation for up to a half foot to the 100-year or 500-year flood levels, whichever is a higher impact, he said. A 100-year flood has a 1% chance of happening in any given year, while a 500-year flood has a 0.2% chance of happening in any given year.
“We’re applying Minnesota permit and regulations and rules for Minnesota residents and land mitigation on the Minnesota side. We’re applying North Dakota rules, regulations and law for land that we’re mitigating on the North Dakota side,” Benson said.
Permitting differences are the
basis of landowner countersuits in the eminent domain process.
Landowners represented by attorney Cash Aaland began filing counterclaims in eminent domain proceedings in February, alleging that North Dakota landowners are not being paid for all the water that could be displaced onto their property, or for the resulting damages, when the diversion’s southern dam holds back a maximum amount of water.
While the permit requirements are different in the two states, Granholt thinks Minnesota and North Dakota landowners should receive the same treatment.
“If Minnesota gets paid for everything, for an inch and above, not only do I think we should be compensated, but we should know where that is,” Granholt said.
Further, Granholt worries that if 6 inches of water did fill the flowage easement area, more shallow areas of water would stretch farther onto his property.
“Does that mean there’s going to be 5 inches someplace we’re not getting compensated for?” Granholt said. “Because whether it’s 1 inch or 1 foot in your basement, it’s still water in there, isn’t it?”
Chris Flynn / The Forum
Ken Knudsen lives a couple miles north of Granholt, northeast of Christine. His land is similar to Granholt’s — a grove of trees in one of the Red River’s loops, with a house built high enough to avoid flooding.
With the proposed flowage easements on his land, Knudsen expected to negotiate an amount for the water that could be stored on his land and a payout for the tear-down of a garage turned “man cave.” Finding out that Aaland thinks that water could go higher was not good news.
“I don’t want to move, and I don’t want to sell and I don’t want to fight floods that I’ve been told shouldn’t happen to our place,” Knudsen said.
The land Knudsen lives on was one of the original farmsteads in the area, he said, meaning that the brothers who moved there got to pick the best plot of land.
“I’d like to see that our farm doesn’t flood and we can just stay there, and it’s a beautiful place to live and pass it onto our kids and whatever,” Knudsen said. “If we’re going to end up having to fight floods every time they use the dam, then we’d have to think differently.”
The Diversion Authority does have a mechanism for landowners to bring forward claims if diversion operations flood more land than flowage easements cover. In such cases, landowners will be able to bring claims to a dispute resolution board created by the Diversion Authority. That board will determine if damage was caused by the project.
Granholt said he’s aware of that process.
“It’s usually easier to get it the first time than to come back and ask for more,” Granholt said.
Chris Flynn / The Forum
GRAND FORKS — A North Dakota composer’s dream is turning into a statewide invitation.
Williston-based musician Emily Black-Driscoll was chosen as the North Dakota Music Teachers Association’s commissioned composer for 2026. She’s preparing an original composition that will premiere in August.
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North Dakota
Challengers declare victory after ND Supreme Court rules against Legislature’s attempt to alter term limits
BISMARCK — A constitutional ballot measure to amend the state’s term limits law as proposed by the Legislature will not appear on November’s ballot, the North Dakota Supreme Court ruled Thursday, siding with petitioners who argued the Legislature exceeded its authority and violated the state constitution in proposing the changes.
“The people’s voice was heard,” Grand Forks County Commissioner Terry Bjerke said in reaction to the news.
Bjerke was a member of the sponsoring committee behind the successful 2022 effort to pass a term limits initiative, which amended the state constitution by capping legislative term limits to eight years in the House and eight years in the Senate. The amendment, which became article XV of the state constitution, also included a clause barring the Legislature from making constitutional changes to term limits.
During the 2025 session, however, lawmakers narrowly approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 4008, in which the legislature proposed Constitutional Measure 1, a ballot measure to amend the term limits language to allow legislators to decide in which chamber they want to serve their 16 years, and to repeal the clause limiting the legislative assembly’s authority to propose an amendment to alter or repeal term limits.
Bjerke and former Minot legislator Oley Larsen brought the lawsuit challenging the validity of the Legislature’s action in January, and the state Supreme Court
heard oral arguments in the case
this spring.
“Those term limits may only be altered by a measure proposed by the people rather than the Legislative Assembly. And yet a few years later, the Legislative Assembly is doing what they are prohibited from doing,” attorney Zachary Wallen argued on Bjerke and Larsen’s behalf.
Tanner Ecker / The Bismarck Tribune
The Legislature’s attorneys argued the clause prohibiting legislative proposals to alter the constitutional term limits language “infringes on our republican form of government” by “limiting the people’s ability to vote on amendments proposed by their elected officials.”
Justice Jon Jensen seemed skeptical of that argument during the April 2 hearing, questioning whether a second vote was appropriate.
“The public did speak on this. The public spoke on it when it passed the original constitutional amendment and they said, ‘Legislature, you don’t even get to propose a change.’ They have already spoken on it,” Jensen said. “You want a second shot, or a second bite at the apple, not a first one, a second.”
In Thursday’s ruling, all five justices sided with Bjerke and Larsen.
“We … conclude the Legislative Assembly’s adoption of S.C.R. 4008 violated N.D. Const. art. XV … and declare S.C.R. 4008 and Constitutional Measure 1 void … We enjoin the Secretary of State from placing Constitutional Measure 1 on the November 2026 general election ballot,” the ruling said.
Bjerke thanked the legal team that worked on behalf of their lawsuit, and said he was grateful the court reached the conclusion it did.
“I’m thrilled that what the people voted on and approved has been validated,” Bjerke said.
He added that the Legislature had “multiple opportunities” to address term limits prior to 2022’s initiated measure and chose not to, and gave a nod to the country’s coming milestone and the process by which voters expressed their support for term limits.
“We’ve lasted 250 years,” Bjerke said. “I have two words for those elected leaders who think they aren’t: everyone’s replaceable.”
North Dakota
Fargo woman convicted in North Dakota fraud case now faces charges in Minnesota: A deeper dive
FARGO, N.D. (Valley News Live) – A North Dakota woman who was sentenced to 180 days in jail in Cass County for defrauding healthcare providers and Medicaid programs is now facing additional fraud charges in Minnesota.
Christine Marie Pryor, 55, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to theft by deception involving more than $50,000. She was sentenced to first serve 180 days with a 3-year sentence suspended. She received credit for 44 days already served.
Pryor was ordered to pay $82,584.78 in restitution to Southeast Human Services in Fargo, where she worked between 2018 and 2019.
How the scheme unfolded
According to court documents, Pryor worked at multiple healthcare facilities in North Dakota and Minnesota between 2018 and 2023, using the identities and credentials of three licensed professionals without their knowledge. She submitted fraudulent Capella University diplomas and transcripts to gain employment.
Investigators say Pryor admitted she searched state licensing websites for therapists who shared her first name, then used those therapists’ last names and license numbers when applying for jobs.
At Southeast Human Services, where she worked as a Licensed Addiction Counselor, Pryor earned $55,584.82 while providing therapy services to approximately 150 patients. She also opened her own counseling center, NIAM Brain Injury Center, in Fargo between 2020 and 2021, and worked at The Lotus Center in Moorhead, Minnesota, from 2021 to 2023.
Court documents say the three licensed professionals whose identities were used told investigators they had no knowledge of Pryor’s actions and did not give her permission to use their information.
Two additional charges against Pryor in North Dakota, unauthorized use of personal identifying information, were dismissed on motion of the state.
Additional charges in Minnesota
Pryor is also facing charges in Minnesota. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced on Tuesday charges against Pryor in Clay County District Court for six theft offenses and six identity theft offenses related to defrauding Minnesota’s Medicaid program of more than $150,000.
According to the Minnesota complaint, Pryor claimed to provide psychotherapy and alcohol and drug counseling services to Medicaid recipients despite having no license or credentials to do so. Prosecutors allege she used the credentials and identities of three licensed professionals while claiming to provide Medicaid-funded services to 169 clients.
The Minnesota charges were filed as part of National Health Care Fraud Takedown Day, a joint effort involving the Department of Justice and more than 40 state Medicaid Fraud Control Units.
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