The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) St. Paul District awarded a $12.8 million contract to Hendrickson Transportation LLC, of Hamburg, Iowa, to complete the Oxbow-Hickson-Bakke Ring Levee portion of the Fargo, North Dakota/Moorhead, Minnesota, Metropolitan Area Flood Risk Management Project, also known as the FM Area Diversion.
This is the final phase of construction and includes 11,400 feet of levee, a road raise at Main Avenue, storm and sanitary sewer piping, riprap placement and turf establishment. The embankment material for the levee will come from the two interior north and west drainage ponds located adjacent to the Bakke community.
The ring levee will reduce the risk of flooding for the communities of Oxbow, Hickson and Bakke, North Dakota, which are located in the upstream staging area of the FM Area Diversion project.
The FM Area Diversion is congressionally authorized and consists of a 30-mile-long stormwater diversion channel in North Dakota with upstream staging. The plan includes a 21-mile-long southern embankment, several highway bridges and railroad bridges, three gated control structures and two aqueduct structures.
USACE is working in partnership on this project with the cities of Fargo and Moorhead and the Metro Flood Diversion Authority. This project provides flood risk reduction for nearly 260,000 people and 70 square miles of infrastructure in the communities of Fargo, Moorhead, West Fargo, Horace and Harwood.
