Flooding Minnesota

It is Sunday March 12 and the sky is lead gray and heavy with moisture. Here at the barn the ground is saturated from two days rain, and the melting snow combined with the rainwater is filling all the low spots.

The ground is still frozen and the water pools, then drains as best it can. Often the grade is shallow and the water has to rise to find an outlet from these little isolated and "perched" basins.

This water can be thought of as potential energy, energy awaiting release. In this case, as an elevated weight.

The water eventually rises in these pools. The rising water eventually crests the lowest spot in the basin's, ridge-line divide, that rings the drainage basin, and separates it from the neighboring basins.

In this way little puddles merge on the farm. They spread out as the volume of water increases. Lateral movement begins to become more apparent, water always flows downhill.

Little streams get organized and gently wend back and forth as they connect the low-spot "Dots" on the relatively flat terrain.

Eventually these streams reach a more dramatic drop and the water accelerates. The streams here are faster and more competent; and much straighter. Unlike the situation with a gentle slope, water is not meandering to drop an inch and is not bending, it is straight and fast.

Depending on the soil profile; this faster water, and the kinetic energy it releases in the drop, will scour the bed of the stream, and in so doing incise itself into the terrain.

Often the stream will hit a harder object than the base material it is embedded in. Like a large field stone in the dirt. A stream seeks its own level and also takes the course of least resistance.

A stream may come to a hard spot like our stone, and flow alongside it, removing more erodible material along its side as the stream continues its fall and flow.

In this way the water gathers, flows, falls and drains away. Eventually the rain stops, the sun shines.

The excess water is gone, the creek is back in its normal stream bed. The fields and pastures begin to show green grass shoots. The soft earth firms up and the young green grass grows fast.

Much like on the farm, Minnesota is experiencing the same thing. With unique situations and conditions to the many varied regions found in the great State of Minnesota, the same principles apply.

For example on the north west border, between Minnesota and North Dakota is the famous Red River of the North. It is located on the bottom of the glacial Lake Agassiz. It is flat, and experiences the same situations described above on the flat ground on the farm.

The Red is a gentle river, usually in a small trench meandering along the billiard-table flat ground of rich black loam. However, places like Grand Forks (fork = rivers joining) find themselves in trouble if the spring waters rise too fast. The water quickly fills the trench, overtops their natural levies and spreads out over the broad flat farmland.

The Red River also has another kicker. Because as it falls it flows north, it often melts in the southern headwaters, flows, and then meets an ice dam and frozen river downstream near the Canadian border.

This can really cause things to backup. History is full of examples of the Red River flooding and covering huge areas of flat land on both the Dakota and Minnesota side.

If the tributary streams had a little more control these high water events could be moderated. Also we wouldn't have the summer water shortages that lead to even-odd watering restrictions as we work on discarding sandbags from last springs flood.

"Wetlands", no matter what you may have been told, do not prevent flooding or erosion.

The State of Minnesota has a three continental divide. Water flows to Hudson Bay via the Red River.

The muddy Mississippi; father of waters, gathers tributary streams and flows to the Gulf of Mexico.

Along the North East or the Arrow-head region of Minnesota; from Duluth northward along the rugged lake Superior coastline, these spectacular creeks and rivers carve into the hard basalt and fall into the lake, eventually draining into the Atlantic ocean.

The namesake river of the state, the Minnesota, goes from west to east in a large gash across the southern third of the state and meets the Mississippi in Saint Paul.

It is very geologically unique. The Minnesota River is an under fit stream and drains about a quarter of the State. It meanders on the bottom of a large valley about two miles wide, flat bottomed and lying about 200 feet below the surrounding countryside. The Minnesota River's tributary streams fall from the high ground into this channel that the ancient glacial River Warren carved when Lake Agassiz was larger than all the Great Lakes and needed an outlet stream the size of the Amazon.

The many tributary streams are bedded in highly erodible glacial till and during high water events these lateral ravines are scoured. The sides also slump in great sand and gravel scallops, and these tributary river beds are incising into the soil with the energy of water dropping two hundred feet in less than a mile as it falls to meet the Minnesota on the bottom of the valley.

Minnesota means turbid or cloudy water. One Indian described the term Minnesota by putting some drops of milk into a glass of water.

You can learn more about the Minnesota River and more specifically the Glacial River Warren at the River Warren Research Committee website here. (I am an RWRC founding member and I wrote the newsletters found on the website, check them out.)

The Minnesota and its tributary is prone to wild fluctuations in elevation, from trickle to torrent. The Minnesota River is a sediment laden under fit stream.

Here too, some controls could be used for flood "flattening" as well as hydroelectric generation. The control of the wild energy would also secure the high ground from the growing threat of the inland devouring of the tributary streams.

You could also end up with some very nice fishing lakes and lots of happy farmers would retire with lakefront property.

And again, we could do away with the ridiculous water restrictions the land of lakes seems to experience every summer of late.

We could also use a bunch more water towers.

To experience a real good flood you need about five things.

One is a wet fall that fills the low spots and saturates the ground. Last fall was damp but not a total soaker.

Two is a hard deep freeze before deep snow. This locks the water in the ground and low spots and makes for a wet thawing with no ground saturation of spring rains. Our freeze came before the snow.

Number three is a lot of snow in the winter. We had a good snow this winter.

Four is a quick warm-up that melts the deep snowpack. We've had a four day period of 40+ degrees.

Fifth is a wet rainy period during the snow melt. We had two days of moderate rain during the warm weather.

Although they have been present in greater force in the past, these five conditions exist to some degree or another throughout Minnesota and we are expecting flooding along many of these rivers.

There are ways to prevent flooding, as well as ensuring we have a reliable source of freshwater for the benefit of all.

Setting aside so called "wetlands" is not one of them.

Farmers Found Not Guilty of all Charges.

The Red River Drainage Basin is saturated and has just received another load of snow.

Over two feet in a wide swath, with ten inches of snow surrounding that bullseye and a large ring of six to eight around that one.

The tributary streams are iced, but melting.
Another blast of moisture is heading our way now.

The first crest on the Red River of the North has passed downstream, north of Fargo, however another crest is expected.

With this new input of water and the melting rivers it may exceed the last.

Unfortunately, it seems many here in Minnesota also feel that they should not let "a crises go to waste", and are spinning the situation to push there agenda.

While people have been sandbagging and are now struggling to clean up, the subsidized eco-lobby is pushing the notion that the floods on the Red River are due to farmers use of drain tile in the fields.

O- yes, and of course, Global Warming.

They also said that about the wind throw of July 4, 1999 that downed millions of mature trees over an area the size of Massachusetts in north Minnesota. That from "scientists" at the University of Minnesota.

This from the bunch that says we need good science and not politics directing our legislation. I could not agree more, I wish they would be more open minded to evidence and scientists that offer a different conclusion to these natural events.

Many of these skeptical scientists can be found at the Global Warming Petition Project.
(If you look you will also find a meteorologist here in Minnesota that replaced one who is a Carbonophobe.)

Keep in mind that drain tiles are only two to four feet deep on average, only drain the soil above them, and eventually degrade. The ditches they lead to are very flat also, and many are maintained by THE STATE.

Get the government out of the crop subsidy, ethanol and ditch maintenance business and many an acre would not see the plow. We should at the same time stop telling the farmer how to manage his property.

Many a pothole would be full of water. (how that prevents flooding I don't know, but it seems to be the belief of the eco-freaks.)

Drain tiles also have very little affect when the ground is frozen as very little water penetrates the frost and just pools up, eventually sprawling out as it meets other pools on this table-top landscape.

No, it is not the farmer or Global Warming to blame for the flooding of this north flowing stream on the flat bed of an extinct lake bed.

This is natural and not too unexpected over the long view.

Flooding of the Minnesota River

There is a lot of rain falling.

Much of it in the very large drainage basin of the Minnesota River.

To understand the Minnesota River and its tributaries (and their very unique geography.)

go www.riverwarren.org/warren_report/what_is_river_warren


I would recommend you go read the entire report and newsletters at The River Warren Research Committee {RWRC}

The only waterfall on the Mississippi River is in Minneapolis... The Falls of Saint Anthony, where the Mississippi River falls into the huge valley carved out of the countryside by the monstrous and now extinct Glacial River Warren.


(extinct rivers are identified by placing the word "river" first, before the name as in: "River Warren".)

All the tributaries of the Minnesota River (which lies entirely on the bottom of the big ditch dug by the River Warren) must fall some 200 feet to reach the Minnesota.

In the process they expend a lot of kinetic energy which makes for highly incised river valleys cutting into the glacial till, especially in high water events.

Look at the Cottonwood, Redwood, Yellow Medicine, Watonwan, Le Sueur, Pomme De Terre, Chippewa, Lac Qui Parle and all the other tributary streams to the Minnesota river. [and Mid-Mississippi for that matter]

All experience the big drop and are in steep valleys with highly erodible stream banks of glacial till and gravel.

The Blue Earth River is a very unique example, with FIVE sub-tributaries cutting inland and upstream, and coming together all at once at Mankato.

Read all about it at... www.riverwarren.org/warren_report/bye_bye_blue_earth

Due to their "underfit" nature at the bottom of the River Warren Valley, the Minnesota and the (middle) Mississippi River are naturally flood prone, sediment-laden streams with wildly fluctuating water levels.

The Mississippi has the Lock and Dam system which provides "flood-flattening".
In the fall/winter, water is released to allow room for the spring snowmelt and rains.

This lengthens the duration of, but reduces the level, of the crest.

Dams can prevent flooding, sedimentation, aid navigation and generate electricity.
They also raise property values along the riverfront with a more stable elevation MUCH less prone to large fluctuations.

Farmers are not the reason the Mississippi and Minnesota Rivers flood, no matter what they tell you at the MPCA, DNR, Board of Water and Soil Resources [BWSR], Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources LCMR, the Land Stewardship Project, or any number of Environmental Agencies and government fortified "non"-profit organizations.

Lets talk about Flooding in Minnesota.

Spring is soon here and the talk of flooding in Minnesota is all the rage.

Keeping in mind that Minnesota is a vast area with widely varied and unique geography and topography...

Let's go back to basics.

There are about five real big variables, aside from unique geography, that determine the magnitude of a "Flood".

In no particular order, some of the things you need to get a real good flood here in Minnesota are....

1) A wet fall. Going into winter with thoroughly saturated ground with a high water table evident by full lakes, swamps, creeks and rivers.

2) A hard freeze prior to heavy snow cover. A hard deep frostline. The saturated soils freeze and become impermeable down to relatively deep depths.

3) A winter with lots of snow with lots of water content.

4) A strong warming that provides a quick thawing of the snowpack.

followed by a

5) A wet rainy spring.

Each drainage basin has its own situation. Minnesota is large. The Blue Earth is unique as is the Saint Louis or The Red River.

The Red is on the flat bottom of a ten thousand year dead marginal glacial lake. It is a river that drains a large area.

It winds its way slowly on the table flat silt bed, finding the slightly lower ground which, overall, leads north. North to Hudson Bay.

The headwaters of the Red River of the North typical thaws before the downstream half, north of the Canadian border.

Often, the flowing water backs up when it meets the ice dams where the floating growlers stack up and stop flow. This was well understood long before the European settlers arrived.

In the bottom land of the Red River basin, once the water rises high enough, the river overtops the natural levies of the riverbanks and quickly sprawls across the very flat terrain directly bordering the river.

Because it is so flat it may travel laterally for miles with just one foot of increased surface elevation.

And tributary streams from higher elevations may experience the effects of this back up.

Grand Forks is named Grand Forks for a reason.

Water will always seek its own elevation. The farther the fall the more energy involved, and faster falls are usually more dramatic then slow.

But not always.

The St. Louis falls fast, the Minnesota and the Red fall slowly, for example.

Water is heavy, "a pint's a pound the whole world round" is an old truism from the sea. Try to walk across a small flowing stream and you will understand the power of moving water.

Six inches of flowing water will move a car sideways.

To control the water you must control the energy.