Aug. 3 – CRYSTAL SPRINGS, ND – A landowner and the director of a nonprofit say water levels in Crystal Springs and Stink Lakes have risen so much over the years that they could canoe from Crystal Springs to Medina, North Dakota.
“This water has been rising for years and we’ve been fighting it for years in various ways,” said Tim Brenner, director of Crystal Springs Baptist Camp. “I’ve had to move leach fields, I’ve had to dump loads and loads and loads of rock and debris to protect the shoreline.”
He said work was recently done on 150 yards of the driveway leading to Crystal Springs Baptist Camp.
“The camp would literally be an island if we didn’t build that road,” he said. “The water flows all around us. It’s connected between Stink Lake and Crystal Springs Lake by the railroad tracks.”
Brenner estimates that Crystal Springs Baptist Camp has lost about 100 acres, or nearly half of its property, to Stink Lake. The camp is surrounded by Crystal Springs and Stink Lakes.
“I’ve been a director here for 13 years, I’ve been employed full-time for 17 years, and I’ve basically been fighting the tide the whole time I’ve been here,” he said.
Over the years, water in Stink Lake has flowed into Crystal Springs Lake, connecting the two bodies of water. Brenner said cottonwood trees planted near the camp in the 1960s are now in the lake.
“In the winter, the water still rises,” he said. “It’s going to freeze on top, you’re going to have ice all over the pasture, and it still rises. The water still comes from underneath and it lifts the ice up and then it freezes some more and then it lifts it up and then it freezes again.”
Houston Engineering Inc. is now preparing a scope and budget for a feasibility study on how to move water from basins in western Stutsman County and Crystal Springs. The study will identify the benefits of removing excess water, how much of the 250-square-mile watershed contributes to flooding, regulatory issues, alternative options for removing water, and the cost of removing the excess water.
Stutsman County Commissioner Jerry Bergquist has previously said that the drainage map for western Stutsman County shows water flowing into the James or Missouri rivers, which is not true. He said the water level at Crystal Springs is expected to rise about 7 to 9 inches per year.
Crystal Springs Baptist Camp was founded in 1954 and strives to be a “unique and powerful force for serving youth in the region,” according to its website. The camp offers its facilities to other groups and organizations for ministry, recreation and/or conference events.
“We have almost 5,000 people a year that come to our camp, so it’s a very important place for a lot of people,” Brenner said, adding that the camp can have anywhere from 160 to 300 people on any given day. “Many, many people pray that God will intervene and do something and save the camp.”
He said the water had risen so high that a meadow in the middle of the camp was under water.
“I raised the pasture 3 feet a couple years ago and now the water is back up over the pasture, or it would be if we weren’t pumping all the time,” he said. “I just got a new dike on the north side of that pasture to hold the water back. We’re going to keep pumping over it and just try to maintain it.”
He said the camp has lost about 40 feet, maybe more, of its beachfront to rising water. He said there is also water in the amphitheater where campfires are held.
“We’ve got about a foot and a half to go before there’s standing water in our male dormitory,” he said. “Our gym is also threatened. It’s about the same level, maybe another foot and a half to go.”
Brenner said there is a small house that will be moved once a basement is built at another location.
“Nothing has moved yet, but if we weren’t pumping all the time, there would probably be water in there already,” he said.
Brenner said it would be impossible to move other buildings from the camp to another location. He said there are about 15 buildings in the camp. He said the width of the road leading to the camp makes it difficult to move large buildings.
“They couldn’t navigate out of the building here because there were other buildings and other things in the way,” Brenner said. “I have trucks that come here to deliver food and they can barely get in and out of here in the space that they have available to them. So there’s no way to move something like that for a lot of different reasons.”
He said the camp has spent between $400,000 and $500,000 to combat rising water, including paying for riprap to keep the driveway above water and gas and electricity to keep water out of buildings.
“A significant percentage of the money that we raise through donations and registrations has to go to mitigating the effects of rising water,” Brenner said. “It’s just sad because that’s not our mission. We don’t exist to fight water. We exist to bring children into relationships with Jesus Christ and that’s what we’ve always stood for and that’s what we want to continue to do and focus on.”
Larry Kolbo, a cabin owner in Crystal Springs, said rising waters have flooded about 70 percent of his property. He said he’s only owned the property for about four years.
“Now we have a very narrow strip of land where we had to build an area right up to the point where we’re probably 5 or 6 feet above the water, but most of our land has been used up and it’s still a threat,” he said. “We’ve been putting money into it almost every year.”
He said he has invested thousands of dollars in recent years to combat rising water on his property.
“We have received two tenders to build a larger layer of rubble on the waterfront and we are going to raise the remaining portion this summer to protect the water from any water rises. This way we can at least maintain access to the lake and enjoy the lake,” Kolbo said.
He said a number of properties around the lake could be at risk if the water level rises another two to three feet.
One year he couldn’t get to his cabin until mid-June because Stutsman County Road 39 was flooded. He said that road had been raised two or three times.
He said he would be “happy” if water from Crystal Springs and Stink lakes could be diverted elsewhere.
“If they could restore it to the original, that would be great,” he said. “If they could lower it at least 5 feet, that would be great.”
According to Nathan Haaland, assistant district engineer for NDDOT’s Valley City District, the North Dakota Department of Transportation has raised the ramps on several sections of Interstate 94 due to rising water.
“When water gets that close to the highway, we have to be aware of that, especially if it’s within the so-called ‘clear zone,’ which is a distance a vehicle has to be able to stop before it hits an obstacle,” he said. “If the water got close enough, we had to act quickly and implement a grade increase.”
In 2020, two grade elevations were completed at two different locations along I-94: at mile markers 226 and 239. He said those two projects cost about $10 million.
A ramp raise was performed at mile marker 223 on westbound I-94 near the Medina rest area. He said the project cost $16.5 million
“It was right next to the parking lot and then there was kind of a hill. We did both sides of that hill and raised it about 10 feet,” Haaland said.
He said the NDDOT is pleased with the three pay raises on I-94, but “you never know what the future holds.”
Haaland said there is water at the Cleveland exit and that NDDOT is making plans to do a temporary ramp increase at that location. He said it will be about two years before a permanent ramp increase can be done.
“We’re basically raising the road a few feet and moving the traffic a little bit. That’s going to save us a few years, so we can continue with our normal process,” he said.
