The director of North Dakota’s Department of Water Resources said his department is working on a more forward-looking budget for water projects, that could include bonding for certain large projects.
Reice Haase said right now, all of the funding for water projects comes from the oil extraction tax.
"What we found, modeling out what our revenues would be versus water needs, we'll have just over $3.9 billion of expected asks," Haase said." But the revenues will be about $1.7 billion short of that."
Haase said the Department is putting together a strategy to make up for that shortfall.
"It could include a combination of cost-share adjustments," Haase said. "It could include some bonding for some of our larger projects, like the Red River Water Supply Project, or the Mouse River enhanced flood protection."
Haase said the recommendations do include bonding for the Mouse River project.
"If you can expedite that, and get it taken care of, you'll have some cost savings," Haase said. "You'll have inflationary savings, and some synergies there, to construct the project."
Haase said the next step is to see if Governor Armstrong agrees, and puts it in his budget. Then it goes to the Legislature.
