(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Prairie Pulse, coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll hear music from Annie Mack, but first joining me now is our guest, the director of a brand new North Dakota department, the Department of Water Resources, Andrea Travnicek.

Andrea thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me here.

- Well, you're the director of this department so before we get to that though, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- Yeah, no grew up in a military family so actually my dad B-52 pilot, so we grew up moving around about every three years.

They are stationed back in Minot, North Dakota for the third time right now, I was born in Minot, but we were in Grand Forks, Nebraska, California, Texas as well.

And then did all three of my degrees at NDSU and played soccer for the Bison and been working on natural resource issues ever since.

- Well, great and born in Minot and back your family's, dad's back in Minot?

- [Andrea] Yeah.

- Let's talk about this new position.

What is it?

What's the department?

Tell us about it.

- The department is the Department of Water Resources and it used to be called the State Water Commission and also had the office of the state engineer.

So what happened August of this last year during the 67th Legislative Assembly was house built 1353, that changed it to the Department of Water Resources.

So actually all of our regulatory authorities, everything that we've been working on in the past as the State Water Commission, continues to be the same as the Department of Water Resources.

The only big significant change is now myself, the director oversees the state engineer and the 90 FTE employees that we have in the agency right now.

So it's also a, now a cabinet agency, so I report directly to the governor, but I still report to 10 State Water Commissioners.

So I have a board that I report to as well.

The governor sits on there, the Department of Agriculture.

So the egg commissioner sits on there as well.

And then eight commissioners that are around different sub basins in the state of North Dakota also sit on the commission.

So we do everything still from the regulatory side of things, water appropriation.

So you're permitting water development where we work on projects such as Northwestern water supply Devils Lake.

And so, yeah, so we continue to do the same type of thing we were doing as a State Water Commission, but now you have a director that oversees everything.

- Okay, so those 90 employees were not necessarily new positions created, they were just shifted, (clears throat) shifted over?

- Exactly, my first order of business was appointing the state engineer.

Yep.

- So, how's the transition gone from your previous position?

- Yeah, it's, it's gone really well.

So I have a background where I've worked for the Army Corp of Engineers in California, worked for the Bureau of Reclamation in Washington DC, was also the point person for then governor's Hoven and governor Daripple when it came to working on water issues for the state.

So actually had a great relationship with a lot of the team members already.

So bringing that background from not only working at the state level, but the federal level.

Have worked on Canadian issues as well.

So have some international experience.

So I think the transition's gone really well, getting to know the team even better, have stepped in right away, making sure that we've rebranded the agency.

We do the same things, but we have a new logo of course, since we're now called the Department of Water Resources.

So really try and emphasize everything from irrigation to flood control, to dam safety and then atmospheric resources.

So everything that we're doing as far as monitoring what's happening, you know, with the weather right now.

So I think the transition's going really well, trying to make sure that I'm getting out around the state, visiting with individuals, seeing what those issues are, boots on the ground, but also going to conferences across the country.

So making sure that people in other states and in DC realize what this agency is, and then we're still doing the same great work that we've done in the past.

- Yeah.

Could you expand just a little bit more on your past work with the US Department of Interior?

- Yes, I had a great opportunity where I moved out to Washington DC in 2017, I was appointed by the Trump administration, worked for secretary Zinki and secretary Bernhardt on everything related to natural resources.

Of course, that agency manages the public lands, deals with Western water management.

So I had several different leadership roles, everything from overseeing the US National Park Service, overseeing the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

I already kind of touched on the US Bureau of Reclamation, USGS, so the science side of things associated throughout the country as well, but also dealt a lot too with oil and gas side.

So with the Bureau of Land Management and coal as well with the office of Service Mining.

So, so one day I'd be up in Alaska, working on oil and gas issues up there, or mapping issues or representing at the Iditarod at the same time, I'd be in California or Arizona talking about Colorado river water issues, maybe even being over in Florida, working on Everglade issues.

So had quite the expanse of opportunities to work on many natural resources that are important to the country.

So everything from your energy independence to endangered species.

So it was really great opportunity.

And then governor Bergen brought me back to North Dakota.

- Wow.

So a lot of good experience yeah.

That we hope you're putting the good use for North Dakota and let's turn to North Dakota.

Can you talk a bit about (clears throat) the various water issues and how they vary from one part of the state to the other in North Dakota.

- Here in North Dakota, (man clears throat) we have very diverse water issues throughout the state.

You're even kind of seeing that right now with some of the flooding that is taking place.

And of course we've had severe drought as well.

So for instance, just within a two week period, right, we can have the snow, snow melting, but then you can have a significant amount of rainfall that comes in.

But as you're looking at the landscape in North Dakota, we have very expansive surface waters when it comes to looking at the west, the Missouri River.

And at the same time, we have a lot of different groundwater opportunities, aquifers that are spread throughout the state as well.

But you could see in the west, you usually get to tend to be more dry and arid, sometimes having more of those drought conditions.

And then over here on the east, you tend to get a little bit more of the wetter, more flooding that's going on, but still unique, right?

You had Minot 2011 major flood up there.

And sometimes too, that little Missouri that's out on the west could flood too.

So very diverse, unique.

At the same time, we have a cotton divide that goes through North Dakota.

So some of our water is bringing down to the Gulf of Mexico.

And some of it is radiating up to the Hudson bay.

- That is interesting, when you think about that, and of course, April brought us all kinds of weather events this past April so, but discuss, understand there's seven divisions that make up your department.

Can you talk about that?

- We do have seven divisions.

So one of them is our administrative division and that one is the one that's dealing a lot with our budget, our human resources, and just to touch on a little bit on our budget and how that works at the Department of Water Resources.

So we're very fortunate within the state that the legislative body passed several, several years ago, the ability to have 20.5% of the oil extraction tax go towards the resources trust fund.

So we get a significant amount of dollars right now, based on the oil industry and the productions that's taking place, that goes into water projects.

So our administrative side of things is dealing with tracking the budgets where we have another division, the planning and education side of things that deals with the cost share side.

So they're the ones dealing with the resource trust fund every day, where we are looking for project sponsors, cost share partners to be looking for, do they want a flood protection project within their community?

Do they want some water supply?

So that's tied into our planning and education side where we have different water, education foundation type discussions there.

Our social media, our Facebook side, the regulatory side has to do with construction permits and some of our drainage permits working with watershed districts.

At the same time, we also have our water appropriations and that has to do with the permits.

So when irrigators or landowners wanna come and tap into those aquifers or surface waters, that's where they come to that agency, that part of our agency, same time water development.

So we are overseeing the management of the Devils Lake outlets, Southwest water, Northwest area, water supplies.

And then we also have our technology side, our mapping side, and our atmospheric resources.

- Okay.

I assume you covered all seven - I know right, I know.

The count was up.

- You know, you know, I mentioned April and the weather events we had, what impact did those late sort of late winter, early spring, blizzards and rain have on soil and water in the state?

- So we're still tracking all the different types of wet moisture that did come in over the last few weeks, cause as we were coming into April, we still had really dry conditions across the state, cause last year at this time we actually had severe drought in about 83% of the state.

And right now we're sitting at about 1% in that extreme drought conditions.

So we do know that water has, you know, gone into the soil.

So I think you're gonna have some areas that are gonna have some good soil moisture.

You might have some areas that might have too much.

So we're still tracking with the weather service with Noah to see what those conditions might look like in May here.

It sounds like they're predicting that it'll be kind of above average precipitation coming into May.

So we'll continue to stay in tuned on that, but as you had mentioned, we're seeing some flooding conditions just even taking place right now within the state that we're actively involved with at the department.

- Yeah, so with all that information, you're of course information to come.

Is it good news for farmers in the summer in terms of water in the soil?

Or will, will it just delay spring planning or what?

- I think it might still be a little bit too early to tell just based on, we might actually still have some rain events coming in this weekend, but what I'm hearing, it might be a couple weeks delayed, but of course every area within the state is a little bit different.

So we'll continue to stay in touch too with the Department of Agriculture, as we see some of those opportunities for farmers to hopefully get in the field soon.

- Yeah, you mentioned the impact of last summer's severe drought were, don't we see that often no drought seasons or last for a period of time and then wet seasons.

So what impact did the, has the drought had on the soil?

- So yes, 2021.

Well, like I had mentioned, we had extreme drought conditions almost throughout the whole entire state.

So you had areas in the west, right.

Where there's impacts related to some of the stock ponds that might be out there, some of the shallow water bodies that might dry up.

So really trying to make sure when those type of events do happen, that's where we've tied into making sure that we try to get access to livestock producers, to ranchers.

So last year, the governor, when he did declare the drought declaration, it was, gave the department an opportunity to work with the State Water Commission to approve 6 million dollars to go towards a Drought Disaster Livestock Water Program so that we can help them get some permanent water supplies out to their areas.

And that's where they can come and apply to us, be able to get $4,500, three different types of project for a, for some cost share, related to getting, whether it's pipelines, some wells put in.

So the drought conditions really did impact the state, really did impact those livestock producers.

So we were trying to make sure from an agency and a State Water Commission standpoint, that we could be responsive, try to get them some assistance.

And I know the Department of The Agriculture and also the Land Department had some other water programs as well to assist.

- Well.

So, yeah, you were just kinda hitting on my next two questions with that 'cause then the state and your department, what can you do during the droughts?

So is it where they make application to you?

How, how do they go about that?

- Right, so we were able to, once the governor did the drought declaration, State Water Commissioners were able to get more dollars going out in that July timeframe, the 6 million dollars they do, they apply to us, we review the applications and they go out and they put in the infrastructure and then they come back and they look for reimbursements for those projects.

And what's great is the more access that we can get those individuals to water when it does get into these drought conditions, the more reliability that they do have.

So that's why we're always looking to try to make sure that we've got access, whether it's to irrigation for the crops access to wells, access to pipelines, surface water, groundwater opportunities.

But yeah, you're still gonna have some of those parts in the state that might not have that readily available access, but we try to participate where we can.

And of course we can't control mother nature, but we can try to make sure that we're being as resilient as we possibly can when it comes to those drought conditions.

- Yeah, can you turn and talk about some of the various water resources boards within the state and what their functions really are?

- So at the Local Levi, you have what's called a water resource district.

So those are the boards that are generally appointed by the county and they are the ones at that local level that are managing the water resources.

So whether it's a drainage project, a watershed study that might be going on, watershed management, assessments that might be happening, even managing some of the dams that are located within the counties, they, so they might be owning some of those dams as well.

So we work really closely with them.

They come to us for some of our cost share programs, 'cause we do help with snagging and clearing.

We do help with some drainage projects.

So it just kind depends on at the local level, what those water resource districts, the projects that they're looking at, what they're trying to accomplish as they're managing that resource.

And we try to be a good cooperating partner with them, 'cause again, every county is a little bit different.

Every water resource district is dealing with different issues on how they're managing the water.

- Well, I've always talked to farmers.

They never have the right amount.

It's always too little or too much so, but how important is the Missouri River to the state's water needs?

- The Missouri River is extremely important to North Dakota, the Missouri River, it has, it crosses through seven different states.

There's six mainstem dams that are on that, that the Army Corp of Engineers.

They're the ones that manage the system at the same time though, there's a lot of different authorities that are associated with the Missouri River and the operations that the Army Corps of Engineer does have involved with that.

So everything from hydro power is coming out of using, you know, Lake Sakakawea at the same time, recreation opportunities, water supply opportunities, irrigation opportunities.

So the Missouri River being the largest water body that we have going through the state of North Dakota.

So it's that reliable source of water that we're trying to continue to tap in, tap into.

So that's where we're utilizing the Missouri River for our Southwest Water Project.

Also using it for the Northwest area water supply, and a lot of discussion related to Red River, valley water supply.

So Missouri River is critical to the people here in North Dakota and to the state.

Also as we're looking for more economic development coming in.

So that is our source of water.

And we also know that we have other states outside of the watershed area that are looking to tap into that with everything that's going on in the Colorado River area.

We know that there's also discussions of, well, can we be looking at the Missouri River and North Dakota has to make sure that we have that right to that water and make sure that we're utilizing it for the best of the benefit for the people of North Dakota.

- Yeah.

Well turn to Devils Lake.

I know those levels have been up and down over different times.

What is Devils Lake looking like right now after I guess the blizzards in this season?

- So last year, the operation with the outlets that we've got in there.

So yes, Devils Lake is an issue that has been around for many decades.

It's a body of water that either continues to rise and gets really close to possibly going over the elevation to possibly spill out.

We have not hit that thankfully, but at the same time, the, sometimes that water gets really low and can be dried up.

But this last, this last year we were at an elevation of 1448.

So we operate two different outlets on that lake.

But with this moisture that's coming in right now, we are looking at possibly a four foot rise on Devils Lake this year.

So we could be looking closer to an elevation of 1452.

- Yeah, has that pump system installed there some years ago, helped alleviate some of those high level issues?

- It has, so we had the west end outlet that first outlet put in back about 2004, 2005.

And then with the conditions that started to increase with more moisture precipitation coming in, we had a second outlet be installed about that 2011, 2012 timeframe at the same time that control structure came into just to be able to protect downstream communities as well.

So over the course of the pumping for the last few years, we've taken about five feet off the lake.

So yeah, so it's been a very successful project.

- Yeah, and our community's better protected.

I mean, we know Grand Forks has done some, Fargo's doing some Minot, but then valley city others are, but are things being done to protect those areas?

- Definitely.

And that's where we go back to how fortunate the state is with the resource trust fund dollars.

So we've been able to, as communities have had some of these floods of records, you look at Grand Forks, you look at the Fargo area, the Fargo Moorhead area, you look at the Minot area, Mouse River area, all of them have seen these significant flood events and with the opportunity to not only get federal partners involved with some of them, but at the same time for the state to be a good partner and step up with those locals to be able to build some of these really, you know, these important flood protection projects.

So yes, so Grand Forks, I mean, we are probably in one of the top 10 flood events happening right now, up there in grand forks.

And because they've got that flood protection in place, the acute community has been protected.

At the same time you've probably seen some dirt work going on around the Fargo Moorhead area and the raising of I29.

So a lot of work going on right now with the Fargo Moorehead diversion project.

And at the same time actually, we'll be up in Minot on Friday, touring some of the Mouse River flood protection.

Actually my parents and my sister were both flooded during the Minot event in 2011.

So it's one of those where you had communities, not only in Minot, but outside that Minot area, Burlington, the Mouse River area.

I mean several thousands of people that were impacted by that.

And even one of the highest temporary housing projects that FEMA did all took place in that area.

So I think it's, I think it's great that the Mouse River area service river joint board is working really hard to make sure that that project continues to move.

So I'm really excited to get up there on Friday, tour around, see the great infrastructure that's going in place.

And then the state is invested to make sure that they're putting dollars towards that.

- Yeah.

Real quick, new position, new department, what is your vision and goals for it, for the future?

- Yeah.

Vision and goals for the future.

Definitely wanna make sure that we continue to manage the great water resources here in North Dakota.

They're extremely important, trying to make sure that we're being innovative, thinking ahead so that we don't end up like some of the other states that we're seeing out west.

So we really do have to try to figure out how to make sure that these resources are sustainable into the future.

And at the same time, making sure that we're educating folks on what the role of the Department of Water Resources is.

So everything from the water permit side of things, construction permits, but also developing water supply, flood protection.

And then I think just being responsive.

So if somebody's got a question for us, making sure we answer, get out, try to solve the problem, get the right people, boots on the ground.

- We are out of time, but if people want more information, where can they go?

- Yes, you can look at our website, www.dwr.nd.gov.

Don't hesitate to reach out.

Be glad to come out and visit anytime.

- Thank you so much for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me.

- Stay tuned for more.

(soft music) Annie Mack was influenced by the rich twin cities music scene.

When she started her music career.

Today, her soulful blues sound has garnered attention from some of the top clubs, art centers and rock venues in the Midwest.

(guitar playing) (drums playing) ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ Well that ol' devil ♪ ♪ He went to Jesus too ♪ ♪ He said, "How you gonna eat ♪ ♪ If you ain't got no food?"

♪ ♪ Now Jesus said ♪ ♪ You better keep moving on ♪ ♪ I stay mighty full ♪ ♪ On the word alone ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth.

♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You know she suffered ♪ ♪ She was sick and tired, too.

♪ ♪ Well, you know the blood wouldn't stop no ♪ ♪ She didn't know what to do ♪ ♪ She lost all her money ♪ ♪ Yes sir ♪ ♪ Didn't have no friends ♪ ♪ Her very last hope ♪ ♪ Was this healer man ♪ ♪ Listen ♪ ♪ She was tremblin' ♪ ♪ Sure 'nough afraid ♪ ♪ He said, " Daughter by your faith ♪ ♪ Yeah, you've been healed today ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ Well I searched real high ♪ ♪ And I've been down low, yeah ♪ ♪ Stumblin' around ♪ ♪ With nowhere to go ♪ ♪ I've been out of my mind ♪ ♪ Had my hope all gone yeah ♪ ♪ But for the grace, I'm here ♪ ♪ And I'm pushin' on ♪ ♪ Pushin' on ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you.

♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify, tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ ♪ You gotta testify ♪ ♪ Testify ♪ ♪ Tell the truth ♪ ♪ Stand on the rock of what He did for you ♪ - Well, that's all we have on Prairie post this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Woman] Funded by the Minnesota arts and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie public.