The Missouri Attorney General’s Office and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources has filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation, and several other officials in an attempt to stop the construction of a water diversion project in North Dakota.

Missouri sues federal agencies, others in effort to halt proposed North Dakota water project

The lawsuit alleges that North Dakota and the Bureau of Reclamation failed to conduct significant analysis on the impact of the Central North Dakota Project, and falsely stated that the project would pose insignificant impacts on “existing water needs and uses.”

The Central North Dakota Project is a proposed water service contract between the North Dakota Garrison Diversion Conservancy District (Garrison Diversion) and the Bureau of Reclamation. That contract is reliant upon the construction of a six mile pipeline that would deliver water from the McClusky Canal to the Red River Valley Water Supply Project. Waters that run through the McClusky Canal originate from Lake Audubon, which is connected to and comprised of Missouri River water.

Noted in the lawsuit is the fact that the Missouri River is already depleted by an average of 5.05 million acre-feet per year by the Garrison Dam, located just downstream of the proposed Central ND Project.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court, Western District of Missouri, Central Division. View the lawsuit here.