ST. PAUL, MN — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), St. Paul District, awarded a $42.2 million contract to R.J. Zavoral & Sons, Inc. of East Grand Forks, Minnesota, to complete the Southern Embankment Reach SE-2B portion of the Fargo, North Dakota/Moorhead, Minnesota, Metropolitan Area Flood Risk Management Project, which is also known as the FM Area Diversion.

The Southern Embankment Reach SE-2B portion is in Cass County, North Dakota, and consists of an embankment that will extend from the existing Reach SE-2A near Horace to the Wild Rice River Structure, both of which are currently under construction.

The total length of the embankment is approximately 4.1 miles. The embankment material will come from the borrow ditch adjacent to the embankment. The project will also include two road crossings (at County Road 16 and 45th Street South), utility relocations, a temporary weir adjacent to the Wild Rice River Structure, and temporary flap gates at County Road 16.

This is the fourth of multiple contracts planned to construct the embankments associated with the southern embankment. This congressionally authorized project is a 30-mile-long stormwater diversion channel in North Dakota with upstream staging. The plan includes a 21-mile-long southern embankment, several highway and railroad bridges, three gated control structures, and two aqueduct structures.

USACE is working in partnership on this project with the cities of Fargo and Moorhead and the Metro Flood Diversion Authority. This project provides flood risk reduction for nearly 260,000 people and 70 square miles of infrastructure in the communities of Fargo, Moorhead, West Fargo, Horace, and Harwood.