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N.D.–At a public meeting last week in Jamestown, the Army Corps of Engineers announced that flood releases from the Jamestown and Pipestem Reservoirs was increasing above 1,800 cubic feet per second, or CFS.  Currently the combined release is at 2,100 CFS and that number will hit at least 2,200 after dikes are built in the city of Jamestown.  That number could hit 2,400.  City Engineer Reed Schwartzkopf told us that there is about a half mile of diking and about a quarter mile of clay that will be going in on the East Business Loop area. There will be diking in the southwest 10th Street area and the Riverbend Apartment area.  The dikes are being constructed by sandbags in those areas.  Schwartzkopf added that the reason for the sandbags is because they will have to be removed in the winter months.  This will be a 35-40,000 sandbag effort.  
Sheriff’s reserve officers, volunteer firefighters, city staff and a small contingent of people from the county correctional center will be helping to build the dikes.  Schwartzkopf estimates that it will take 5-6 days.
Stutsman County Emergency Manager Jerry Bergquist added that since the Corps meeting last week, the water level has stayed pretty much equal to where it was before the higher releases started.  “For all the water that’s flowing in, equal amounts are flowing out.  We are making no headway in trying to get that water out of the dams.  These are flood control dams and we’ve got to evacuate the water.  There’s no other solution,” he said.
It is possible that these larger release numbers from the Jamestown and Pipestem Reservoirs could continue until mid-November.
Schwartzkopf added that the city’s sanitary sewer system continues to run at a high level.  They have not lifted the plugging advisories and are still on the odd-even schedule.