Senate E&E reviews Department of Water Resources budget, backing projects from Minot flood control to NAS operations

The Senate Appropriations Education and Environment Division heard officials from the North Dakota Department of Water Resources and project sponsors Tuesday on the department’s portion of House Bill 1020, covering staffing requests, a multi‑year project plan and enacted and proposed funding tools including state bonding and a Bank of North Dakota line of credit.

The department’s director, Rhys Haas, told the committee the agency’s 14‑year inventory of water needs totals about $5.2 billion, and that “the state’s share of that, assuming all of them would come to the Water Commission for cost share, would equal $3,400,000,000.” He also urged keeping the Resources Trust Fund allocation at 20.5 percent of oil tax receipts and said a proposed reduction to 15 percent would create “somewhere between a $1.3 and a $1,600,000,000 shortfall” over the 14‑year timeframe.

Why it matters: The hearing combined an overview of the department’s budget request with detailed presentations from project sponsors who are relying on HB1020 line items and on federal and local matches. Committee members pressed staff on schedules, construction costs and the department’s staffing needs to operate and oversee expanding state‑run projects.

Most important details

- Budget and statewide planning: Haas described the department’s prioritization guidance and a proposed new approach for the biennium that relies on a $200 million line of credit from the Bank of North Dakota and a $100 million bonding package for the Southwest Pipeline Project to accelerate project spending and capture inflationary savings in the near term. The House’s version of HB1020 separates several large capital items—Southwest…