WORTHINGTON — Earlier this week, Nobles County submitted an appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for reimbursement to cover the costs of ditch repairs still lingering from flood damage incurred during late June and early July 2024.
Nobles County’s request for federal funding assistance was originally denied Feb. 21 due to what FEMA claimed to be a “duplication of benefits.” The reimbursements were sought to cover the county's costs to repair Judicial Ditch 9, located along Minnesota 264 near Round Lake, as well as to reseed several ditches throughout the county.
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We're still believing in the rule of law and how it will go. That's what we can rely on right now.
As the flooding was declared a national emergency, Nobles County states FEMA is responsible for financing the repairs of affected ditches, as per Minnesota state ditch statute. However, as the ditches are on taxpayer property, FEMA is of the opinion that the cost of repairs should be the responsibility of the county’s taxpaying residents.
Nobles County Drainage Systems Coordinator Loretta Halbur said FEMA’s response to the appeal has been frustrating.
“It's been a headache,” she said. “When the flood happened, I was only two months into the job. It was just a case of documenting as much as you can with the hopes that FEMA funds it, and if you get all the pictures, GPS coordinates and measurements, you should be OK. But then with us, FEMA started to push back on the duplication of benefits and they started to look into easements, rights of entry and who actually owns these systems. I was going through 120-plus-year-old documents during one of my busiest times in the fall. It became a marathon I wasn't really trained or prepared for.”
Halbur said the damage to JD 9 stings a bit more because that system just went through a major improvement project.
“Through improvements, we can make the drainage systems more resilient and they can better handle some of these big rain events that we're starting to see more of," she said. "We had just gone through a major improvement on that and the landowners were all on board ... and then to have that big rain event. Most of the damage happened on JD 9. It was kind of a kick in the pants.”
Halbur and Nobles County aren't the only ones involved in the appeal.
“When you have about 14 drainage authorities that are all affected by the same decision, you definitely get more people involved,” she shared. “I've been able to talk to Rep. Marj Fogelman (R-Fulda), Bill Weber's (R-Luverne) office and (Congressional District 1 Rep.) Brad Finstad's (R) offices, as well as Sen. Tina Smith's (MN-DFL) office and Amy Klobuchar's (MN-DFL) offices. They're all very aware of what's going on but we’ve gotta go through the process in order for them to step in when they can."
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Halbur explained that the county's appeal has to go to the Minnesota Homeland Security Emergency Management (HSEM) division first.
"Our attorney from Rinke Noonan has also been working behind the scenes, trying to get other state agencies like the Department of Public Safety or the Attorney General to also weigh in on things and add more weight to the appeal," Halbur shared.
If the appeal is denied within 90 days of its submission, Nobles County could submit a second appeal, which would be submitted directly to the associate director of FEMA in Washington D.C. for a full review of all documentation and a final determination.
“I really don’t know (what will happen),” Halbur said. “We have our way of looking at Minnesota statutes and FEMA is looking at it another way, it's a bit of a he-said, she-said game at this point.
"There have also been questions about what this will look like through the process given some of the national commentary surrounding FEMA and federal funding cuts and things like that, but we're still believing in the process," she added. "We're still believing in the rule of law and how it will go. That's what we can rely on right now.”
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