COVER STORY
IRRIGATION
James rivers, and ultimately the Continued from Page 1 Red River. The canals were built, Besides being historic, the “Mile but a 66-inch Marker 7.5 Irrigation Project” is highpipeline tech. It can be controlled through from the Mcsmartphones and web apps, and three Clusky Canal people run the system through the irrito Lake gation season. Ashtabula The McClusky Canal carries Missouri has not been River water and is 73.6 miles long, built built, and from 1969 to 1976 — the year Knorr was there is no born. The canal was designed to carry up to timetable for doing that. 2,000 cubic feet per second with a caMeanwhile, pacity of irrigating up to 250,000 acres, through enin addition to bringing water for rural vironmental areas and municipal supplies farther and political east. Current uses add up to 100 cubic opposition, feet per second, says the irrigaKip Kovar, the district tion scope in engineer at the diverG The K&T Farms irrigation project is made possible by a $3.6 the canal sion headquarters in million lift station that pumps water from the McClusky Canal, was cut to Carrington, N.D. The 23,700 acres north of Turtle Lake, N.D. canal is about 100 feet — both wide in a slope to a 25through the foot-wide bottom, holdhaving water diverted or pumped to Garrison Diversion Reformulation Act ing water at a 15-foot their property in Phase I had to put $5 of 1986 and the Dakota Water Resources depth. per acre down to start the engineering Act of 2000. The McClusky Canal work. Engineers needed at least 2,500 The Bureau of Reclamation identiis part of a system of Kovar acres of land for the project. They are fied 13,700 acres near Turtle Lake and compensation for Misnow “maxed out” in Phase I at about another 10,000 “canal-side” acres along souri River flood con4,000 acres, Knorr says. the canal, Kovar says. Another 28,000 trol main stem dams that were built K&T Farms was developed in 2010 to acres are undesignated somewhere in from the late 1940s into the mid-1960s, complete Phase 1. Only K&T Farms and the Missouri River Basin, he says. Kovar says. The initial intent was 1.2 one other member in the community million acres of irrigation in the state, signed up for the project, which has 5-year commitments but that was dropped to 500,000 acres in been delivering water since July 2011. the 1960s — roughly the amount of land Initially, the U.S. Bureau of ReclamaK&T stands for Knorr and Topp familost when the Garrison Dam went up, tion would offer a one-year water servlies. Steve and his uncle, Mark Knorr, creating Lake Sakakawea. ice contract. The Knorrs hired Joe are partners in the farm, which is in asFormer U.S. Sen. Mark Andrews, RCichy, a Bismarck, N.D., attorney who sociation with Steve’s father, Bob. The N.D., says irrigation originally was to formerly was with the North Dakota Topps are Jason and Justin Topp, both have come off the Sheyenne and James Water Commission, and got a five-year of Grace City, who farm in conjunction rivers. water service contract. The Knorrs dewith their father, Jeff, of Grace City. In the early 1960s, Congress approved veloped six initial quarters close to the “It’s a collaboration of the families,” a project to move water to the east — in canal, using a smaller pump station Steve says. When all of the landlord part to recharge Devils Lake and in they’d financed themselves, and started families are added in, there are a dozen part to recharge the Sheyenne and irrigating in 2009. involved. After the first Most of the land is from Conservation year, the Garrison Reserve Program acres, and is under Diversion devellong-term leases for up to 10 years. oped into the Mile Marker 7.5 project, which refers to the How it works The project starts at the first lift, distance from the head gate in Garri- which includes two, 36-inch lines that go into the canal. Each line has a “Tson. screen” inlet in the side wall of the Landowners canal, in a structure called a wet well. formed the Turtle The pumps for the vertical turbines go Lake Irrigation down about 20 to 30 feet into the well. District — a legal Five, 250-horsepower turbines lift the government entity that can sell bonds water from the wet well and energize the line. Electricity is available at a and build central cheaper rate from the hydro dams. pumping. After Knorr says the State Water Commisseveral public sion paid half the cost of the central meetings, consupply works. The project was $3.6 milstruction started lion, so the farmers and the state each in the fall and came up with roughly $1.8 million. Withwinter of 2010, deout the SWC, the project would not be veloping phases I, considered feasible, as costs would be II and III in areas too high to be profitable, Garrison Dinorth of the canal. version officials say. But developing the Phase I includes irrigation could create hundreds of new 3,500 acres and jobs and millions of dollars in ecophases II and III G An experimental line of red potatoes appears abundant will include annomic activity in an area of the state in a research plot under irrigation at K&T Farms. Steve that could use them. other 3,500. Knorr says there is a local demand for potato acreage as The central station then sends the Those in the some North Dakota processors ship in potatoes from neighborhoods that water out in two, 24-inch lines and one Washington and Canada. 18-inch line. Together, these mains dewere interested in
AGWEEK / Monday, September 9, 2013 — PAGE 9
liver 18,000 gallons of water per minute — arteries will go to irrigation pivots to the north. The northernmost fields are about seven miles away, along McLean County Highway 8. The water is repressurized to feed the northern pivots in one 24inch and one 18-inch line. This electricity comes from McLean Electric Cooperative and is not subsidized. Knorr says just the pivot on a quarter of land is $70,000 to $80,000 in aboveground costs. Other development costs are around $2,000 an acre, for wires, pipe and pivots. K&T Farms is unusual because it adds groundwater wells into the system. The canal water is designed to handle about 3,000 acres, and the well water adds another 1,000 acres, for the 4,000acre total. This well pumps from the Lake Nettie Aquifer, bringing groundwater from 190 feet down. The system is made up of 15 miles of main and lateral pipes. The line is maintained, or “energized” at 55 to 65 pounds per square inch. Knorr describes it as similar to a rural water project — the subscriber turns the water on, and it’s there. “The pump station reacts when a pivot is turned on,” he says. “As a pivot valve opens, the station ramps up and the variable frequency drive turns on another turbine, with more power, more pressure, to maintain the pressure at all times.” Safety functions turn off the system in the case of a line break. “We can open that valve manually, or by the smartphone,” Knorr says. The system is available through Watertronics, a division of Lindsay, which also produces Zimmatic pivots. “No one has to be hired to move pipes or open and close gates.” Knorr determines irrigation needs by going to the field and checking with hand-operated probes, as well as crop stage charts. Someday, Knorr expects soil water profiles will be monitored through automated tensiometers.
No irrigation newbie
The Knorrs are some of the more experienced irrigators in North Dakota. Steve, 37, was working on irrigated vegetable trials before he graduated high school in 1995. He went to North Dakota State University, where he played defensive tackle in Division II football. He graduated in 2000 and went home to farm. His father, Bob, was a leader in the then-North Dakota Wheat Growers Association — precursor to the North Dakota Grain Growers Association. His older brother, Rob, migrated to Arizona to farm there under irrigation. In the late 1980s, Bob Knorr of Sawyer, N.D., was one of the original partners in KIP Farms in Karlsruhe, in McHenry County. The KIP partnership (named for Karlsruhe Irrigation Project) started raising irrigated process potatoes in relatively tight rotation. It was part of North Dakota’s first irrigated potato boom when processed potatoes moved out of the Red River Valley, after
IRRIGATION: See Page 10