The obituary said, "Richard was involved in conservation issues throughout his life," and it listed examples of his activities: biologist at the Northern Prairie Research Center, regional vice president of the National Audubon Society, fighter of wildfires, hunter of ducks and deer.
All true, but the obituary in the Jamestown Sun left out his great accomplishment. This Richard had an enormous impact on North Dakota, and his activities dominated the news throughout the 1970s. Rich Madson stopped the Garrison Diversion project.
Garrison Diversion was designed to move water from the Missouri River to irrigate farms and supply towns, cities and industrial facilities. This dream is more than a century old. Generations of North Dakota political leaders imagined that it would ensure prosperity.
Madson saw the project as a threat, especially to prairie wetlands, which were his special interest, but also to family farmers, U.S. taxpayers and Canadian waterways. He appealed to all of these interest groups, building a broad coalition that demanded attention in North Dakota, Minnesota, Manitoba and Washington, D.C.
To the fight against Garrison, Madson brought the knowledge of a wetland biologist, the skills of a political organizer, the conviction of a Lutheran lay preacher and the passion of a young person who knew right from wrong.
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North Dakota political leaders and its formidable water lobby were not pleased. Sen. Milton Young called Madson "an environmental extremist," and that was one of the more polite labels applied to him.
The first opposition to the Garrison project didn't come from environmentalists but from landowners. Madson created a group called "Committee to Save North Dakota." The name was an inspiration. Who could be opposed to saving the state? Its farmer members complained that the project was being ramrodded and that their interests and concerns were being overlooked.
Garrison was a threat to the North Dakota's heritage of private landownership.
Madson had a far broader vision, though, and he sought allies wherever he could find them. These included environmental groups, especially the National Audubon Society, which helped bring national attention to Madson's fight. The project was attacked as too expensive as well as too damaging to the environment. Opposition came from North Dakota's neighbors, too, including Minnesota and, most damaging, from Canada. Manitoba objected to the project on two
grounds. One was water quality; the other that aquatic life forms found in the Missouri River could be transferred to the Red River system. The most threatening was a fish called gizzard shad.
The project involved a series of pumping stations, canals and reservoirs, and construction of these continued as the controversy raged. In the early 1980s, the project was "reformulated." This ended construction, leaving unfinished works scattered across much of the state.
The dream lives on in the reformulation, called the Red River Valley Water Supply Project. This is a different approach but not a less grandiose idea. It would move Missouri River water toward the Red River Valley through pipelines and canals. Fargo and Grand Forks would be recipients. Supporters imagine using some of original Garrison works, which they refer to as "stranded assets."
Lately their pulse rates have quickened. Garrison's troubles arose during the Carter administration; the reformulation came during the Reagan presidency. The current administration likely takes a friendlier view of projects of this kind, despite their cost to taxpayers. The project now imagined is far different than the earlier version, and it hasn't attracted opposition with the ability, commitment and passion that Madson brought to his fight.
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There's no Rich Madson around today. He died Dec. 1 in Wolsey, S.D. He was 70 years old.
Madson's defeat of the Garrison project had an impact on North Dakota's landscape in an unprecedented way. Surveyors and railroad builders shaped the landscape. Madson stopped a project that would have altered it still more.
Madson was an "avid outdoorsman," as The Sun said, and he was an all-around outdoorsman. He was also a person of unusual intensity. He was instrumental in establishing wildlife sanctuaries including one at Spiritwood Lake near Jamestown. He took me canoeing there, but always with a purpose.
Once, for example, we counted eared grebes. He was a photographer, and Suezette remembers a time when his concentration as he focused on a bald eagle was so intense that he fell through the ice.
Another time he took me to a place called John's Lake, part of a wetland complex northeast of Bismarck. The McClusky Canal, a major part of the Garrison project, cut through it, and Madson wanted me to understand the impact. We looked at birds as he drove, and at one point we stopped to watch avocets feeding on a mud flat. These shorebirds won't be here when the project is done, Madson lamented.
"Remember the avocets," he said, and I always have.
Mike Jacobs is a retired editor and publisher of the Grand Forks Herald. Email him at mjacobs@gfherald.com .
