Aside from Fufeng, it was a year of blizzards, health care news and elections in Grand Forks region
Jan. 2—GRAND FORKS — Eight blizzards roared through Greater Grand Forks and the region during the winter of 2021-22. In the 32 years since the Grand Forks Herald has been naming blizzards, that happened only once before — the epic winter of 1996-97, which culminated with a disastrous flood that April.
Although the 2021-22 winter — and subsequent spring thaw — did not result in catastrophic flooding, it still brought pesky floods and damage to the region.
Communities like Fisher, Crookston and Oslo took the brunt of the flooding in 2022, and especially in the final days of April.
On April 24, the Herald reported that
Gov. Tim Walz had activated the National Guard
to assist with rising floodwaters in Crookston.
"When our neighbors are in trouble, we step up to lend a hand," Walz said at the time. "I am proud that the Minnesota National Guard has answered this call to serve. The support of the Guard will be critical to ensuring the safety of Minnesotans during this difficult time."
That day, the Red Lake River rose to 26.33 feet; at Crookston, anything above 23 feet is considered a major flood.
On April 25, the Herald reported that residents of Fisher, dozens of students from Fisher and East Grand Forks and soldiers from the Minnesota National Guard converged on the Polk County community to fight the rising waters of the Red Lake River.
A sandbag line stretching for nearly the length of a football field formed on the northwest side of the town of 503 residents that morning. They were working in muddy, slick conditions in a stiff breeze and temperatures in the low 20s.
The flooding was the final gasp of a cold, difficult winter.
Blizzard Haley
hit the region on April 12, bringing with it a foot of wet, heavy snow.
The 2021-22 season started with
Blizzard Alan
on Dec. 5, followed by
Becca
(Jan. 4-5), Chuck (Jan. 18),
Daphne
(Feb. 1),
Earl
(Feb. 10-11),
Finley
(Feb. 17) and
Gerald
(Feb. 20) before concluding with Haley on April 12-14.
Although the Herald has determined that the yearlong deluge of news related to
the proposed Fufeng wet corn mill was 2022's news Story of the Year
, a number of others were noteworthy as well.
Following is a sampling of other top news stories from 2022. These aren't necessary the stories that generated the most online views by readers, but instead are simply some of the top stories as remembered by Herald staff members.
The "most read" stories also can be found in the Monday edition of the Herald
or on the Herald's website.
Four people, including an infant,
were found dead just north of the Canadian border to the east of Emerson, Manitoba
, on Wednesday, Jan. 19. A Florida man was charged with human smuggling in relation to the incident.
According to a release from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the bodies of an adult man, woman and infant were discovered at approximately 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 19. The body of another male, believed to be a teenager, was discovered shortly thereafter. All of the victims were located approximately 40 feet from the U.S.-Canada border on the Canadian side.
There was plenty of news about Altru Health System leadership in 2022.
On Jan. 4, the system announced Todd Forkel as its new CEO
. Forkel had been an executive in the Avera system in South Dakota.
On Feb. 22, employees were told that Dr. Steve Weiser would no longer be the system's president
and that Dr. Joshua Deere was being promoted to the position of chief medical officer. And on Sept. 1,
Altru announced that Deere was selected as the system's new president
.
In March, Forkel — in his first week on the job — told the Herald that
"Altru definitely is not for sale" and that the system will "remain a community-led system."
In August,
Altru led Herald staffers on a tour of the system's rising new hospital
. The facility is on track for a fall 2024 completion date, according to hospital representatives. Move-in could happen as early as late that year or early 2025.
The seven-story, $470 million facility that will house 226 licensed patient beds, looks larger once inside than it appears on the outside, and will have a number of features that improve the patient experience from what the existing hospital currently provides.
In February,
it was announced that Grand Forks International Airport was ranked the 12th busiest airport in the nation in 2021
.
Ryan Riesinger, executive director of GFK, at the time said it's the highest ranking the airport has achieved. An increased number of flights and operations by UND aviation students drove GFK up the rankings. Those flights were made possible by favorable weather conditions, at least for flying, as well as a higher number of flight instructors at UND and an increase in aviation students.
According to airport operations data supplied by Riesinger, 349,405 total operations happened at the airport in 2021. Those operations include takeoffs and landings.
North Dakota Sen. Ray Holmberg, a Republican from Grand Forks,
resigned from his legislative work
after it was learned he had exchanged more than 70 text messages with an inmate at the Grand Forks County Correctional Center who was suspected of child porn and sex abuse crimes.
Holmberg, who after
44 years was tied for the longest serving state lawmaker
in the nation,
already was set to retire from the Legislature
but opted to resign early after news about the text exchanges broke. Holmberg was not charged with any crime following the discovery of the text exchanges.
When Grand Forks voters went to the polls for a summer election, they chose five Grand Forks School Board members from a list of 23 candidates.
Mark Jendrysik, a professor of political science and public administration at UND, told the Herald
that typically, city-level elections are rather quiet and often lack candidates to contest the races. That was not the case in Grand Forks.
"It's pretty astounding," he said. "I think people have been mobilized."
The mobilization might be tied to recent controversial issues that have arisen both at the city and school levels, he said.
The five winners were Dave Berger, Monte Gaukler, Joel Larson, Josh Anderson and Bill Palmiscno
.
Residents at a July 19 meeting of the East Grand Forks City Council meeting shared their continued disappointment
— and some harsh words for council members — in the city's decision to move forward with approval of a permit for a local company to build an asphalt plant.
Previously, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced in a press release
that the plant's developer, RJ Zavoral & Sons, exceeded air emission limits for a portable asphalt plant and failed to test equipment while working on a project in Pennington County.
In May, the City Council had approved a special-use permit
RJ Zavoral & Sons needed in order to build and operate the plant.
Many residents have shared concerns about the plant
in regard to the potential health hazards, environmental effects, traffic impacts and quality-of-life issues the plant can cause.
A murder-suicide at a farm left four people dead on Monday, Aug. 29
. The shooting happened on a farm west of Maza, North Dakota.
Deputies were dispatched around 6 p.m. Monday to a wheat field on the 6100 block of 66th Street Northeast for a report of four unresponsive individuals. Upon arrival, authorities located four bodies with gunshot wounds, the department said in a news release Tuesday.
On Aug. 31, UND President Andrew Armacost expressed his deepest apologies to tribal nations across the country
and committed to making amends with those groups after the discovery of partial skeletal remains of dozens of Indigenous ancestors, as well as sacred objects from Indigenous communities, on UND's campus.
There were no weapons, no injuries and everyone was determined to be safe at Grand Forks Red River High School after the school was targeted with a hoax threat on Thursday, Oct 13
. It was part of a concerted series of threats in the region.
A number of officers from the Grand Forks Police Department, the Grand Forks County Sheriff's Office and the Highway Patrol converged on the school shortly after 10:30 a.m., following a call of an active shooter at Red River. Within minutes, there were more than a dozen law enforcement vehicles at the school. Soon thereafter, concerned parents began arriving at the school as well.
On Oct. 19, it was announced that discussions about a collaborative future for health care in Devils Lake
will begin after the city of Devils Lake, Altru Health System, Essentia Health and the Spirit Lake Tribe signed a letter of intent to work together and create a new medical campus in the community.
Leaders from the four parties met to sign a letter of intent saying they will work together, exclusively, to develop a new health care campus in Devils Lake. Community members, health care workers and local leaders filled a room at Lake Region State College to watch Devils Lake Mayor Jim Moe, Spirit Lake Tribal Chairman Doug Yankton, Altru President Josh Deere and Essentia CEO David Herman sign their names.
Grand Forks County voters on Nov. 8 approved a plan to adopt a home rule charter for the county
. The vote was razor thin — 8,386 votes to 8,368 votes.
The close results prompted a recount
.
Home rule status allows county commissioners to propose tax increases. However, any and all increases must be approved by voters.
Opponents of home rule argued the charter's language is too vague, and does not explicitly outline how property taxes will be lowered if the half-cent sales increase passes.
An associated measure on the ballot would have added a half-cent sales tax to most purchases in the county, the proceeds of which would have funded a number of infrastructure improvements. But that measure failed by 29 votes.
On Dec. 5, it was announced that Grand Forks has been chosen as the new site of a $400 million soybean crushing plant
expected to create a local soybean market for regional producers.
Epitome Energy CEO and founder Dennis Egan publicly announced the company's plans to pursue a soybean processing facility in Grand Forks. The announcement came during a regularly scheduled meeting of the Grand Forks City Council.
The plant will process up to 42 million bushels of soybeans per year into crude degummed soybean oil, meal and hulls. Egan says soybean oil will likely go into the renewable diesel industry, while the meal will go into the livestock industry.
The plant originally had announced it would build near Crookston, but Egan said that regulatory holdups prompted the move from Minnesota to Grand Forks.
Crookston leaders were surprised by the decision to move
and some
placed blame on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz
.
A November
proposal by the Red River Snowmobile Club to expand snowmobile access within the Grand Forks Greenway ignited a debate
about whether the public green space along the Red River is for everyone or just for non-motorized use such as skiing, hiking, biking and birdwatching.
The snowmobile club had requested adding 7.2 miles along the Greenway from DeMers Avenue to 62nd Avenue South to replace a longstanding route along 42nd Street, a busy north-south corridor on the west side of Grand Forks that was no longer deemed safe for snowmobile traffic.
The proposal failed to meet the approval of the chief of police, but the council appears to be interested in changing how those decisions are made in the future.
