Changes in Environmental Requirements

Environmental requirements tied to federal highway funds expenditures basically post-dated the completion of I-94.  Legislation such as the Highway Beautification Act (1965), the Historic Preservation Act (1966), the National Environmental Policy Act (1969), and the Uniform Relocation Assistance and Real Property Acquisition Policies Act (1970), having an impact on the planning, design, and construction of contemporary highways had yet to be passed. 

The fact that these laws were not in place does not, however, mean that environmental concerns were completely ignored.  Consider, for example, the design of the Fryburg to Medora stretch of interstate, which garnered a highway beauty award in 1967 from the U. S. Department of Transportation.  (For details on this stretch of I-94 and the award read  Changes in Roadway Design).  Some environmental concerns that would come to the fore shortly after the road was built, however, were simply not an issue for road designers. 

Consider, for example, the routing of I-94 through the center of the Hobart Lake Wildlife Refuge, and the body of water from which it draws its name, a half-dozen miles west of Valley City.  The Refuge was established through executive order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  The Red Trail and then U.S. Highway 10 were routed just to the north of the lake.  I-94, constructed in this area between 1956 and 1958, crosses the lake on a roadbed that divides the south third of the lake from the northern two-thirds. The I-94 route was designed to shorten, by approximately five miles the travel distance between Valley City and Jamestown.   Approximately a dozen miles west of this refuge is a smaller privately owned permanent wetland, Island Lake, which is also traversed by I-94.  One can only speculate as to whether the highway would lie along its present route had such provisions such as those contained in the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1966 (which required avoidance if at all possible of wildlife areas) or the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (which requires issuance of a permit by the Corps of Engineers before dredging or filling of a wetland over 10 acres in size can occur) been in place when the interstate was being designed, particularly given the rate of wetlands loss in the state.

If the routing across Hobart Lake can be viewed as inattention or insensitivity to environmental concerns in the routing of I-94, its routing elsewhere may represent the opposite side of the coin.  I-94 construction inspired the creation of three new recreational areas west of the Missouri River – Crown Butte and Sweetbriar Dams in Morton County and Camel Hump Dam in Golden Valley County.   

Of the three, Sweetbriar Dam is the largest with a surface area of approximately 320 acres and a holding capacity of approximately 3,300 acre feet of water.  Damming Sweetbriar Creek had been discussed as early as the 1930s, but it was the construction of I-94 that brought the concept to fruition.  Interest by sporting groups in the Bismarck/Mandan area for an impoundment on Sweetbriar Creek led to a State Water Commission investigation of the proposition.  Their report indicated that the cost of a dam where I-94 was to be routed over the Creek would only be $37,000 more than the cost of a bridge at that location.  A cooperative agreement among federal, state, and county agencies resulted in a cost-sharing agreement resulting in construction of a dam approximately 1,200 feet long and 55 feet in height over which I-94 runs.  Dam construction was completed in early 1965.  The reservoir began to fill the following spring and was opened for fishing the following year.  Dam and reservoir construction (including the cost of land purchase, utilities considerations, and relocation of associated roads and bridges) was approximately $860,000.