Road to N.D. state park raised

DEVILS LAKE, N.D. — Anglers, campers, businesses and officials will celebrate the completion today of a $15 million project to raise the only road to Grahams Island State Park on Devils Lake, the busiest state park in North Dakota.

The road raise should guarantee access to the park, which saw attendance cut in half last year because of high water that forced it to close for several days on windy days, when high water blew tree branches and other debris onto the roadway.

The latest project raised the road 6 feet, to an elevation of 1,461 feet above sea level. That’s 3 feet above the elevation at which Devils Lake would start spilling naturally through the Tolna Coulee to the Sheyenne River.

It’s the third road raise in the past 20 years as officials have tried to keep ahead of the flooding Devils Lake, which has risen by more than 30 feet and quadrupled in size since 1992.

The lake reached a record elevation of 1,454.4 feet in 2011. It since has dropped almost 2 feet, to about 1,452.5 feet Thursday.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony will be at 11 a.m. at the park entrance.

Tags: news, parks, transportation