FARGO, N.D. (AP) -- Fargo will pay $13,000 a month for warehouse space over the next year to store the bulk of 370,000 sandbags left over from this spring's flood fight.
About 350,000 bags have been sitting on pallets in a parking lot, the top layer exposed to ultraviolet rays that break down the bags. The other 20,000 bags are on pallets outside the city's solid-waste building.
Most of the bags will be moved to the warehouse. The annual cost will be about half of the $303,400 that officials estimate it would cost to reproduce the 370,000 filled sandbags.
Mayor Dennis Walaker says that if sandbags can be saved from year to year, it will save on the type of manpower expended during the city's back-to-back Red River flood battles in 2009 and 2010.
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