MINOT – A close election at an annual meeting this week resulted in a new member at large for the North Prairie Regional Water District following accusations of irresponsible spending and unfair prices.
The North Dakota Century Code outlines the requirements for water districts. The NPRWD covers five counties -- Ward, McHenry, Renville, Mountrail, and McLean. The district is divided into six areas, 1D through 6D, each with an elected representative on the NPRWD board. A seventh board member is elected from anywhere in the district as a member at large. After the annual meeting, the board elects a president, vice president, secretary, and treasurer, to carry out the duties of the board.
Crystal Hendrickson, Minot, was elected the member at large by a margin of one vote. She told The Dakotan she knocked on 400 doors, mailed 200 letters and made hundreds of phone calls. In Hendrickson’s letter she accuses the NPRWD board of using the rural water payers’ money “to build nothing less than a water empire,'' saying NPRWD users pay the highest rural water rates in North Dakota.
“NPRWD didn’t even bother to notify members of the last two rate increases,” Hendrickson states in her letter. “These rate hikes are being used to stockpile money for repairs that are decades in the future, rather than pay down today’s debt. Governments have a bad habit of putting money into a fund for one purpose, then finding other ways to spend it. The money we’re paying today isn’t going to be there to fix water line breaks in 30 years.”
Hendrickson said her plan going forward includes notifying users of new debt and liability decisions, budget and rate hike discussions, and resignations. She also wishes to improve the customer service of the association.
“I would like to really take a deep dive into the finances and find out where all the money is going and hopefully make some impactful changes that reflect in our customers’ water bills,” Hendrickson told The Dakotan.
Hendrickson said she has been looking into the district's finances and open records for two years.
Her opponent, incumbent Matthew Zelinski, Deering, was appointed the member at large by the board in June 2021 after a previous member resigned.
“The reason I got on the board originally and why I wanted to run for the board is, I worked for 12 years to get rural water out to the Deering area,” said Zelinski. “My family and I hauled drinking for 22 years until we got rural water. For 12 years, every year that the state legislature was in session, I wrote letters to state senators. I contacted people on the State Water Commission to get funding for the Deering project.”
Though Zelinski was on active duty with military commitments and could not drive to testify at the capitol, he worked to get several people to testify to get funding for rural water to those in the Deering area.
“It’s very important to us,” said Zelinski. “I was not the only one who hauled water, and there’s still many, many people in the rural areas that haul drinking water. That’s why it’s important to me.”
Zelinski said most wells in the rural area have water that can be lit on fire because it has natural gas, iron and salt.
“That’s very common,” said Zelinski. “My opponent does not realize that. She came from Henderson, Nevada. She’s never hauled water a day in her life, and the fact of the matter is, I have. There’s a lot of native residents of this area that have done that, and they know how important it is to have rural water.”
“I’ve lived in a camper for a summer,” Hendrickson said in response. “I have hauled water when we were building our house. I was raised on well water on my family's homestead farm in southeast South Dakota. I only lived in Nevada for 15 years, and the water quality there was very poor. I don’t have the same experience that my opponent does, but it’s not about cutting people off of water, it’s about the users that we have, giving them a better experience, and a better bang for their buck.”
More information on Hendrickson can be found here.
In response to the allegations of wasteful spending, Zelinski said the district needs to plan projects many years in advance due to feasibility studies and other barriers. He also said there must be emergency money set aside in case something breaks that affects many water users.
With each curb stop getting one vote, 277 users of NPRWD showed up for the annual meeting Monday with 365 votes, packing the Barn at 52 Pines near Burlington.
The first ballot count resulted in Zelinski with 183 votes and Hendrickson with 181. After a recount Hendrickson took the lead with 183 votes and Zelinski at 182.
Existing since 1970, NPRWD receives all of its funds from paying customers, covering 4,700 square miles with 2,500 miles of distribution lines in the system, 29 pump stations, and 10 reservoirs. The district also serves about 13,000 customers and provides city water for Sawyer, Ryder, Granville, Max, Surrey, and more.
“Granville, Deering, Anamoose, all those towns, their wells were contaminated with arsenic,” said Zelinski. “Because of rural water we were able to supply those towns with potable drinking water. So that’s the service that North Prairie does. It’s not taken lightly by the people that serve that board.”
More information on the NPRWD can be found here.
