September 25, 2026
Bismarck, ND. – Eight rural landowners in the Red River Valley, along with the Dakota Resource Council (DRC), have appealed to the Burleigh County District Court after North Dakota’s Department of Water Resources (DWR) dismissed the landowners’ challenge to DWR’s 2025 approval of a massive water sale that will threaten the private wells they rely on to run their homes and farms.
In their appeal, filed September 25, 2026, the residents ask the court to do two things: invalidate DWR’s dismissal of their administrative challenge, and reverse and vacate DWR’s approval of the water sale itself.
“These families have never been allowed to put their evidence in front of a decision-maker,” said Scott Carlson, executive director of Farmers’ Legal Action Group (FLAG), which represents the appellants along with the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC). “The state’s position is that people who share this aquifer can’t challenge a decision about it until their wells run dry. We’re asking the court to reject that and to set aside an approval that the agency’s own documents show puts this groundwater at risk.”
The dispute centers on DWR’s August 20, 2025, decision to allow the city of Wahpeton to sell 500,000 gallons of water per day to supply a planned 12,500-head dairy run by Minnesota-based Riverview ND, LLP. This one facility will house more cows than the state’s entire dairy herd, currently 10,000 cows.
Appellant Stephanie Miranowski said: “We have lived and worked in this community all our lives. Why should one company get priority over our small farms?”
The water would come from the Wahpeton Buried Valley Aquifer, which has been documented as in decline for many years and is the sole water source for Wahpeton and the surrounding farmsteads. The appeal comes at the end of a historically dry summer, when water concerns are high across the Red River Valley. North Dakota’s state climatologist has described the summer of 2026 in the Valley as the driest stretch since the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.
On July 30, an administrative law judge dismissed the residents’ challenge before an evidentiary hearing scheduled for August 12–13 could take place. The dismissal accepted the DWR’s arguments that the residents lacked standing because they do not live in Wahpeton and had not yet been harmed. The residents asked DWR to reconsider in August. The agency denied that request on August 28, 2026.
The appellants all rely on the same aquifer as the city and the proposed dairy. They argue that DWR’s approval of the sale conflicts with the agency’s mission to manage North Dakota’s water resources responsibly for a resilient future.
“I do not understand why the state is risking the depletion of the only water source for the city of Wahpeton and the surrounding farmsteads,” said appellant Mary Sahl. “There is no backup water supply for Wahpeton or for those of us who rely on this groundwater.”