Ottertail County homeowners seek relief from high water

• High Water

Hundreds living in Ottertail County are desperately searching for relief.

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Hundreds living in Ottertail County are desperately searching for relief. People living on Little McDonald Lake have endured unprecedented high water ruining lake shore and flooding homes.

It continues to be a difficult summer for home and cabin owners on Little McDonald. Tonight, here at the Perham High School hundreds voiced concern about a new plan for water relief on the table....

A packed Perham High School painted the picture of how hot of topic this lake drainage. The problem is clear. Robert Woods raised his shore line twice to hold back water. Still, that wasn’t enough...Woods shows us a 4 foot crawl space under his home he filled with sand also filled with water, eating away at the foundation.

Robert Woods – Fighting High Water: "I filled it up twice, now the water's come up so high, there's no where to fill it in."

Just about everyone living on the lake is experiencing the same thing. So the solution people on McDonald say is to dig out a ditch called Ditch 25. That would drain water in to the Big McDonald, Star and Berger Lakes.

Robert Woods: "There has to be, there has to be relief. Otherwise were going to drown out."

Tonight's meeting laid out the proposal of using Ditch 25 to drain Little McDonald with some minor additions like adding culverts under roadways.

If little McDonald is below the ordinary elevation of 1356.5 the ditch drainage would not be open, anything above could be drained. Any relief is welcome for home owners like Robert Woods...

Robert Woods: "I can’t sit in my family room, and I’m sitting lower than the lake, the boats are higher than me. So yea its very scary."

The plan was met with opposition tonight from people living downstream who say their lakes can’t handle any more water. The plans to use Ditch 25 are now in the hands of county leaders and the Drainage Authority. They are expected to decide details on an operating plan and if it will go though with using the ditch in the coming weeks.

Tags: dylan wohlenhaus, news, flood, perham, minnesota, reporters, updates