Ulteig serves as the Construction Contractor’s Quality Control Team for the Stormwater Diversion Channel and Associated Infrastructure segment of the $3.2 billion Fargo-Moorhead (FM) Area Diversion Project. This 30-mile channel diverts flood waters from the Red River, which flows through the neighboring cities of Fargo (ND) and Moorhead (MN). In this role, Ulteig provides comprehensive construction quality control services for the project.
The FM urban area has historically faced severe flooding, with record-breaking events in 1997 and 2009. Located in one of the flattest regions on Earth—with a gradient of less than one foot per mile—the Red River Valley has relied on temporary flood mitigation measures such as sandbags, floodwalls, diversion channels, and property buyouts. However, a permanent solution was necessary.
The FM Area Diversion Project is designed to protect the metro area by channeling floodwaters around it through a 30-mile-long diversion. In addition to the channel, the project involves constructing two aqueducts (which carry the Sheyenne and Maple rivers over the channel), three major control structures, 19 bridges, and over 100 miles of road.
Ulteig’s Quality Control Team assists with resolving complex problems while providing field inspection and testing services in collaboration with the ASN Operations Team to ensure that all construction activities comply with project plans and specifications, and meet the standards set by the project owner and the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). At peak operations, more than 50 team members are actively engaged daily across the project corridor, delivering quality control for various project components. Additionally, through a secondment agreement, Ulteig team members serve as the Construction Quality Control Manager and Resident Engineer, overseeing the development and implementation of processes and procedures to ensure contractual compliance and final quality control documentation before project handover.
As part of its quality control support, Ulteig was tasked with auditing more than 11,000 logs and testing reports for errors and omissions. To manage this extensive volume, Ulteig developed an innovative algorithmic solution that automated data extraction from these reports. This advancement reduced review time from four minutes per document to just 0.1 seconds—a 2,400-fold improvement over manual processing.
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