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 floodwaters 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, and property buyouts. However, a permanent solution was necessary.
The FM Area Diversion Project is designed to protect the FM metro area by channeling floodwaters around the communities and back to the Red River north of the FM metro area. There are four main components to the project including the stormwater diversion channel which includes a 30-mile-long diversion channel, diversion outlet, two aqueducts (which carry the Sheyenne and Maple rivers over the channel),14 drainage inlets, 19 bridges, and over 100 miles of road. The southern embankment component is being provided by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers and includes a 22-mile earthen embankment and three gated control structures. Mitigation projects and in-town features round out the comprehensive project.
Ulteig’s Quality Control Team assists with resolving complex problems while providing field inspection and testing services in collaboration with ASN Constructors’ operations team to ensure that all construction activities comply with the stormwater diversion channel construction plans and specifications, and meet the standards set by the project owner and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). At peak operations, more than 50 team members are actively engaged daily across the stormwater diversion channel project site, 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.
