PEMBINA (AP) - The Canadian government has raised and strengthened a 26-mile earthen barrier on the international border, a Cavalier lawyer says.

"They have built up and improved a high dike," Neil Fleming said. "Now you have a very high earthen structure with little or no outlets for the water to flow into Canada."

The structure, which Americans call a dike and Canadians call a road, has been holding back floodwaters for miles, was built in 1940. It slowly drains water east to the Red River and north into Canada.

Fleming represents the Pembina County Water Resource District in a lawsuit over the barrier. In 2004, the water district sued Manitoba, the city of Emerson and three rural municipalities to remove the earthen barrier and for damages to public roads, bridges and culverts dating back to 1998. A trial is slated to start in early 2007.

North Dakota's lowest point, at 750 feet above sea level, is the Red River at Pembina. The community battled its fifth-highest crest this spring, and residents have seen flooding seven of the past 10 years, Mayor Warren Hillukka said.

"Our survival and the farmers' are at stake here," Hillukka said. "We're at a choke point here at the border. We don't want to flood anyone else, but we want a fighting chance."

Pembina faced certain disaster during the 1997 flood until the barrier was breached, Hillukka said.

"That's what saved our town," he said. "If that dike hadn't breached, we would have lost the town. It scared the hell out of us."

This year, a breach five miles west of Pembina - caused by millions of gallons of water pressure banging against the dike - brought little relief because Canadians patched the hole.

Then Canadian officials authorized more work. A large backhoe was used Wednesday to dig dirt from fields and place it on top of the dike, to build the dike higher and reinforce it.

Canadian officials could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven, who backs the water district's lawsuit, said Canadians don't appear willing to work with the state. If the Canadians want to keep the dike, Hoeven said they should install proper drains to allow water to follow its natural flow.

"That so-called road it's a dike is causing a lot of problems," Hoeven said. "I'd encourage everyone to go take a look and draw their own conclusions."

If the water district wins its lawsuit, the court could award damages to the cities and townships for infrastructure damage. However, it would not pay for farmers' losses.

Farmers and communities in northeastern North Dakota say the barrier holds back floodwaters that threaten their livelihood on a near-annual basis.

"It makes people say we're going to go over there and dig it out or go over there and blow it up with dynamite," said Larry Wilwand, a Pembina-area farmer. "We know we're not going to."

Canadian officials say the barrier does not violate the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.

After North Dakota refused to let an independent board review an outlet plan for Devils Lake, which also sends water to Canada via the Red River, Canadian officials slowed construction of culverts meant to drain water through the road.

The barrier 6 feet north of the international border blocks water from re-entering Canada when the river floods out of its banks and overland. On the bed of glacial Lake Agassiz, which gently slopes to the north toward Winnipeg, any structure rising even a few feet can make a big difference, said Gregg Wiche, director for the U.S. Geological Survey's science center in Bismarck.

"Whether it's a road or a dike, it's there," Wiche said. "It impedes that flow from going northward."

Neche Mayor Lee Beattie said his community, with the Canadian dike two miles north and North Dakota Highway 55 to the south, took the brunt of overland flooding this spring. The Pembina River, with its headwaters in Canada, flows into North Dakota's Cavalier County and drains east into the Red River at Pembina.

North Dakota paid to install two culverts through the dike and a call by Hoeven to Manitoba Premier Gary Doer on April 15 prompted the Canadians to unplug another where they had rebuilt a breach in the dike.

"We want to work with Canada, we're willing to work with Canada, but we need to move on this," Hoeven said.

Jeremy Grube, a Pembina-area farmer, said the new culverts aren't draining enough water to satisfy North Dakota farmers.

"It's a step in the right direction, but it's not the solution," Grube said.

Threats of using backhoes to punch holes in the dike were a joke, he said.

"We want to make a statement that this is serious," he said. "It affects everybody here and North Dakota pays taxes to fix roads."