With Devils Lake and Stump Lake becoming one, officials in the flooded region hope to turn the massive body of water into a positive thing.

"We want to form a lake authority," said Ramsey County Commissioner Joe Belford, who works for the state Water Commission to raise awareness in the U.S. and Canada about Devils Lake flooding problems. "The lake has been a real pain … for so many years. Now we need to change the feeling."

The authority, which Belford said would handle such things as planning parks and recreation areas around the lake and finding money for the projects, would focus strictly on tourism- and development-related issues.

A separate task force that includes local, state, tribal and federal officials has been working since last summer to plan for flooding problems in the event of another extremely wet year.

"We have to reassess what could happen if we get a major inflow," now that no more storage is available in Stump Lake, Belford said.

The lakes have been expanding since a wet cycle began in the early 1990s. Devils Lake has risen more than 25 feet since 1993, causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damage.

Stump Lake had been somewhat of a safety valve for Devils Lake, providing a place for floodwaters to flow east. Geologists figure that if not for the flow into Stump Lake through the years, the elevation of Devils Lake would be about 3 feet higher than it is.

Last September, the two lakes became the same level for the first time in nearly two centuries, ending Stump Lake's service as a reservoir for Devils Lake floodwaters.

The combined lake on Friday was at 1,446.8 feet above sea level. The National Weather Service's latest flood outlook says there is only about a 35 percent chance the lake will rise 1 foot this summer, to 1,447.8 feet.

Mike Lukes, a weather service hydrologist in Grand Forks, said the expectation right now is for a typical slight rise through late spring and early summer, though heavy precipitation could change the outlook.

The lake is still far away from the 1,459 level at which it would flow naturally into the Sheyenne River to the south.