Wildlife officials who have been working for years to keep unwanted carp from migrating into one of the country's finest walleye lakes hope to finally solve the problem this summer.

But some landowners in the upper Devils Lake basin question the fairness of a proposal to compensate them for possible flooding of their land, saying they might actually lose money.

"They come to us and say, 'We're protecting a however-many-million-dollar industry down in Devils Lake,'" said Jim Kjos, a rural Langdon farmer who is considering signing a five-year easement on some of his land. "The amount of money I'm going to get for an easement for five years - if I get flooded out maybe on four or five acres (of cropland) this year, that would cost me everything (in lost profits)."

No one argues that carp - voracious eaters which North Dakota anglers generally consider to be a garbage fish - would cause serious harm to the Devils Lake walleye fishery.

Carp could disrupt vegetation that provides cover to young walleye and compete for food, said Lynn Schlueter, the aquatic nuisance species coordinator for the North Dakota Game and Fish Department.

"They modify the habitat to the detriment of sport fish," he said. "They also remove food sources that can be used by game fish.

"You can see a great decline in sport fish as carp populations increase," Schlueter said. "It is so much better to prevent than it is to try to eliminate these problems."

Carp are present in the Pembina River basin but not in the Devils Lake basin. Water from the two basins often mixes in the spring in southern Cavalier County. Officials the past three years have been using a poison chemical drip station to prevent carp from transferring into the Devils Lake basin, where they could eventually swim south into the lake and begin to reproduce.

Last fall, officials were alarmed to find carp downstream of the drip station.

"We spent a lot of manpower to seek and destroy carp up there," said Greg Power, fisheries chief for Game and Fish. "I think we got them all."

But there's fear one heavy rain might spell catastrophe, spilling carp over the divide between the two basins. Power said state officials are finishing up engineering plans on a permanent solution to the problem, which would involve an earthen berm to provide a barrier to the carp.

Power said the project would have the potential to flood an estimated 520 acres of private land, much of which currently is under water anyway.

"This is definitely a very small-scale project in terms of water development," he said.

"But people are understandably sensitive. That's what's taken so long."

Keith Dahl, a landowner in the divide area, said no one wants to see carp get into Devils Lake.

"At the same time, the millions of dollars they feel (the fishery is worth), in what I see of it, they're offering pennies" to the landowners, he said.

State officials hope to reach agreement by summer's end with about 10 landowners who might be affected by the solution that has been dubbed "the Loma berm project" after a nearby town.

The compensation proposal calls for landowners with property flooded by the project to receive 50 percent of the county rental rate for cropland and 25 percent of the rates for wetlands and pasture land, Power said. He called it "more than fair."

Kjos said he and other landowners are not so sure, and have not yet decided whether to sign one of the five-year easements. They also wonder if the estimates on the amount of land that might be flooded are accurate.

"I'm thinking there should be a little more land included in these easements," Kjos said. "It's just a tough issue."

Power said the project is more complicated than what it appeared on paper, and he is not sure what will happen if any of the landowners refuse to sign an easement. "We're just hopeful that everybody will be on board," he said.

Even if things go smoothly, with required permitting through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the project likely would not be completed until sometime next year, Power said. He estimated that the actual work would take only a couple of weeks.

Kjos said he would like to see a solution that works for both Cavalier County farmers and the Devils Lake fishing industry.

"I don't think there's anyone who says, 'I don't care about the carp, let 'em come,"' he said.