This is a FRESH water lake. Fresh water is a dying thing.
They should just let nature take its course and consider it a blessing.
Seven more feet and it will drain into a river.
They should just plan accordingly.

Man has only mucked up what nature does.
Here in Florida a few years ago some people thought it would be really nice if a certain river was made straight instead ov the usual curvy. Well, they have been working on restoring it for the past few years to its natural curvy lines.

Devil's Lake is in the neighbourhood, so I've watched it come up... and up... and up... for the past 20 years or so. Prior to that, it was lower than average, as I recall. It's not super unique (there's a rest stop in Minnesota on I-94 that I used to stop at which is now closed because the lake it used to be near is now in the parking lot) but Devil's Lake is a big honkin' body of water (in a state not known for them,) so it's pretty dramatic.

However, the real problem here is political and environmental. There is a manmade Devil's Lake outlet, on the east end of the lake, but that dumps into the Sheyenne River, which goes into the Red River, which goes into... Canada. The Canadians aren't keen on water (and critters) from Devil's Lake getting into Lake Winnipeg and the other waterways, so it keeps getting tied up.

I had heard, quite a few years ago, that the lake had a natural outlet that would "spring" into action (har-har) once the lake got to a certain level, ending the legal wrangling, but that was either incorrect, or the lake has to rise to ridiculous levels for it to matter, as we're still arguing about the manmade outlet.

With the insane winds we've had for the past couple of days, they had some awesome footage of the lake basically taking out a road with 50MPH whipped waves on the news tonight.