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Source Water Protection

Project Summary

Future actions and issues for the Upper Mississippi River Source Water Protection Project are:

• Emerging Contaminants
  The waters in Minnesota have a wide range of uses that in some areas includes being the source of our drinking water. These source waters may receive pollutants from a variety of places and each year the number and types of potential chemical pollutants increase. New chemical pollutants are generally included on lists of emerging contaminants and their study in source waters may be considered a broad field that is expanding almost on a daily basis. For drinking water, there has been an increasing concern over two types of emerging contaminants: pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
  
  These chemicals have been detected in surface waters, generally at low levels, around the country and in Minnesota, including the Mississippi River and certain of its tributaries. Their public health risk in source water is generally not well-known, but research nationally and in Minnesota has described the presence of endocrine disruptors in fish and the effects of such chemicals. The effects on humans of these contaminants in drinking water are not currently well-understood and the degree to which they are removed by traditional water treatment plant processes also has not been well-established.
  
  Emerging contaminant research into pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals in drinking water is relatively new and drinking water guidelines currently exist for only some of these chemicals as analytical methods are still being developed. Sources of these contaminants include prescription and over the counter drugs, chemicals contained in such materials as cosmetics, fragrances, shampoos, human hormones, agriculture, and some industrial discharges. With continued research and better detection methods, a better understanding will be made of the effects of these contaminants in source water. A better understanding will also be gained as more investigations occur into their sources, health effects, and treatment technologies; this will help to establish future research priorities. Surface water provides 25 percent of the state's population with drinking water and the study of emerging contaminants in these waters plays a vital role in human health protection.
   
• Disinfection Byproducts/Water Treatment Issues
   
• Population Growth/Land Use Changes
  The Mississippi River watershed above the Twin Cities is approximately 19,000 square miles. Inasmuch as land use significantly influences water quality, it represents an important issue to be addressed from a source water protection perspective. A 1994 Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) report entitled “Minnesota’s Nonpoint Source Management Program” contains the following description of land use and water quality within this watershed.

  No single land use dominates the basin. Logging, mining and recreation/tourism are mainstay industries in the northern and eastern counties of the basin. Hubbard, Cass, Aitkin and Crow Wing counties hold the state’s highest concentrations of seasonal dwellings. There is a mix of general farming, forestry and recreation/tourism throughout the central basin with intensive agriculture confined to the counties in the extreme southern and western margins. From southwest to northeast, the amount of land in crops drops from 90 percent in Kandiyohi and Meeker counties to less than 19 percent in Aitkin and Cass counties. Dairy and livestock are dominant activities in central Minnesota and concentrated in Stearns, Benton, Todd, Morrison and Mille Lacs counties. … Water pollution in the main stem gradually increases southward with the Crow and Sauk rivers contributing the most pollution. These two tributary basins drain intensely agricultural areas and carry more sediments, nutrients and BOD materials than the other rivers in the basin.

  During the period 1970-1997, significant urban development and population growth has taken place in the St. Cloud to Twin Cities corridor. According to the MPCA’s “Upper Mississippi River Basin Information Document 2000,” during this period, the population of Benton County increased by 63%, Stearns County’s by 37%, Sherburne County’s by 209%, and Anoka County’s by 84%. Population projections for 2000-2020 describe a continuation of this trend. These population trends, and associated land use conversions, pose significant challenges to public water suppliers. First, the demand for drinking water increases as population increases. Second, second, the land use conversion associated with population growth gives rise to increased potential for surface water and ground water pollution as a result of increased point and non-point pollution. The challenge to the St. Cloud, St. Paul, and Minneapolis water suppliers will be to respond to the increasing threats to the water quality of the Mississippi River while responding to the needs of a potentially growing population base. Responding to this source water protection challenge will require more extensive, and systematic, management of the watersheds that drain to the Mississippi River.
   

• Water Availability
  Under most conditions, the Mississippi River flow far exceeds the water needs of communities that rely on the river in Minnesota. However, in times of contamination or drought, use of river water may be limited. The Upper Mississippi River Source Water Protection Planning effort and Mississippi River Defense Network bring stakeholders together to address potential water limitations due to contamination. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Metropolitan Council, Army Corps of Engineers, City of Minneapolis and St. Paul Regional Water Services are currently working together to update the State Drought Response Plan. The updated plan will better define state and local responses to low flows in the Mississippi River.
   
• Conflict Among Water Users
  Conflicts between public water suppliers in Minnesota are not widespread, but do occur. Some aquifers in the state are under tremendous pressure to supply water for rapidly growing urban development near the larger cities and metropolitan areas. There have been instances where public water supply wells in a community had an impact on the pumping capacity of adjacent public and private wells. Municipal wells have also been known to have an adverse impact on other natural resources, like protected fens. Limits placed upon the appropriation of water from some aquifers have forced several of the public water suppliers to look at other sources of supply for drinking water. Some of the more rapidly growing areas are looking at the deeper aquifers and the Mississippi River as sources, which may play an important role in future decisions to determine source water priorities for water supplies.

  Typically, the water- use conflicts that do occur are not between public water suppliers, but often involve private water users. As an example, the cost of supplying public drinking water for use as irrigation on athletic fields has driven parks, schools, colleges and other public recreation providers to investigate drilling their own water supply well(s). At first glance, the cost of a private well is often looked at as a very practical way to supply needed water for irrigating. However, many water users do not take into consideration the large investment of public funds that nearby utilities have already spent to construct the infrastructure required to supply their water. Drilling that private well can be a cost-effective way for the private user to supply their own water, but the loss of revenue that it will create for the local water supplier, generates a community-wide problem involving the shortage of public monies for retirement of public utility construction and infrastructure loans.

  Many of these proposed large-capacity wells are located inside, or near, the defined protection area for a public water supply. Two recent examples can be used to help describe potential problems that can become concerns for the local utility.

  In the first example, a private irrigation well was proposed to supply water for the high school athletic fields in a small northern Minnesota community. School officials approached the utility with a proposal to drill their own irrigation well. The utility expressed concerns to the school that this proposed well could severely impact both the quantity and quality of water supplied by the two shallow wells that public water users depended upon in that community. The MN Department of Health was asked to take a look at possible impacts to the public water supply from high-capacity pumping of the aquifer and existing contamination plumes that had previously affected local water quality. After the MDH expressed their concerns in a letter to the school board, the proposal was withdrawn and the school continues to utilize public drinking water for irrigation purposes.

  The second example involves a metropolitan suburb and a similar proposal by the public schools to supply their own water to irrigate several athletic facilities. The water utility expressed concerns in a letter addressed to the MN Department of Natural Resources (the state agency responsible for issuing permits to extract public resources for large water supplies). The letter described three issues the public water utility had with the proposed private wells:

  * loss of revenue to pay for water infrastructure already in place to supply the school water
     needs
  * potential water-quantity impacts the proposed school irrigation wells would have on the
     city’s single-source aquifer, and
  * the fact that the City utility had, already in place, state-approved plans to both protect the
     aquifer and, reduce the demand upon local water resources.

  The DNR issued a statement to the school informing them that a request to appropriate public resources for irrigation of school athletic facilities would not be approved in light of the utility’s expressed concerns. In this example, resulting negotiations between the public utility and school officials arrived at a mutually agreeable plan to utilize a combination of private and public water supply wells for the desired irrigation.

  When potential conflicts arise between water users, and the associated problems that can be placed upon local water resources, it is important that all parties maintain open communications to address the issues and to arrive at decisions that best utilize limited public resources.
   

• Aquifer Storage and Recovery

In order to accomplish meaningful source water protection outcomes, priorities will have to be established as to geographic areas of concern and potential contaminant sources that pose the greatest risk to the source water.

Following the identification of potential contaminant sources within the SWP Areas, management measures and implementation strategies will need to be developed.

St. Cloud, St. Paul, and Minneapolis will work jointly with ground water suppliers and local governments to ensure that drinking water concerns and issues are addressed by local resource management plans.

More information Source Water Protection Plan Status>>

More information on UMRSWPP Project Objectives>>

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