Like the Star Tribune editorial board, Bluestem thinks the Greater Minnesota Coalition of Cities' agenda items for border-to-border broadband and adequately funding local government aid are hunky-dory.
Nonetheless, we don't agree with all of its program.
Its stance on water quality regulations is particular onerous and gave rise to one of last session's more memorable declarations in a committee hearing--Bemidji-area state representative John Persell's "bull hockey" statement.
Via a letter in Sunday's Red Wing Republican Eagle, A river city should champion clean water, we learned of an item on Monday's city council agenda. Alan Muller writes in his letter to the editor:
On the Red Wing City Council meeting agenda for Dec. 14 is an appropriation of $6,000 for the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities to lobby and litigate against enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
The claim is that the regulations are “not based on sound science,” are too expensive, and so on.
These are the same arguments made by “big ag” interests and big industrial water polluters. In fact, enforcement of the Clean Water Act in Minnesota is so weak that few surface waters meet water quality standards. . . .
Read the rest of the letter at the Republican Eagle.
Here's the document from Monday's agenda:
Cry poormouth and unleash the dogs of law
Bluestem paused at this language on page 3 of the document:
Our challenge is that the CGMC has a limited budget for environmental advocacy at the legislature and no budget for legal or regulatory advocacy. It also lacks the budget for a media plan to win public support or respond to negative and erroneous media created by environmental groups and the MPCA.
This language is astonishing in that the Coalition's messages are routinely placed in newspapers across the state, while its lobbyists frequently testified about this matter in committee hearings. According to a list of expenditures by associations from 2008 through 2014 online at the Minnesota Campaign Finance and Public Disclosure Board, the Coalition spent $1.28 million for the 88th session (2013-2914).
The MN Environmental Science & Economic Review Board, one of three groups mentioned in the document, spent $100,000, according to the board's report.
These figures contrast with spending by those environmental groups for lobbying. The Minnesota Environmental Partnership shelled out $50,821, while Clean Water Action spent $40,000.
What's expensive is taking the state to court over this matter, despite a history of judges rejecting the legal argument. This is what city dwellers with be paying for.
Readers should be aware that when the DFL House Caucus asks them to share headlines like Municipal officials, rural lobbyists blame lawmakers for poor Greater Minnesota session, this is what's buried in the Austin Herald's copy:
Perhaps the biggest concern for Austin residents is the upcoming improvements to the city’s wastewater treatment plant required by stricter guidelines set by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
MPCA officials enacted stricter phosphate standards, among other policies last year. Yet several cities and the Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities pushed back against the new MPCA rules and asked legislators to revoke the standards as lawmakers hadn’t approved the changes.
Lawmakers initially seemed willing to address the new standards, but only the Iron Range received a policy exemption. . . .
Former state rep. Marty Seifert, another lobbyist with the CGMC, said the coalition plans to gather cost analysis data from cities this year and push for legislators to re-examine the rules next year.
“There’s no doubt this is going to have a very negative impact on rural people, particularly,” Seifert said.
Rep. Jeanne Poppe, DFL-Austin, said the Legislature appeared willing to examine the new MPCA rules but the issue devolved into a tricky argument between environmentalists and a so-called anti-environment movement. Yet Poppe believes the issue should be discussed again if the costs to improve wastewater treatment plants become too great for individual cities to bear. . . .
We wonder if Greater Minnesota progressives know what bull hockey this is.
A history of the case
We also have to question whether city residents know about the dirty water tithe is going for. In October 2014, Star Tribune reporter Tony Kennedy wrote in Outstate cities plan to challenge state water regulations:
Three groups representing dozens of Greater Minnesota cities said Thursday they will sue the state Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) to overturn or modify new water-quality rules meant to reduce phosphorus pollution in rivers, streams and Lake Pepin.
The cities contend that the new clean-water standards are excessive and will cost their communities millions of dollars to upgrade water and sewage-treatment plants. Phosphorus is found in human and animal waste and has been found to contribute to unwanted plant growth, including algae, in some of Minnesota's most treasured waterways.
Omerza and the heads of two other groups, the League of Minnesota Cities and the Minnesota Environmental Science and Economic Review Board (MESERB), said they will file their challenge Friday with the Minnesota Court of Appeals. They have argued for many months that the new state standards exceed federal limits, lack a basis in sound science and deserve additional peer review. . . .
In January 2014, an administrative law judge conducted a hearing on the proposed standards and issued a report that noted cities' concerns over the scientific basis for the change. But in May, the judge deferred to MPCA's expertise and recommended that the standards be adopted with only minor modifications. . . .
MESERB, the lead organization in the appeal, is a joint powers organization concerned with wastewater treatment and comprises several dozen Minnesota cities, including Rochester, St. Cloud, Mankato, Little Falls, Eveleth, Red Wing, Faribault, Northfield, Brainerd, Alexandria and Hutchinson. MESERB President David Lane said Thursday that the new standards will "seriously interfere with our obligation to provide high-quality treatment services at an affordable cost."
And how did that work out for them? At Bring Me The News, William Wilcoxen reported in Court upholds MN’s tighter water quality rules; cities face plant upgrades:
A Minnesota Court of Appeals ruling has upheld stricter water quality standards the state approved last year, which may cause cities to pay for upgrades to their treatment plants.
In Monday’s ruling, a three-judge panel said the new standards are valid, disagreeing with cities and soybean farmers who argued the rulemaking process was flawed.
As MPR News explains, the tighter rules involve what scientists call eutrophication standards, which are measured by combining phosphorus, chlorophyll, and oxygen levels.
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has identified phosphorus as a contributor to excessive algae in Minnesota waterways. Too much algae in a lake or river can suffocate the fish and other aquatic life there, the agency says.
The MPCA says the amount of phosphorous in Minnesota waters began declining after regulators imposed limits on how much of it treatment plants can release. . . .
The Coalition of Greater Minnesota Cities and the MN Environmental Science & Economic Review Board are represented by lobbyists at Flaherty and Hood, which also provides legal counsel for the organizations, according to the documents in the Red Wing City Council agenda.
How can you learn if your city agreed to pay a dirty water tithe?
Here's the list of member cities of the CGMC, from Albert Lea to Worthington. If you live in a Greater Minnesota city, check to see if your hometown is a member, then click on the hot link to see if your city council has agreed to pay this additional money.
We'll have more on this during the week.
Photo: Mankato's water treatment plant via Bring Me The News. According to testimony at the legislature last spring and a 2012 article in the Mankato Free Press, the regional center at the confluence of the Blue Earth and Minnesota Rivers has been a leader in reducing phosphorous in its treated wastewater.
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You can count Willmar as another leader in phosphorous reduction, having built an 84 million dollar wastewater treatment plant in 2008. As I recall, the need to meet the new phosphorous standards added millions to the cost of the WWTP. A concern at the time was that Willmar could lay out the dollars to meet the standards, but if MPCA tightened the standards even further, what would it cost to retrofit a brand new plant? Nonetheless, Willmar went ahead and met its obligations under the law, and provided treatment capacity for the equivalent of a city of 50,000 people. That's at a time when the Willmar Council was still capable of looking forward. Presumably, we are getting back to that type of foresight in our community.
Posted by: Steve Gardner | Dec 14, 2015 at 06:35 AM