At the Morrison County Record, Amanda Rasinski reports in Randall recognized for water quality improvement efforts:
The city of Randall was one of only 15 in the country to receive a 2019 Aquarius recognition award [link added] for their drinking water improvement efforts.
The program recognizes cities that funded their projects through the Drinking Water State Revolving Fund (DWSRF) [link added]. . ..
Chad Kolstad, DWSRF program coordinator from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), applied for the recognition on behalf of the city. He said the Aquarius program is a way for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to acknowledge the progress of small towns. . . .
According to the EPA’s Aquarius report, Randall’s municipal well nitrate totals had been increasing since 2000. By the spring of 2015, a water test indicated nitrates exceeded safe levels for drinking, so the state required the city to discontinue use. The MDH and the EPA state that water with nitrate levels below 10 milligrams per liter is safe for consumption.
Nitrate is a common groundwater contaminant. Small amounts of nitrate is naturally occurring, however, according to the Pollution Control Agency (PCA), most nitrates found in water are sourced from improper manure spreading, over use of chemical fertilization or unsuitable use of septic systems.
Ingesting high levels of nitrate can lead to medical issues, with the most noted being blue baby syndrome, according to the MDH, which can cause serious illness or even death, especially in children under the age of six months. People with medical conditions such as: anemia, cardiovascular or lung disease are also at risk of developing issues with symptoms ranging from high blood pressure to nausea.
Noss said that after the high nitrate result came out, each resident of Randall was hand-delivered a notice informing residents of the possible risks.
“It was high enough that it probably would’ve been bad water for young kids up to six months old and for seniors over 65. It might have caused some health problems with them, but the thing is we don’t want any of our citizens to feel concerned about the quality of the water,” he said.
Noss said the city didn’t suggest any action be taken by residents since the well had been offline by that time.
Randall is just one of many cities affected by high nitrate levels in drinking water. In fact, the MDH reported in 2017 around 8% of community water systems had nitrate levels over 3 mg/L in treated drinking water, still well within safe levels.
The MDH reported that Randall’s highest nitrate levels in 2018 were a mere .45 mg/L.
“Now if you talk to some of the residents, they’ll probably say they still buy bottled water because they don’t trust the city. But those residents will never trust anybody, they don’t trust our words,” Noss said. [emphasis added]
Perhaps those residents have scrutinized federal drinking drinking water standards--or simply read the EWG Tap Water Database, 2019 Update for Randall.
EWG notes:
- Legal does not necessarily equal safe. Getting a passing grade from the federal government does not mean the water meets the latest health guidelines.
- Legal limits for contaminants in tap water have not been updated in almost 20 years.
- The best way to ensure clean tap water is to keep pollution out of source water in the first place.
. . .The federal government’s legal limits are not health-protective. The EPA has not set a new tap water standard in almost 20 years, and some standards are more than 40 years old.
Under the standards that the EWG has devoloped, Randall's water exceeds contamination for three chemical groups, as shown in the screengrab at the top of the page.
For a recent report on the differences between the federal EPA standards and those developed by the EWG in South Dakota, see South Dakota News Watch's report by Bart Pfankuch's Contaminants are common in S.D. drinking water, but most within legal limits.
Earlier coverage of Randall's efforts to provide drinkable drinking water:
- Tainted drinking water costs Minnesota taxpayers millions, Tony Kennedy, Star Tribune, April 29, 2015.
- Randall awarded $1.38 million for new water treatment plant, Brainerd Dispatch, January 12, 2018.
- Report: Nitrate in drinking water a costly problem for small, rural cities, Kristi Marohn, Minnesota Public Radio, October 2, 2018.
Screengrab: The EWG's Tap Water Database information for Randall, Minnesota: "Includes chemicals detected in 2015-2017 for which annual utility averages exceeded an EWG-selected health guideline established by a federal or state public health authority."
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