Water quality has long been an issue in Southeastern Minnesota's karst region, from drinking water issues to fish kills in area streams.
At the Star Tribune, Jennifer Bjorkus reports in Nitrate levels in 8 southeast Minnesota counties near crisis point:
A petition to EPA describes an "imminent and substantial endangerment" to the health of southeast Minnesota residents.
A group of environmental organizations say nitrate pollution in drinking water has reached crisis proportions in southeast Minnesota, and it's time for the feds to step in.
They are taking the unprecedented step in Minnesota of formally requesting the Environmental Protection Agency to take emergency action under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act. State and local regulators have failed to lower dangerous nitrate levels in groundwater with voluntary measures that aim to curb pollution from farms, they say.
Southeast Minnesota's groundwater is particularly vulnerable to nitrate pollution because of the many sinkholes and fractures in the porous limestone underlying the region.
"This contamination poses an imminent and substantial threat to human health, and the problem is not getting any better," the groups said in their request submitted Monday.
It's not clear whether the EPA will act on the 98-page request. But the submission itself signals the depth of frustration in Minnesota's karst country with pollution largely traced to farm fertilizers and manure.
Nitrate originating in large-scale agriculture has been one of the state's most aggravating environmental problems. The invisible and odorless acute contaminant has polluted lakes and rivers, aquifers and drinking water wells and continues to force communities to pay for drilling new wells and installing new treatment. In response, the state adopted the Groundwater Protection Rule in 2019, its most comprehensive action to prevent nitrate pollution, though farms continue to expand.
The emergency request was submitted by 11 local and national organizations, led by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, on behalf of residents in eight southeast Minnesota counties. About 80,000 residents in those counties rely on private wells for their drinking water, and about 300,000 people are hooked up to public water systems, according to the request. . . .
The most well-known effect of drinking water with high nitrate is the potentially fatal condition called blue baby syndrome, in which infants are starved of oxygen. Federal regulators imposed a limit at 10 milligrams of nitrate per liter of water several decades ago to guard against that. Newer research links drinking water with lower levels of nitrate to other health effects: colorectal cancer, thyroid disease and neural tube defects. . . .
It's not just groundwater. Winona County also has suffered four fish kills in local rivers in the last decade. Most recently, manure and pesticide runoff killed at least 2,500 fish in Rush Creek, mostly brown trout, near Lewiston. . . .
Read the entire article at the Star Tribune.
Here's the petition, which begins with the names of the organizations petitioning the EPA
Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy
Environmental Working Group
Minnesota Well Owners Organization
Center for Food Safety
Clean Up the River Environment (CURE)
Food & Water Watch
Friends of the Mississippi River
Izaak Walton League Minnesota Division
Land Stewardship Project
Minnesota Trout Unlimited
Mitchell Hamline Public Health Law Center
Emergency SDWA Petition to EPA With Exhibits uploadedby Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
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Photo: Utica, Minnesota. Bjorhous reports: "mentioned in the request a city of about 250 in Winona County surrounded by dairy farms and rolling fields. It was forced 20 years ago to relegate one of its wells to emergency backup status because of nitrate contamination, according to the submission. But nitrate levels kept creeping up, and reached 8.6 milligrams recently." Photo by Google.
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