I was happy to see rain fall in Summit overnight through our region. Water is life and it was getting mighty dry--and a new story from Iowa illustrates that truism.
Last December, Bluestem republished Iowa Capital Dispatch's Part of Ocheyedan River, a southwestern MN/northwest IA watershed, has been pumped dry.Jared Strong reported then:
A significant stretch of a northwest Iowa river has run dry several times in the past seven years as a rural water utility has pumped more water from the ground — at least a quarter of which is sold out-of-state — with the approval of state regulators.
A two-mile segment of the Ocheyedan River dried up this year in September amid drought conditions and increased pumping by Osceola County and the Osceola County Rural Water System, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
That led to the deaths of an undetermined, large number of fish and other aquatic life, diminished wildlife in the area and less available water for local livestock.
The Ocheyedan River runs for about 60 miles from Ocheda Lake in far southern Minnesota to Spencer in Iowa, where it joins the Little Sioux River. A segment of the river about four miles south of Ocheyedan has run dry at least four times since 2015.
“It’s surreal,” said Ed Jones, who owns 90 acres of pasture land that abuts the river. “There’s no water. There’s no mud. There’s no nothing. It’s just gravel.”
Jones said the DNR — which oversees the state’s water-use permits — has been slow to remedy the ongoing problem. State law says a permit for the large-scale withdrawal of water from the ground shall be denied or discontinued “if it will impair the navigability of any navigable watercourse” or “if it will unreasonably impair the long-term availability of water.”
Jones, an Osceola County supervisor, said the situation is especially egregious because so much of the water pumped from the ground by the rural water utility is sold for use in Minnesota.
A northeast Iowa company abandoned its proposal last year to withdraw billions of gallons of water annually from the Jordan Aquifer — which lies beneath nearly all of Iowa — and ship it by rail to western states. The idea drew widespread criticism and was rejected by the DNR because it didn’t meet a “beneficial use” requirement under state law. . . .
Now Strong reports in DNR proposes new restrictions to prevent river from drying up:
A rural water system in northwest Iowa would be required to idle its wells near the Ocheyedan River when its flow is too low, according to a Department of Natural Resources plan to keep the river from running dry.
The Osceola County Rural Water System had sought the opposite and suggested removing its requirement to photograph the status of the river in low-flow conditions. The utility alleges that its role in the river’s status is relatively inconsequential. But the state seeks to impose more stringent restrictions on the water utility, according to a DNR letter.
A two-mile section of the river ran dry last year near May City, mostly because the county pumped water from a nearby quarry that reduced the water table surrounding it, the DNR said. The utility also has wells in the area that contributed to the problem.
In 2015, when an smaller section of the river was dry, the utility was the primary culprit, the DNR determined. That led to increased monitoring requirements for the utility.
After the river was dry again in September, the DNR asked the utility and the county for proposals to prevent it from happening again. The county said it would limit its dewatering of the quarry to earlier months of the year to reduce the strain on the river. The utility — claiming it was being “bullied” — sought to reduce its monitoring requirements.
That idea was rejected by the DNR in a recent letter that proposes idling the utility’s wells near the river when the Ocheyedan’s surface level drops to certain points. It also seeks to prohibit the county from pumping water from the gravel pit from July to September.
It’s unclear how the water utility will proceed. Doug Westerman, general manager of the Osceola County Rural Water System, did not immediately respond to a request to comment.
The DNR asked the county and water utility to reply to its proposals by June 22.
Photo: A roughly two-mile stretch of the Ocheyedan River ran dry last fall in northwest Iowa. (Photo courtesy of Iowa DNR).
This article from the Iowa Capital Dispatch is republished online under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.
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