Last week, Bluestem Prairie posted Following emergency petition regarding nitrate contamination in SEMN karst region, EPA sees further action needed to protect public health, the latest in posts about nitrates in Minnesota's drinking water.
On Monday, the Rochester Post Bulletin, part of the Forum news network, has published an article from sibling venue, Agweek, which is publishing a Special Report on Rural Health.
Noah Fish reports in 10% of private wells in Minnesota pose a health problem:
If you have a private well in Minnesota, there's around a 10% chance the water coming out of your kitchen sink is contaminated.
About 1.2 million Minnesotans get their drinking water from a private well, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Without the same legal protections and obligations as people living in municipalities, private well users are responsible for making sure their water is safe to drink.
Some of the worst groundwater in the state for high nitrate levels and high pesticide levels is in southeast Minnesota. A Minnesota Department of Agriculture's groundwater study showed that in western Winona and eastern Olmsted County, between 10% and 55% of households across about 10 townships were drinking water above the health risk limits.
Major contaminants include bacteria, nitrates, pesticides, arsenic, lead and radon.
Jeff Broberg is a geologist and one of the founders of the He and his wife have lived on their farm in Winona County since 1986.
My own personal well is contaminated," Broberg said. "It's 400 feet deep and 100 years old, and I've not been able to drink the water for over 20 years."
Broberg quickly discovered that most of his neighbors were in the same boat.
"In the area I live, 40 to 60% of the households have nitrate levels above the health risk limit, and they're still drinking the water," Broberg said.
Minnesota Well Owners Organization works with well owners and partners with non-governmental organizations as well as local and state governments. Its goal is to conduct free water quality screening clinics and provide professional help to "connect and activate the community of well owners.""Traditionally, water and groundwater has been a conservation issue," Broberg said. "Slow progress is made with conservation, and that conflicts with the need to have healthy water at your kitchen sink." . . .
More solutions, less blame
The water contamination isn't a static issue for Broberg, whose well water went from nitrates measuring at 8 ppm when he bought the property in 1986, to 20 ppm when he tested the water five years ago.
The Well Owners Organization is one of 11 groups to petition the EPA to "seek injunctions through civil actions, as needed, to return the area’s underground aquifers to a safe and drinkable condition." But Broberg said right now, the organization is focused on helping ensure safe drinking for Minnesota private well users who depend on groundwater for their private water systems and wells.
"People are more worried about the blame than the solution," he said. "We've asked (the EPA) for help, mostly in communication planning, outreach coordination between our own fractured state agencies. That's a long ways away from attacking dairy industry." . . . .
Read the entire article at the Rochester Post Bulletin. To read a different framing of the nitrate issue in southeastern Minnesota, check out the politicians' frame in Brian Todd's EPA makes surprise visits to Viola, Altura farms; Finstad cries foul.at the Post Bulletin.
Apparently Finstad considers the Minnesota Well Owners Organization to be one of "several organizations with a track record of anti-agriculture environmental activism submitted a petition related to elevated nitrates in eight Minnesota counties throughout the Karst Region," or so he wrote in a November 8 press release.
Who knew?
(The April petition is embedded here).
Photo: Private well water samples are lined up in a queue for testing at the Minnesota Well Owners Organization's free well water testing clinic at the St. Charles Community Center on Thursday, Feb. 2, 2023. Dené K. Dryden / Post Bulletin.
Related posts
- Following emergency petition regarding nitrate contamination in SEMN karst region, EPA sees further action needed to protect public health
- On ‘Cancer Road,’ a group of southeastern MN families ask if nitrate exposure is to blame
- Strib scrutinizes MN Department of Ag action on nitrate-related Groundwater Protection Rule
- Nitrates in Southwestern Minnesota water: 'Do not give the water to infants' in Ellsworth
- Commentary from MinnPost: Can the state control nitrates in Minnesota waters?
- Minnesota Department of Health isn’t properly enforcing drinking water law, and kids will suffer
- Jean Wagenius: For climate and clean water, state agencies need Walz to lead
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