Contaminated water in southeast Minnesota, EPA petition, focus of subcommittee meeting on Tuesday

(KWNO)-The Subcommittee on Minnesota Water Policy will meet on Tuesday at 9:00 a.m. at the State Capitol. The committee will likely discuss a petition filed last April by a coalition of local and national groups asking the Environmental Protection Agency to take emergency action to reduce nitrate levels in groundwater in eight southeast Minnesota counties, including Winona.

State Representative Steve Jacob (R-Altura) says the people behind the petition “want to do an end around local officials in order to hurt farmers.” Jacob argues nitrogen contamination in groundwater has many sources, including municipal wastewater lagoons, but the petition focuses primarily on the local dairy industry as “scapegoats for the nitrogen in our drinking water.”

Paul Wotzka, a hydrologist and member of Minnesota Well Owners Organization (MnWOO), which is part of the petition to the EPA, says wastewater lagoons are “a drop in the bucket” when it comes to nitrogen pollution.

“If he (Rep. Jacob) wants to talk about municipal wastewater lagoons he should really be talking about manure spills and manure lagoons that have leaked and also had catastrophic failure,” says Wotzka.

MnWOO provides free testing for private well owners and Wotzka says as many as 25 percent of private wells in southeast Minnesota are above the maximum nitrate contaminant level. The karst region features thin soil and fractured bedrock making it highly susceptible to nitrogen contamination, for which the primary source is commercial farm fertilizers, according to Wotzka. Wotzka says efforts by state agencies for more than three decades have fallen short nitrate contamination in groundwater keeps getting worse.

“If you look at the state response, they have all been working on this for the better part of 35 years and we haven’t seen anything work so we’re throwing up our hands and saying EPA we’ve got to do something else because we see the degradation our water and don’t see any solution that is in effect or being implemented by state agencies that is working,” says Wotzka.

Jacob is encouraging his constituents to watch the hearing on Tuesday and says he’s aiming to address groundwater contamination “in a fair and balanced way without giving government control over other people’s land.”