Minnesota Drinking Water's Nitrate Levels Are Reaching 'Crisis' Point
As concerns mount over the health impacts of one prominent drinking water contaminant in Minnesota, advocates are pressing officials to intervene.
“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,” the Star Tribune reported. “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.”
In a Safe Drinking Water Act petition, 11 local and national groups led by the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy have asked the U.S. EPA to take emergency action and confront the state’s nitrate problem, which comes from a combination of sources.
“Southeast Minnesota’s groundwater is particularly vulnerable to nitrate pollution because of the many sinkholes and fractures in the porous limestone underlying the region,” according to the Star Tribune. “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.”
Nitrate has been a significant problem for the state for years. In 2020, for instance, the Environmental Working Group found that more than 100 community water systems there had elevated nitrate levels. Consuming drinking water contaminated with nitrate has been linked to birth defects and other acute health problems.
As a fundamental step toward solving the problem, the environmental groups have now asked the EPA to help identify the causes of nitrate pollution.
“The groups asked the EPA to determine the parties responsible for the contamination and why the state and best management practices haven’t protected the area’s groundwater,” per the Austin Daily Herald. “The EPA also should order polluters to provide free alternative sources of drinking water for people whose wells are contaminated, and prohibit construction or expansion of concentrated animal feeding operations unless nitrate concentrations are lowered, according to the request.”
As of this writing, it’s unclear if the EPA will respond to the petition. But it does seem likely that legislators will have to intervene in Minnesota’s growing nitrate contamination problem. How they confront the sources of this contamination is yet to be seen.
To read more about how communities deal with nitrate contamination, visit Water Online’s Nutrient Removal Solutions Center.