We know of, and support, the Minnesota Environmental Partnership but, as far as we know, only a fraction of the fishing / environmental / conservations organizations are members. Could the fact that the environmental and outdoor recreation community finds it difficult to impossible to speak to the public policy makers with a unified voice help explain why:
88% of Minnesota’s waters are impaired for fish consumption
49% are impaired for aquatic life
57% fail to meet standards for water contact recreation.
A long time ago, the founders of Trout Unlimited observed that if we “take care of the fish, then the fishing will take care of itself.” It’s not possible to take care of the fish without taking care of the fish’s habitat, the water. We are continuing to do a poor job of that.
Not that very long ago, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was governed by a citizens’ board. No more, thanks to the legislature. Corporate voices, including especially corporate agriculture, are often heard and accommodated in the halls and corridors of the capitol. Money talks. Citizen voices are what’s needed to speak on behalf of the air, water and land we need restored to cleanliness if we are to thrive instead of simply survive. If all the outdoor recreation and conservation organizations in Minnesota created a 501(c)(4) organization, or something like it, we might be able to speak almost as loudly as corporate persons and might get heard more often in the capitol.
Dr. Seuss and the Lorax know:
“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, Nothing is going to get better. It's not.”
The problem is, caring is not enough these days. Big Ag and Big Mining carry big sticks of campaign cash and the promise of jobs. We need to see them and raise them. More on that later.
The poor live on low ground waiting for the river to rise one night and sweep them out to sea. I’ve seen small cradles floating by, the wrecks of house, chairs, and a great rage of ash— pale water draining terror from the sky: this is all yours, poor man, for your wife and crop, dog and tools, for you to learn to beg. No water climbs to the homes of gentlemen whose snowy collars flutter on the line. It feeds on this rolling mire, these ruins winding their idle course to the sea with your dead, among roughcut tables and the luckless trees that bob and tumble turning up bare root.
Translated from the Spanish by John Felstiner
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Please be kind
to each other while you can.
Today is World Water Day. It’s also National Ag Day. Minnesota is noted for both its water and its agriculture. Unfortunately, the combination is not a healthy one.
Minnesota has approximately 67,400 farms. About 1,150 [1.7%] of them are water quality certified.
Minnesota has approximately 25,400,000 agricultural acres. About 800,000 [0.3%] of them are water quality certified.
This year’s World Water Day’s theme is groundwater. Unlike surface water, where about half of the state’s water bodies fail standards, it appears that Minnesota doesn’t have a good handle on its groundwater quantity or quality.
Much of the current water quality failures in the state are attributable to agriculture, which is largely unregulated under the Clean Water Act. There’s a recently published report on the country’s failure to curb water pollution. Minnesota is among the leading failures.
One reason Minnesota may be facing such continuing failures to attain water quality standards may have something to do with what’s know as regulatory capture, compounded by limited to missing enforcement of existing water protection requirements. For example:
The damage to groundwater resources was more extensive than previously disclosed.
Few things would please us more than to be able to replace this year's gloomy and glum report with a much happier one next year on World Water Day. After 50 years of incomplete and inadequate responses, compounded by a worldwide general failure to appropriately respond to our climate crises, I’m not going to hold my breath that our environmental protection won’t still be under water.
The oversized pool of water in the back yard has shrunk remarkably the past few days. We suspect most of the diminution is due to surface frost leaving the ground. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources hasn't yet updated their frost depth information for this year (2019) but the University of Minnesota is reporting unfrozen soil from 0" to 7" below the sod, which would allow the edges of our "pond" water to begin seeping toward groundwater and disappear from the surface.
None of the preceding, however, accounts for our annual befuddlement about how long it takes for snow drifts to melt once we begin to get warmer weather. In some parking lots, where the snow has been piled to the height of a small mountain, we understand the traces lasting until the onset of Summer. With 90% or more of the open fields behind the house bare, what accounts for the remaining snow's ability to persist? A couple of years ago we had an overabundance of pocket gophers. The mounds they created made for interesting patterns during late Winter, early Spring, snowfalls. We still haven't figured our if they were tunneling through frozen or thawed soils.
Most years, come August, it's hard to find any water at all in our "wet spot." That tells us that the groundwater level has dropped, not that there was no water there last Springtime. Many cycles in nature, and even in Nature, are ephemeral. As Merriam-Webster points out:
The Mayfly Helps to Illustrate Ephemeral. Adjective. The mayfly (order Ephemeroptera) typically hatches, matures, mates, and dies within the span of a few short hours (though the longest-lived species may survive a record two days); poets sometimes use this insect to symbolize life's ephemeral nature.
So, maybe you'll agree with us that, just because something is ephemeral does not mean it's unimportant. If so, consider telling that to the U.S.E.P.A., that you want them to protect the waters on which you and the mayfly, and, for many of you, your water supply, depend. Trout Unlimited is among the conservation organizations that's made it easy to support clean water. Follow this link to the page on their web site that shows how many local waters are classified ephemeral or intermittent, and how to tell EPA you want them protected.
The day before yesterday, I mentioned our icy driveway. Today, those concerns were put to shame. About a mile or so South of our drive, three of the neighborhood children were literally ice skating in (on?) what I assume is their own drive. I suppose that shows what losing some creativity as we age can do to us, although I do remember, when I was junior high age, or thereabouts, skiing down the driveway of an old, Victorian house we lived in in Hingham, Massachusetts. It was lots of fun until I almost got run over by the car driving by on the road our driveway intersected. My thinking was short-sighted.
Given tomorrow's forecast, local snow and ice cover will soon be minimized if not eliminated for the time being. My sympathy goes out to those who'll be stuck inside at the Governor's "Water Summit." I'm planning on enjoying some time outside tomorrow. I'll read about what happened at the Summit in the news on Sunday. From the list of topics, I'm disappointed that there doesn't seem to be a more systemic approach to the thinking behind the Summit. For example, much (all?) of Minnesota's agriculture is heavily subsidized. What, if any, are the existing requirements linking qualifications for agricultural subsidy with clean water standards, or are we, as a society, actually subsidizing farmers to pollute our surface and groundwater.
I agree with the Governor's idea that we should focus on solutions rather than blame, unless the blame lies with out institutional systems as well as our physical ones. I did a little research earlier today and was surprised to discover that "organic farming" isn't necessarily a panacea for clean water. You'll get a chance to read more about that here when I've done a better job of cross- and double-checking (no, not the hockey kind). Here's the basics of my current thinking though:
If a voluntary approach for water quality is good enough for agriculture, it should also be good enough for industry and urban wastewater. (I'm not saying this idea isn't all wet, just that it's time for more equity in our approach if we really want to solve the problem.)
We shouldn't let politics distort priorities in the expenditure of Legacy funds and or the selection of projects. We've already committed half a billion dollars to clean water. Are we following the right strategy?
We need to be mindful that many of the communities that now need additional state funding to upgrade their water and wastewater facilities probably needed federal and state funding to construct them in the first place. Chuck Marohn or someone else from Strong Towns could probably share some worthwhile thoughts on this issue.
We need lots more thinking about what else needs to change to get the water quality we want and need. I still have a few scars from the days I worked for the Metropolitan Council and was "educated" by Minnesotans in the southeast corner of the state that "we can't all live upstream." The metro area finished separating its historic combined sewer systems, eliminating those raw sewage discharges to the Mississippi River.
Lowering water quality standards or playing other political games does a disservice to those Minnesotans who depend on government to protect their commons. I'm still trying to understand how the drivers of the decision-making process that led to changing Flint's water supply source differ from the drivers to the approach Minnesota is using to "protect" its manoomin from polluted water. Is minimizing protection to save dollars and / or jobs in the short term the kind of answer we want?
If it was free, you taught, I ought to grab it
as you did: McDonald’s napkins, pens,
and from the school where you were once employed
as one of two night shift custodians,
the metal imitation wood wastebasket
still under my desk. But it was sugar
that you took most often as, annoyed
on leaving Dunkin’ Donuts, pancake house,
and countless diners, I felt implicated
in your pleasure, crime, and poverty.
I have them still, your Ziploc bags of plunder,
yet I find today, among the loose
change in my pockets, packets crushed or faded—
more proof of your lasting legacy.
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Please be kind
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The United States Environmental Protection Agency is giving serious review to allegations that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency doesn't meet its responsibilities to adequately "regulate iron mining companies" and issue pollution discharge permits on a timely basis.
Governor Dayton is convening a "Water Summit" next month, to "focus public attention on the serious challenges facing Minnesota’s water supplies."
The Governor of Michigan has his hands full due to failure to protect the quality of the public water supply for Flint, Michigan.
President Obama just vetoed legislation that would have overturned new rules defining the "Waters of the United States" [WOTUS].
The Des Moines Water Utility is suing several agricultural drainage districts for polluting the Des Moines municipal water supply.
Most (all?) of the western United States is experiencing suffering from a significant drought.
And, closer to home and at a lesser scale, the Vermillion River Watershed Joint Powers Organization now has a draft watershed plan up for review and public comment. The hearing is January 26, 2016 at 7 PM at the Dakota County Extension and Conservation Center, 4100 220th St. W, Farmington.
The proposed plan would "strip the Vermillion River, a trophy trout stream in the south metro area, of its present environmental protections, and reclassify it to allow more pollution," according to the President of the Twin Cities Chapter of Trout Unlimited.
The Vermillion River is in Dakota County, which already has notable problems with the quality of its groundwater, due to high nitrate concentrations. A major source of nitrates is agriculture, which is still fuming about the WOTUS and Governor Dayton's "buffer bill." So, at the same time that there are known problems with groundwater and many surface waters in Minnesota, while the Obama administration is trying to protect our waters, which costs less than cleaning them up afterwards, the Vermillion folks are trying to reduce standards as EPA is looking closely over MPCA's shoulders. This should be interesting. I am not a lawyer, and it's been many years since I made a living as a water quality planner, but as I read the rules, the proposed reduction in the "designated use classification" will require review and approval by MPCA and USEPA. The requirements to support a reduced use classification are:
"The State must be able to demonstrate that attaining the designated use is not feasible because:
1.
naturally occurring pollutant concentrations prevent the attainment of the use;
2.
natural, ephemeral, intermittent, or low- flow conditions or water levels prevent the
attainment of the use, unless these conditions may be compensated for by the discharge of
sufficient volume of effluent discharges without violating State water conservation
requirements to enable uses to be met;
3.
human-caused conditions or sources of pollution prevent the attainment of the use and
cannot be remedied or would cause more environmental damage to correct than to leave in
place;
4.
dams, diversions, or other types of hydrologic modifications preclude the attainment of the
use, and it is not feasible to restore the water body to its original condition or to operate
such modification in a way that would result in the attainment of the use;
5.
physical conditions related to the natural features of the water body, such as the lack of a
proper substrate, cover, flow, depth, pools, riffles, and the like, unrelated to [chemical] water
quality, preclude attainment of aquatic life protection uses; or
6.
controls more stringent than those required by sections 301(b)(1)(A) and (B) and 306 of the
Act would result in substantial and widespread economic and social impact."
Those seem like fairly high bars to me. As I said, this should be interesting.
By-the-way, we enjoyed the play (Pericles) at the Guthrie last night and it was a pleasure to see it with a friend we haven't gotten together with for too long.
[UPDATE: For a similar, but broader perspective, see Honor the Earth's September 3, 2015 Dear Governor Dayton letter.]
Minnesota, land of 10,000 lakes, home to the headwaters of the Mississippi River and the Laurentian Divide, seems to be failing more and more at managing its water treasures. In no particular order of importance or priority, here's a number of reasons, taken from news coverage in the past few years, why I think so:
Despite unacceptable levels of mercury poisioning of children in northern Minnesota, the state has taken a "go it alone" approach to solving the problem of mercury contamination of fish in the St. Louis River.
I see a pattern here that I don't particularly care for. Water quantity and quality issues exist all over Minnesota. I haven't yet cited the Red River flood control project, or the Lake Pepin sedimentation issues. We may have to reach California's status before we start doing better, but I hope not. Minnesota's wet left hand doesn't seem to know enough about what its wet right hand is doing. Our water management is all wet, despite having a growing stack of reports recommending how to avoid these problems, reports which we seem determined to ignore except for lip service.
I wrote last Summer (2014) that I thought Minnesota needs less coordination and cooperation and more consolidation in its water management agencies. There are too many of they and they seem to be getting better at tripping over and/or deferring to each other. The groundwater study issue in the PolyMet EIS issue may be the most recent (until tomorrow's paper?) but it won't be the last time politicians and bureaucracy have failed Minnesota's 10,000 lakes, miles and miles of rivers and millions of residents. We need to change our agency for making decisions. Since the legislature this past session showed so much interest in telling the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency how to do its job, maybe we should make the legislature the Water Resources Agency and stop the charades.
At the ancient pond
Matsuo Basho
At the ancient pond
a frog plunges into
the sound of water
Translated by Sam Hamill
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We're up to question five in our bioregional quiz. Before we get to it, please skim through the quotation below from the essay Interpreting Bioregionalism in M. V. McGinnis' Bioregionalism anthology. It provides background on why I think a bioregional perspective is increasingly important to a sustainable future for Minnesota.
Bioregional world-view
Widespread social and ecological crises exist; without fundamental change preservation of biodiversity, including survival of the human species, is in doubt.
The root cause of these threats is the inability of the nation-state and industrial capitalism—patriarchal, machine-based civilization rising from the scientific revolution—to measure progress in terms other than those related to monetary wealth, economic efficiency or centralized power.
Sustainability—defined as equitably distributed achievement of social, ecological and economic quality of life—is better gained within a more decentralized structure of governance and development.
The bioregion—a territory revealed by similarities of biophysical and cultural phenomenon—offers a scale of decentralization best able to support the achievement of cultural and ecological sustainability.
So, with that taken care of, here's the question and answer:
Where does your water go when it goes down the drain?
We live on more than five acres in the Sunrise River watershed. We have indoor plumbing. Our rural location makes public water supply and wastewater treatment economically infeasible, so our water goes down the drain to a septic tank and then into a drain field. That's the short answer, but it's as accurate as thinking that our food comes from grocery stores and restaurants and fast food outlets. From our drainfield, our water flows into a surficial groundwater system. A quick Internet search on Chisago County groundwater flow brought up a report [Lake to Groundwater Interaction Study] with this bit of information:
"The Palen study determined that the dominant shallow groundwater flow direction in the Chisago Lakes area is north-northwest toward the Sunrise River, with localized deflections towards lakes and other topographic depressions." Based on that information and our location, I'm going to make a small leap of faith that our groundwater eventually flows to the Sunrise River which then flows to the St. Croix River, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. The long answer to where our water goes when it goes down the drain is to the Gulf of Mexico.
Today we're just going to do a quick report on our personal efforts to be less polluting. Almost three years ago we replaced our quarter of a century old, inefficient, fuel-oil burning furnace with a brand new 96 or 98% efficient furnace the burns natural gas. I believe that lowered our carbon footprints from a couple of perspectives, both in terms of efficiency and relative cleanliness of the fuel source.
Yesterday we finally got around to having the 60 or so gallons of residual fuel and sludge pumped out and had the oil tank removed and the hole back-filled. Now we're not going to have a rusted-through tank leaking oil into the groundwater. I can now say, with a clear conscience, to those who complain about the cost of environmental protection: "yeah, I know, but it's worth every cent. There is no planet B that we can move to when we've finished crapping up our only home." Here's most of what the removal looked like.
Replacing the fuel source meant no more running out to buy ten gallons of diesel fuel to hold us until the February oil delivery arrived. If we ever look at adding photovoltaics, we'd want to at least check into the possibility of electric heat, but that's a much bigger project than we can take on right now. To be effective we'd probably need to bring the house up to passive house levels of insulation. Remember how everything is related to everything else? We're trying to follow the old saying about eating an elephant "one bite at a time." The budget still needs to digest yesterday's bite and the costs of photovoltaics keep looking better.
I hope that more and more of us are coming to realize that we have some things seriously backwards in this country. If enough of us realize how backwards we have things and how much it can hurt, we might get some much needed changes. Here's an example of what I'm thinking. Minnetonka is "stepping up" its campaign to get owners to clean up after their dogs. Why? Because it's not right and it's not fair to let some people not clean up after their pets when most people do so. Or, looked at another way, if most people aren't picking up after their pets, the city, and its parks and waterways, are being polluted with and by untreated waste. That certainly doesn't fit my understanding of Minnesota Nice. But why then do we as a society think it's OK for farmers to use our waterways as their waste treatment and disposal facilities? Some have argued that fertilizer costs money and farmers don't have money to waste. If farmers were only applying the amount of fertilizer or manure that their crops needed, and applying it at the right rate, at the right time, I don't think the nitrate problem would be increasing as it has. If our waters didn't have excess nutrients, they probably wouldn't look like this:
If you take a quick read of Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet, Part 1 [see sidebar], you'll encounter some interesting thinking about how we need to be approaching "takings." In case you just want the bottom line, I think it says farmers, pet owners and others who crap up the environment are taking property from the rest of us. Our ability to enjoy a river or lake, or park, shared by all, is spoiled by those who treat it as a sewer or trash can. Several farmers and farm organizations have said a current proposal to require and enforce a fifty foot buffer to protect water quality is like a "taking" of their property, property they paid for. I could buy that reasoning if farms had to treat their runoff as cities do their storm water or if farms didn't add nitrates or phosphorus or whatever else is in the water infiltrating or running off of or being drain tiled from farms to surface or groundwater. Oh, wait! The governor did say he'd be willing to listen to alternatives to the buffer proposal. So would I. I can suggest some for consideration. I don't think we should have to choose between inexpensive ethanol and pork chops or clean water. The rest of us have been doing our part since the early 1970's when Congress passed the Clean Water Act Amendments of 1972. Isn't it time agriculture stepped up to honoring its environmental responsibilities for water quality? Maybe an alternative for farmers would be to pay excise taxes on their equipment to pay for resource improvements, as hunters and anglers have been doing for years. As the population of this planet exceeds 7 billion, we've run out of room for free riders, you know, those who want the rest of us to pick up the tab, or the poop, for them.
Here's today's shades of green. I hope someday they apply only to the plants in Minnesota and not the waters.
The World Series has been won (and lost). It's time for the boys of Summer to take their toys and put them away until next Spring. This morning I caught a glimpse of blue sky that cheered me mightily. Most of the time, though, the clouds look more like they're threatening snow than rain. I'm trying to sort out if it's the quality of the light, the clouds, both, other that seems to transform Summer skies that look like rain to Autumn or Winter skies that look like they're full of flakes. And sometimes, in fact often, threatening clouds do nothing but.
When was the last time you lay on your back and decided what the clouds looked like? Don't you think it's time to try that again? After all, if it weren't for clouds, we wouldn't have sunrises like this one.
Joni Mitchell sings about so many things I would have done, but clouds got in my way. That's probably true for many of us, including me all too often, but I'm slowly beginning to realize how insubstantial clouds really are. In fact, I've heard that sometimes they even have a silver lining, even if only to provide an opportunity to take a nap or to remember to listen to Simon and Garfunkle's version of Cloudy. And, I have it on very good authority that, no matter how cloudy the outlook after next Tuesday's elections, the world is unlikely to end no matter who wins or loses. Ralph Salisbury's Six Prayers should cover us.
Have you ever complained about being in a hole and been told that the first thing to do is to stop digging? I wonder if Minnesota is ready to consider similar advice when it comes to water. Although the state and metropolitan plans I've been skimming through for the past few days all say we need to learn to conserve and coordinate and cooperate when it comes to resolving our emerging water woes, the solutions that get the biggest sound bites all have to do with spending multi millions of dollars to augment and transport additional supply as our next steps. That leaves me with some significant concerns and questions about what the design envelope is for water supply and, more broadly, water resource management. (Remember our recent reference to Gene Merriam's "What's the problem we're trying to solve here?") From my efforts in the green building sector, working with those far more knowledgeable than I, I learned that the first step in locating, designing, building and operating and energy efficient building is to reduce demand. That old saying about reduce, reuse, recycle is actually referring to a hierarchy.
This morning, thanks to some research by Brendon Slotterback at streets mn, I watched part of a March 6, 2013 presentation to the Metro Council’s Committee of the Whole on the water supply issue the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area is facing. Much of the video looks in detail at the costs of regional alternatives. The need to conserve and use low impact development techniques for storm water management came across as almost an afterthought. So, one of my questions is "at what point will the Council consider proposing energy and water efficient, natural resource conserving techniques such as green building or, better yet, Living Building strategies as elements in comprehensive plans?" In fact, as an aspirational goal, I'd like to see Minnesota and especially the Metro Area, adopt a Net Zero Impact for new development. It's a stretch, I know, and some of you are probably wondering what I'm referring to. Here's a link to the latest Living Building Challenge, "the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today..." The folks who developed the Living Building Challenge are scaling up to a Living Community Challenge. I think we should step it up to a Living Region Challenge. (You heard it here first.) Do I think we'll be able to meet the challenge in the near future? No, not immediately. (In fact, I'm aware of one proposed development that rigorously evaluated trying to meet the challenge and decided they could come close, but not get there. Our plumbing code and some other factors may need some "tweaking" first.) I do believe, though, we need to start changing our thought and design processes so we can eventually have a future in which
"... all developments are configured based on the carrying capacity of the site: harvesting sufficient water to meet the needs of a given population while respecting the natural hydrology of the land, the water needs of the ecosystem the site inhabits, and those of its neighbors. Indeed, water can be used and purified and then used again—and the cycle repeats."
The water supply and water quality constraints Minnesota faces aren't limited to the metro area. The idea of perpetual growth, economic and demographic, is unsustainable and has been referred to by some as akin to a ponzi scheme. There are those who argue that urban development is, de facto, more sustainable than sprawl. I think that's debatable. Now that most of the world's population lives in urban areas, we need to be more sensitive to the food sheds, watersheds, energy sheds and waste sinks on which those urban conglomerations depend. I hope that this contributes to what I believe is a necessary conversation about how Minnesota will become more sustainable. I agree with the perspective in the Metro Council's video that business as usual doesn't get us where we need to go. I'm just not convinced we can build our way out of water supply constraints any more than we can build enough highway capacity to meet induced demand. Yes, it would be a stretch. Robert Browning phrased it well when he wrote: Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp,
Or what's a heaven for? The same can be said of states and regions and communities because it's our collective reach we're talking about.
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Have you ever read Silent Spring by Rachel Carson? She starts it by writing about a town full of strange happenings.
"There was a strange stillness. The birds, for example--where had they gone? Many people spoke of them, puzzled and disturbed. The feeding stations in the back-yards were deserted. The few birds seen anywhere were moribund; they trembled violently and could not fly. It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh."
She takes several more paragraphs to describe lots of additional strange occurrences being noticed by residents. Then she points out that all of the happenings didn't occur in the one imaginary community, but each occurred in one or more real world communities.
As I've recently been looking through a number of state and regional reports describing the way we're "managing" our natural resources, especially water, I've found myself wondering what Minnesota would be like without the water in our rivers and streams and lakes and under the ground. It could be even more silent than a silent spring, because without surface water, the birds would be gone and the sounds of flowing water would be silenced. I raise these specters because we're developing a pretty good track record of not fully heeding the warnings we're being given and responding responsibly. Could we end up with almost all our groundwater and much of our surface water getting sucked up in a series of pipes, run through us, and our factories, and then treated and discharged into the multitude of agriculturally polluted ditches flowing through much of the state. I know, this is Minnesota. Such an environmental disaster could never happen. We wouldn't let it happen, would we? We treat our wastewater, except for agricultural runoff, and it doesn't need a discharge permit, unlike any other industrial or community discharge. If it doesn't come from a pipe, it doesn't count? It counts enough to contribute mightily to the fact that about 40% of our waters don't meet water quality standards. Congress has embedded a free ride for agriculture into our water quality laws. That approach reminds me of a Bill McKibben quotation: "The laws of Congress and the laws of physics have grown increasingly divergent, and the laws of physics are not likely to yield." Fortunately (or not), according to some of the reports I've read recently Congress has left it up to each state to control agricultural runoff, if they so desire.
California has been setting a notable example of growth-centered water management and its consequences by stealing transferring water from one basin to another for years to accommodate growth and increase agricultural yields. Now they're struggling with a notable drought. Perhaps Minnesota has a congressional exemption from ever having to pay the piper. Perhaps we are so rich in water resources that we'll never have to worry about running out no mater how much we grow and waste those resources. (Tell that to the folks around White Bear Lake and in southwestern Minnesota.) Perhaps not. Perhaps it's time we looked to conserve and use reasonably, responsibly and economically the resources we have and say we treasure. Perhaps we aspire to be another California? Couldn't be. This is My Minnesota, where Nature has her own concerns.
An earlier posting on My Minnesota noted that the Metro Council's draft Northeast Water Supply Plan didn't yet address water conservation. Another question is whether the groundwater modeling that's being done will take into account the effect on groundwater recharge that's likely to occur over time as the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's new (completed in 2013) Minimal Impact Design Standards (MIDS) for stormwater come into play.
A key provision, it would seem, is the requirement for
"Nonlinear redevelopment projects on site without restrictions that create one or more acres of new and/or fully reconstructed impervious surfaces shall capture and retain on site 1.1 inches of runoff from the new and/or fully reconstructed impervious surfaces.
"Linear projects on sites without restrictions that create one acre or greater of new and/or fully reconstructed impervious surfaces, shall capture and retain the larger of the following:
0.55 inches of runoff from the new and fully reconstructed impervious surfaces
1.1 inches of runoff from the net increase in impervious area"
Over time, might we see sufficient groundwater recharge from following the new standards that, combined with a possible reduction in demand for potable groundwater due to water conservation retrofits, that we have materially affected which options might be preferable as a solution to the disappearing White Bear Lake? Further, do we think it would be helpful to know if there has been an evaluation of the anticipated change in frequency and intensity of precipitation events associated with global warming? A 2008 IPCC report on Water and Climate Change discusses such a pattern change. A 2009 report by the Union of Concerned Scientists on Climate Change in the Midwest notes:
"Precipitation is more likely to come in the form of heavy rains. Under either emissions scenario, Minneapolis-St. Paul is projected to experience a more than 66 percent increase in heavy rainfalls (defined as more than two inches of rain in one day) over the next few decades. Toward the end of the century, heavy rainfalls are projected to be almost twice as frequent under either emissions scenario. The maximum amount of precipitation falling within a one-, five-, or seven-day period is also projected to rise under both scenarios."
In addition to the trials and tribulations managing our water properly can create, there's a whole series of very good reasons to better manage our impact on the hydrologic cycle and vice versa. Donella Meadows told us about them back in 1996.
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