In farm country, tainted water is 'just the way it is'

[h2ofwlr]

So who is treating the water for the wildlife, birds, reptiles, fish, insects, etc so that they can live a healthy life?


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As costs climb to treat water, neighbors avoid blaming farmers.

By Tony Kennedy, Star Tribune
July 4, 2015 — 7:36pm
Gallery Grid http://www.startribune.com/in-farm-coun ... 311653881/

The balance between farming and clean water is evident in Edgerton where a shallow aquifer readily absorbs leaching farm chemicals, residents pay extra every month for special treatment to make their water safe to drink. The nitrate-removal system -- now woven into the infrastructure of this heavily Dutch settlement - reflects the dilemma that a number of communities are having across Minnesota farm country. Corn and soybean fields pump money into local economies at the expense of clean water. The history of the problem in Edgerton provides a vivid example of the link, but locals are reluctant to point fingers.


EDGERTON, Minn – When state pollution officials announced in April that nearly all rivers and streams in this farming region are unsafe for swimming and fishing, newspaper editor Jill Fennema huddled with a colleague and briefly contemplated writing a story.

Yes, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency was declaring an important benchmark in its long study of toxic agricultural runoff into the state’s lakes and rivers. But other news was paramount, including the good fortunes of the Flying Dutchmen girls’ high school softball team.

“We never did do an article,” Fennema said. “Yeah, it’s too bad that we can’t swim … we live in an agricultural area and that’s just the way it is.”

Like a lot of small towns across Minnesota’s corn and soybean belt, this tight-knit Dutch enclave in Pipestone County is coping with the dilemma of water polluted by farm chemicals. Some nearby creeks are unsafe for wading, many streams are losing aquatic life, and the shallow aquifers that provide people their drinking water show heightened levels of nitrates from fertilizer. Since 2002, Edgerton itself has spent more than $418,000 on a treatment plant to meet the federal health standard for drinking water.

Yet, no matter how obvious the connection, no one in this community of 1,200 wants to point fingers at area farmers. Though farms are fewer and bigger today, agriculture still drives the local economy — providing spinoff jobs, supporting Main Street businesses and keeping area schools and churches brimming. Across Minnesota, dozens of communities with tainted water are struggling with the same quandary where farming has become both a major polluter and a financial anchor.

“We have to accommodate the ag community … or Edgerton won’t be here,” said City Clerk Ross Brands, who oversees surprisingly robust, local development.

With ongoing treatment, Edgerton’s water has become safe to drink under state and federal standards. Nitrates are tightly regulated because excessive levels in drinking water reduce the body’s ability to carry oxygen to vital tissues, which can be deadly for babies. And, according to the state Health Department, water showing high nitrate levels may also be tainted by pesticides and other ag contaminants.

Fennema said her own family, which has been hit by cancer, maintains an additional water filtration system at home just to be on the safe side. She said many residents take similar precautions or drink bottled water, but no one complains.

“It’s just something you think about,” she said.

Don’t tell us how to farm

Brothers Ross and Reed Van Hulzen, who grow corn and soybeans on 6,000 acres near Edgerton in partnership with their father and grandfather, said area farmers don’t feel much pressure from townspeople on environmental issues. But they are painfully aware of state regulators’ scrutiny.

“We get a lot more pressure from Minneapolis than we do locally,” Ross Van Hulzen said.

The Van Hulzens recently spent $180,000 seeking state approval for a well to irrigate their fields. But the Department of Natural Resources rejected the plan, saying the well might adversely draw down water in a rare wetland that filters excess nutrients out of the water and provides wildlife habitat.

The brothers plant corn 48 rows at a time with the latest John Deere technology and are on a first-name basis with their state senator.

They strongly opposed Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposal to require that farmers install “buffer strips,” rows of permanent vegetation along fields to protect surface water from chemicals and excess nutrients. The strips would cause farmers like the Van Hulzens to lose productive cropland at their own considerable expense, they said.

Reed Van Hulzen said he resents the “Cities” telling farmers what to do because urban attitudes about agriculture are disconnected from reality.

The cost and complexity of complying with regulations is a big reason farms are consolidating, he said.

That’s not to say local farmers are callous about the region’s clean water challenge, the brothers said. Many are experimenting with practices to control excess nutrients, including a growing trend of applying nitrogen in smaller amounts twice a year, instead of all at once, they said. It’s a proven conservation method that also feeds crops more efficiently.

Even so, enthusiasm for conservation practices seems scarce. Participation has been light in a new $5 million project aimed at curbing the leaching of farm chemicals into aquifers in Pipestone, Rock and Nobles counties, according to Kyle Krier, administrator of the local Soil and Water Conservation District. The program pays farmers by the acre for using nitrate inhibitors, which delay the conversion of ammonium in fertilizer to nitrate, but few have enrolled, he said.

Krier said Edgerton hasn’t asked his agency for much help, even though it faces a common set of challenges for the region: nitrogen-dependent corn planted on permeable soil above shallow aquifers.

“The whole area is highly vulnerable,” Krier said.

An experiment fails

This corner of the state near Iowa and South Dakota has become a case study in the linkage between farming and nitrate levels in drinking water.

In the 1980s, nitrates in Edgerton’s only viable drinking water source measured as high as 16 parts per million, far above the 10 parts per million federal health standard, according to the 2015 Minnesota Drinking Water Annual Report. When corn prices sagged in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the Health Department and the city worked with growers in a sensitive area around the town’s wellhead to modify fertilizer use. As part of the effort, a set of crucial acres near the wellhead was enrolled in a federal farm program that paid farmers to stop producing crops.

“As management measures took hold, nitrate levels in source water declined by approximately 50 percent,” the report said.

But when corn prices spiked in 2005, the chance to make money trumped the conservation incentives, according to the Health Department’s report. Corn went into high production, and nitrate levels in groundwater rapidly increased, “along with the financial burden of treatment plant operation,” the report said.

God, family, cows

Long known as the devout and frugal “Dutch Capital of Southwestern Minnesota,” Edgerton last year changed its motto to “Thriving Families; Building the Future.” In the last census, Edgerton was one of the few places in Pipestone County to show a population increase, albeit modest.

Some cows still graze within the city’s manicured limits, but the private and public schools are expanding, a new, 56-site housing development is in the works, two health clinics have expressed interest in moving here and new businesses must vie for space on a flourishing main street that includes a classic bakery and butcher shop.

Still, the community clings to its hallowed tradition of prayer, family time and rest on Sundays.

Keith Buckridge, hired last year as public school superintendent, said school board members weren’t joking when they advised him not to work on Sunday, even around his house. If Sunday was the only time available to fix something critical at home, they advised, “see that the garage door is closed.”

“God is first, family second and everything else follows,” Buckridge said.

And farmers, while adapting to the imperatives of modern agriculture, still play a crucial role in the community. Row-crop production is being consolidated by well-capitalized operators like the Van Hulzens who till thousands of acres. And the area’s rolling hills are increasingly dotted with large, multimillion-dollar hog and dairy cow confinements — some located no more than a mile away from City Hall.

Ross Brands, the city manager, still balks at the suggestion that Edgerton’s drinking water contamination is entirely tied to agriculture. The city built its nitrate removal system in 2002, using a low-interest loan from the Health Department that carries yearly debt payments of about $27,500, then upgraded it with a state grant in 2012.

Over 20 years, the cost per resident will be about $350.

“We’ve got safe water to drink,” Brands said. “I don’t think anybody points fingers at the ag community to say, ‘Hey, you are costing us more money.’ ”

[h2ofwlr]

Related.

"there is “undue influence of mining interests” in the legislative and regulatory processes." from below. They are spot on.

Environmental group to feds: Take water pollution regulation out of MPCA’s hands

July 6, 2015 By Declan Desmond, BMTN

A Duluth-based environmental group thinks the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) just isn’t cutting it when it comes to protecting the state’s water from mining companies – and they want the feds to intervene.

WaterLegacy filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency for the removal of the MPCA’s authority to regulate mining pollution, which the group says has left sulfate, bicarbonates, copper, nickel and mercury in many of Minnesota’s waterways.

According to the petition, MPCA has failed to comply with a federal anti-pollution program that empowers states to issue permits to companies – including mining operations – responsible for pipes or man-made ditches that “discharge” into surface waters (like streams and rivers).

The permitting system is aimed at regulating potential “point sources” for pollution and assuring that dangerous chemicals don’t reach the state’s waters.

But according to WaterLegacy, the MPCA has made “virtually no progress” in addressing a backlog of out-of-date mining permits, leading to discharges that have resulted in the “impairment of fish” and other aquatic life – and possibly sulfate pollution in Minnesota’s wild rice waters.

Additionally, the group says, the agency’s failure to respond to mining permit and water quality “violations” is not in keeping with the Clean Water Act (CWA).

Other problems in Minnesota’s regulatory process

The organization does point out that the state legislature may have played a role in tying the MPCA’s hands, as it passed laws that prevented it from enforcing pollution standards in Minnesota’s rice waters under the CWA.

Moreover, WaterLegacy claims there is “undue influence of mining interests” in the legislative and regulatory processes.

“In a state where mining special interests can dictate whether they will comply with water quality standards,” the group says, “the EPA must step in and withdraw water quality permitting authority to protect beneficial uses of waters of the United States from mining pollution.”

For its part, the MPCA said it needs time to review complaints, while as of last week, the EPA had yet to comment on the petition, the Star Tribune reports.

[get-n-birdy]

Phucking heaven forbid you work on a Sunday, but we can pollute the chit out of the aquifers, cause God comes first, what a load of horse chit! The all mighty dollar comes first, then God a very, very distant second, if he's lucky.

[cstemig]

What ever happened to the notion that farmers are the stewards of God's land/water? God granted them the opportunities to prosper from these gifts, but they seem to neglect their responsibilities for it for higher profits. They don't deserve what they have been blessed with.

[h2ofwlr]

It is like mining companies are supposed to self police and send the MPCA and EPA to report on themselves that they had a spill. yeah right..... For us older guys, we all saw how well that worked at the Love Canal in NY years ago.

G-n-B is spot on.


I just laugh at the "family farm" TV ads that I see every so often. It is MYTH! They are multi million a year companies that family members happen to own. The idea that they are the Redlin rosy sky with abundant wildlife with a 1938 Ford truck sitting in the yard is lunacy. It may have been that way for a few farmers 70 years ago, but ever since Earl Butz's (Sec of Ag) "fence row to fence row" farming policy that ditched, tiled, and tore out every wood lot and bush/tree on a fence line came about in the early 70s--it's been nothing but a corporate farming mentality for farmers. And ever since they started growing corn for ethanol, it is that much more worse of a mentality.

[deet]

Hey Al, ever worked for a mining company?

Furthermore - do you have any experience with any of the things you constantly b*tch and moan about?

Didn't think so.

[h2ofwlr]

Hmmmmm.... 2 others say basically that same as me--they are in for profit and many don't give a rats ass about if they pollute the waters. But you single me out. Why is that? I must be doing my job as it appears that I am a burr under your saddle. As you must be a miner or a farmer or some other type of polluter -- I don't care which, as I hope the EPA shuts down your polluting ways!

[deet]

Hmmmmm.... 2 others say basically that same as me--they are in for profit and many don't give a rats ass about if they pollute the waters. But you single me out. Why is that? I must be doing my job as it appears that I am a burr under your saddle. As you must be a miner or a farmer or some other type of polluter -- I don't care which, as I hope the EPA shuts down your polluting ways!

I'm a miner. I singled you out because you're the one constantly barking about stuff. Others might flare up from time to time as well. But you seem to have it stuck in your head that every large corporation does whatever they want, un-penalized and unregulated. Actually it seems like you think they destroy the environment intentionally.

The reality is that you have no idea the level of scrutiny that mines are under. Don't get me wrong - I'm not bitter about this at all. It's necessary for us to have the highest environmental standards to earn the right to operate and to keep this country beautiful and abounding with wildlife. But let me share just a few things that we do:
- all disturbed (mined) earth is landscaped/graded and must be planted with vegetation for minimum 90% vegetative cover, whether or not that was the original condition of the land. These areas are then inspected by the DNR several times over the course of many years to ensure compliance.
- water discharges are monitored and controlled to keep sulfate levels lower than almost all natural water body levels.
- Constantly upgrading technology to decrease, NOx, SOx, and Hg emmissions. Currently using continuous monitoring instruments for real-time levels of said compounds/metals, and we routinely submit this data to and are audited by the EPA and MPCA.
- EVERYONE on site is trained to quickly and effectively handle incidental spills. EVERY spill (even one cup of window washer fluid) is recorded internally and spills over 5 gallons are submitted to the MN duty officer.
- Our waste management and recycling programs would make your head spin.
- Air regulations we're subject to: NAAQS, NSPS, NESHAP, Regional Haze, CAM, PSD, Title V Operating, GHG Reporting, Minnesota Standards of Performance, MN SIP, governed and enforced by MPCA and EPA.
- We also go above and beyond with tree planting, grass planting, waterfowl habitat and nesting sites creation, employee training.

Our water systems are closed-loop. We mine IRON.

How is it you think we're freely and intentionally trying to ruin the environment? You hope mining is shut down... you don't even realize how stupid that sounds?

[h2ofwlr]

The mining that I was referring to is the proposed copper mine. The chemicals used is not at all the same as iron ore mining.

This mining company lobbyists paid the legislators to end the citizens board that over sees the MPCA so less scrutiny on this controversial issue. (the purpose of the citizens oversight Bd was to make damned sure that the T were crossed and i dotted on controversial issues). Now if that does not smack that the mining CO wants to skirt regulations, etc... I don't know how more plainly to show how to connect the dots that large companies 1st concern is profit, environment is a distance not even on the top 5 list for them... ah hell, lets face it, if it were not for Govt regs they would not abide by any of the environmental regs if they were "suggested". Just look at 125 years ago on how they mined for gold and silver in CA, NV, NM, AZ, CO, etc to extract the precious metals from the rock. Heck all over S America and Africa they are still using mercury in gold mining and polluting the waters and lands today. So don't try to tell me about how mining interests have our environment in their best interests, as their past and current world wide track record plain stinks.

And yes I was well aware that they must reclaim the land. But my (and all environmentally conscience people) concern is the chemicals leaching into the ground water and aquifers by this proposed copper mine. And it is a very real concern based on what has ALREADY happened at other copper mines.

Thank not, how about the super fund clean up costs of all the contamination of our waters and soils? And is rising by $Billions a year to clean it up. Oh yeah they have us all in their nest interests. (rolleyes) And if you believe that, I have bridge to sell you. To hell with the proposed copper mine is where I now stand. I was in a wait and see mode--but after they paid off the legislature to end the oversight board, I took a firm stand AGAINST this copper mine as it is NOT in Mn citizens best interests long term.

[Bailey]

Al is not a big polymet guy I take it.

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