Why are we on this list?
That’s one of the questions city leaders in Forest Lake and Columbus have been asking for a few months, ever since the settlement of a lawsuit filed against the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources by the White Bear Lake Homeowners Association. As part of the settlement, both cities are listed as among the “Phase II” cities that the DNR will, if funding and circumstances allow, attempt to move off groundwater and onto surface water for their municipal water needs.
The lawsuit was filed in November 2012, after a U.S. Geological Survey study determined that the lake level reduction at White Bear Lake may be caused by area municipalities’ pumping of groundwater from the Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer, a portion of which lies under the lake (an aquifer is a groundwater reservoir from which wells extract water). The homeowners association claimed that the DNR acted irresponsibly by allowing so much municipal pumping from the aquifer and that the pumping reduced the water in the aquifer, which in turn lowered the lake’s levels.
To Forest Lake and Columbus officials, however, there are two problems: their cities had no say in the lawsuit or settlement, and there’s scant to no evidence that their groundwater pumping is affecting White Bear Lake’s water problems.
“We want to conserve water; we want to make sure our use of groundwater is sustainable, but ultimately, we want any (action) to be based on sound science,” Forest Lake City Administrator Aaron Parrish said. “We want the science to drive the policy.”
Future concerns
Though Forest Lake’s and Columbus’ official resolutions against the settlement list a variety of reasons for opposition, leaders listed a few main issues at play. The first issue is that the USGS study that the original lawsuit was predicated on did not state equivocally that municipal pumping was the reason for the lake level drop. Instead, the study indicated that municipal pumping might be a contributing factor in the lower levels.
“By looking at the past lake level data and comparing to the annual level of participation, there was a change in relationship … which indicated to us that precipitation levels alone could not explain the changing lake level,” USGS hydrologist Perry Jones said.
With the USGS in the process of conducting another study to determine if municipal use of the aquifer is indeed the cause of the water problems, Parrish said the city is arguing that assigning blame and taking action to change cities’ water use is premature.
“Before massive amounts of money are invested on a solution, we’re hoping that those solutions are addressing the problems that people want them to address,” he said.
For Columbus Mayor Dave Povolny, there is another problem.
“Water, which is vital to residential, commercial, industrial – every kind of growth – is going to be in the hands of unelected officials, and I think that’s wrong,” he said. “It should be in the hands of elected officials.”
The settlement will not be acted on unless it gets funding from the Minnesota Legislature. Phase I of the plan addresses the water use of municipalities closer to the lake, like White Bear Lake, Shoreview and Vadnais Heights and more, while Phase II addresses cities further away to the north and west, like Columbus, Forest Lake, Hugo and Lino Lakes, among others.
The plan would attempt to get all of the cities to primarily use surface water (most of it likely from the Mississippi River). It would also encourage the cities, their residents and their business owners to take steps to increase water conservation in a variety of ways, including the passing of new regulations and the encouragement to use more efficient water appliances and to reduce “discretionary” water uses like lawn watering. To Povolny, as well as Forest Lake Councilman Ben Winnick, that potential level of government involvement with citizens’ lives and choices is invasive, and it has the potential to spread.
“There’s so many things wrong with what they’re trying to do, and they’re trying to do this because the DNR thinks this is the best way to do water management is to manage the water for us,” Winnick said, adding his belief that the regulation would ultimately extend to residents’ private wells.
There is also the matter of logistics. To connect Forest Lake to a source that would allow the city to use Mississippi River water, Parrish said, would require the construction of an elaborate water transportation system that could potentially cost a number of municipalities a lot of money. There’s also the perception that groundwater has a better taste and better quality than surface water.
Povolny fears that DNR interference with Columbus’ pumping could stunt the city’s growth, particularly as it tries to develop its freeway district near Interstate Highway 35.
“We can’t add more houses and businesses without more water development,” he said. “We’re afraid it’s not going to be available when we do need it.”
List mystery
Though many of Forest Lake’s and Columbus’ concerns about the settlement are shared by the other cities listed in Phases I and II, the two towns share one puzzlement that’s a little more unique: None of their city wells pump from the Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer. Since municipal pumping from the Praire du Chien-Jordan, not from other groundwater sources, was listed as the possible reason for White Bear Lake’s decline, local leaders are left to wonder: If there’s little to no conclusive evidence that their cities’ groundwater pumping is affecting the lake, why are Forest Lake and Columbus listed in the settlement at all?
In a series of interviews with different government agencies related to the settlement, no one could give The Forest Lake Times a definitive answer. Julie Ekman, the conservation assistance and regulations section manager at the DNR’s Division of Ecological and Water Resources, said that the cities listed in the settlement were pulled from a feasibility assessment for groundwater sustainability completed by the Metropolitan Council in 2014. However, Ali Elhassan, the Met Council’s water supply planning manager, said that the study used cities that were featured in the original USGS study on the lake level drops. He added that the feasibility assessment was not written with the White Bear Lake lawsuit in mind; rather, its goal was to look at more widespread issues of water conservation in the area and how they might be addressed in the future.
“This was studied even before the settlement agreement,” he said of the assessment, adding, “I cannot speak to why the DNR selected the cities (in the settlement).”
When contacted by The Times about the USGS survey, however, Jones said his agency didn’t come up with the list of cities, either. Instead, he explained, the USGS made its list based on a 2010 presentation from the DNR listing municipalities that could be having an effect on the area’s groundwater. As to whether Forest Lake’s and Columbus’ groundwater pumping could be affecting White Bear Lake’s levels indirectly, Jones said that the possibility may still be researched. However, due to the cities’ distance from White Bear Lake and their use of alternative aquifers for groundwater, he said, it’s possible they might not even be included in the USGS’s follow-up groundwater study.
“In fact, the Prairie du Chien aquifer ends before you get up to Forest Lake,” he said.
With all of that said, Columbus and Forest Lake leaders still want to know: Why are their cities on the list? Parrish said Forest Lake has tried get removed from the settlement, but so far nothing has worked. Winnick and Povolny said that whether their cities are removed or not, residents should be aware of the situation and active in agitating for local control of groundwater – especially because the settlement’s provisions will not be enacted unless they receive funding at the state Capitol.
“Their voices are going to be needed at the legislative level,” Winnick said.