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<br />http:// www. startribune .com/printar,ticle / ?id= 192783461
<br />The most visible example is White Bear Lake.Since 1980, nearby communities have more than doubled the volume of water
<br />•they pump from the Prairie du Chien aquifer they share with the lake, primarily because of higher residential demand. Now, the
<br />lake drops even during wet periods.
<br />Once neighbors use that water — for showers, cooking, watering lawns — it becomes wastewater and is sent to the Pig's Eye
<br />treatment plant near St. Paul, where it is cleaned and released into the Mississippi River — short- circuiting the natural system
<br />that keeps water in the Iake.The U.S. Geological Survey found recently that it would take annual rainfall that is 4 inches above
<br />normal just to keep White Bear Lake where it is now.
<br />"We move it downstream," said Stark. "We don't recycle it."
<br />Last year the White Bear Lake Restoration Association filed suit against the DNR, alleging that it violated environmental
<br />standards by allowing local communities to take more water than is sustainable for the lake and aquifer. It asked the court to
<br />establish protected water levels for both.
<br />DNR officials declined to comment on the pending complaint.
<br />Soon, the problem could spread beyond White Bear Lake. If the Twin Cities metro area grows by half a million people over the
<br />next two decades, at current rates of water use, whole sections of the Twin Cities' aquifers will drop by half, even with normal
<br />rainfall, hydrologists say. At that point, state regulators would shut down the pumps to protect what's left. Even if water use
<br />drops by 30 percent over the next decade, there would still be problems in some parts of the metro area, said Ali Elhassan,
<br />water supply manager for the Metropolitan Council.
<br />"People plan for the future," he said. "Well, the future is now."
<br />The future arrived some time ago in the perennially dry southwest comer of Minnesota, where the geology is not well designed
<br />for holding water underground. Healy, of the Pipestone Rural Water System, has had to tell badly needed businesses to find
<br />• somewhere else to set up shop because the rural water system couldn't give them enough water — including a large dairy
<br />operation that recently took 15 jobs to South Dakota. "In the last year or so we've had a lot more requests from people whose
<br />wells are failing," he said. "People are hauling water."
<br />The demands of agriculture are especially worrisome, he said. Pattern tiling, which drains precipitation off agricultural fields and
<br />into ditches, is on the rise, he said. "While I understand the need and benefit, the idea of discharging that water into the nearest
<br />stream and rushing it to the Gulf of Mexico as fast as we can does not makes much sense to me," he said.
<br />High- capacity irrigation wells are also sprouting all over central and western Minnesota. In 2010, only 2 to 3 percent of the
<br />state's cropland was irrigated, but that alone used 29 percent of water pumped out of Minnesota's ground that year. But in 2012,
<br />the state received nearly 200 irrigation permit requests, with another 200 expected this year — two to three times the norm,
<br />DNR officials said.
<br />Alan Peterson, head of the Minnesota Irrigators Association and a farmer near Clear Lake, said irrigation is a better form of crop
<br />insurance than crop insurance. Lately, the number of irrigated acres in Minnesota has risen steadily with the price of food and
<br />commodities. Because when prices are at record highs, the hundreds of thousands it costs for an irrigation system pays off.
<br />"I can double my yield with irrigation," Peterson said.
<br />Increasingly, however, agricultural water use is driving up disputes. In 2007, when Dan Damm complained to the DNR about the
<br />neighboring turkey farm, his was one of just a handful of complaints filed with the state.
<br />"We turned on the water and couldn't figure out why it was black," he said. But as a heavy- equipment operator, he knew a lot
<br />•about the local hydrology, and he figured that the turkey farm had dropped the top of the aquifer below the bottom of his well.
<br />The pump was sending up black gunk from the bottom. Once verified, the farm operation paid to replace it, a requirement of
<br />state law.
<br />"People have to realize, it's humans before turkeys," Damm said.
<br />f• ; 2/26/2013 7:44 AM
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