Published: November 02, 2007 12:32 pm            

Letter: Exporting water for industrial development 'ridiculous'

Originally published in the November 2, 2007, print edition.

To the Editor:

For three years, the Western Prairie Rural Water Project has been debated and discussed by Stevens County residents. Those of us outside of Stevens County didn’t think it affected us, but it does.

The WPRW began with plans to build two additional ethanol plants in Stevens County; one at Alberta and the other in Chokio with JOBZ assistance. (The lone investor in the Chokio plant is a non-Minnesota resident.) Originally, the plan was to transport water westward about 10 miles to the ethanol plants from the Pomme de Terre aquifer in Stevens County. However, the Alberta plant has decided to dig its own wells, and plans are now that the water for the Chokio plant will be transported from the Chippewa aquifer in Swan Lake Township (which borders Pope County about 25 miles northwest of Chokio), because it has better quality and quantity than the Pomme de Terre aquifer.

The plans are to dig 10 wells into the Chippewa aquifer which is a principle aquifer in Pope County and is shared by several counties. The Chippewa aquifer passes through a very small portion of Stevens County, but that is where they plan to dig the wells, build a treatment plant, and then transport via pipeline about 1.5 million gallons of purified water a day to the proposed ethanol plant in Chokio, about 25 miles to the west, and to residents who grant WPRW an easement along the way or help pay for the project.

The treatment plant is planned to be built in the Swan Lake Township. I am told that it can take one to three gallons of untreated water to generate one gallon of treated water which means that between 2 million to 3 million gallons of water could be pumped out of the aquifer in order to obtain the 1.2 million gallons of desired water. The contaminants from the water treatment process will stay in Swan Lake. A recent survey conducted by the Morris Sun/Tribune showed 69.85 percent of those polled did not feel a rural water system was needed for Stevens County. Yet, the Stevens County Commissioners are on record supporting the project, but Swan Lake Township (and a township in Grant County) have been fighting it and have passed resolutions to prohibit transporting water from wells in their township.

The MPCA says that the Chokio area groundwater for high capacity uses is limited. I am a supporter of ethanol, but it seems to me that ethanol plants should be built where the water resources are. Water should not be transported away from one aquifer and watershed to another for industrial development. One area should not benefit at the expense of another.

Congressman Collin Peterson told me that there are new technologies that allow ethanol plants to use wastewater, and so to transport purified water for use in ethanol plants is “ridiculous.”

Minnesota’s Riparian Rights law says the ground water belongs to all Minnesota citizens. Unless we strengthen Riparian Water Rights in Minnesota, your aquifer may be the next one to have water exported to industrial/commercial development outside your area.

Nancy Barsness
Township Officer and Chippewa River landowner
Cyrus

        

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