U.S. Water News Online
ANNANDALE, Minn. -- Old west storefronts still line the main street here, but farm fields are making way for subdivisions in this town in one of the United States' fastest-growing counties.
Developers are eager to build more houses in a part of the state where communities settled and thrived around the many lakes and rivers. But water, a resource that once fostered growth, now threatens to halt it.
Environmentalists are suing to block a planned water treatment plant here because they say rivers and lakes are already too polluted to take more discharge. They say they're supported by the federal Clean Water Act. The lawsuit has drawn the attention of business leaders statewide, who fear that the state's water quality problems could stymie development in growing areas.
Annandale and neighboring Maple Lake sought the plant because their aging sewer systems can't take any more strain.
"We basically tell them, 'Get in line,"' Annandale Mayor Marian Harmoning said of the developers who come to city hall, seeking annexation of farmland for new city neighborhoods.
It's put developers in the unexpected position of pushing for legislation to improve enforcement of environmental regulations and clean up Minnesota's dirty water.
"It's a dual message you get," said developer Brad Paumen, owner of Maple Lake-based Paumen Properties. "One message is we need more jobs in town, we need more businesses in town, so we need more houses in town. For the developer, what's frustrating is you buy property, invest some engineering and incur expenses, and then it gets put on hold for two years."
Local politicians say they want to see their cities grow, but are forced to put a hold on it until they're able to expand sewer capacity.
"We're caught between a rock and a hard spot," said Maple Lake Mayor Mike Messina. "We're trying to be environmentally responsible -- but at what cost?"
The lawsuit, filed by the St. Paul-based Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, is awaiting arguments in the Minnesota Court of Appeals. It contends that the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency violated the federal Clean Water Act when it granted a permit to the Annandale-Maple Lake plant.
The $11 million plant in rural Albion Township would discharge treated wastewater, including phosphorous, into the north fork of the Crow River, which flows into the Mississippi River. Eventually the discharge makes its way to southeastern Minnesota's Lake Pepin, which is fed by the Mississippi.
The MPCA has declared the lake "impaired." That prompts a federal requirement that Lake Pepin have a state cleanup plan before more pollutants are permitted. But the MPCA hasn't done that for Lake Pepin or the Crow River.
"The new plant is adding pollutants to an already-polluted situation contrary to the clear recommendations of MPCA's own scientists," the lawsuit states.
MPCA officials say they don't have the money to prepare the cleanup plans.
A bipartisan group of state lawmakers, with support from both the environmental community and business groups, are getting behind a bill at the Capitol to raise $80 million a year for water testing and cleanup. The money would come from sewer fees of $36 a year for homeowners and business fees ranging from $120 to $600 a year, depending on their size.
The Annandale and Maple Lake mayors say a solution is needed if they're to capitalize on trends that could see their cities flourish in the coming years.
Annandale, with 2,800 residents, and Maple Lake, with 1,600, are on the west end of Wright County, the third-fastest growing county in Minnesota in the 2000 census, and among the top 100 in growth nationwide. The area -- about 60 miles west of the Twin Cities and 30 miles south of St. Cloud -- is drawing residents from both metropolitan areas willing to trade a longer commute for rural amenities.
"This is where people want to live," Paumen said. "It's a country setting, lots of lakes, but also close proximity to jobs and work."
After first mulling separate plants, in 2001 the two cities teamed up. It's been plagued by controversy from the start, with a separate lawsuit by neighbors opposed to the plant finally resolved last year. The two mayors are still hoping for a late summer or early fall start of construction, but know that it can't proceed until the state lawsuit is settled.
Mike Robertson, the environmental policy consultant for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, said the business community backed the clean water legislation out of fear that more growing communities will find themselves in similar situations.
"We're looking at a situation where we could have to be turning down new industrial properties, new business development," Robertson said. "It's potentially a huge future issue for the state."
MPCA officials are hoping to beat the lawsuit by arguing that the added pollutants into Lake Pepin from Annandale and Maple Lake will be balanced by efforts from nearby Litchfield to significantly reduce its own phosphorous emissions.
But they admit the underlying issues must be addressed. Part of the problem, according to Assistant Commissioner Lisa Thorvig, is that assessing the quality of water and drawing up cleanup plans is a huge undertaking in a state like Minnesota, which has 11,842 lakes larger than ten acres.
Right now, just 14 percent of the state's lakes and 8 percent of its rivers have been tested, with findings that about 40 percent of those are impaired.
The clean water legislation provides money for more testing and cleanup of water. Thorvig said the cleanup needs are only going to grow, though, as more of the state's waterways are tested.
"A century ago, where people settled was based on where the railroads and the water were," Harmoning said. "In the future, is it going to be where the sewer capacity is?"
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