Decontaminating nitrate-polluted private wells in southeast Minnesota is bill’s aim

What do the distinctive Dolomites in northeastern Italy have in common with the landscape in southeastern Minnesota?

They are both karst regions, formed by the dissolution of porous, soluble rocks such as limestone and dolomite.

Minnesota does not have the dramatic above-ground karst features like the Italian mountains, but it does have the undesirable underground features such as drainage systems with sinkholes and caves.

And that means nitrate-based farm fertilizer runoff reaches the groundwater aquifer quickly, bypassing the contaminant filtration that more typical, less porous soils provide.

As a result, eight southeast Minnesota counties — Dodge, Fillmore, Goodhue, Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Wabasha and Winona — have unsafe levels of nitrate in the groundwater, putting residents with groundwater wells at risk of serious health problems.

Rep. Steven Jacob

Rep. Steven Jacob (R-Altura), who lives in Winona County, sponsors HF821 that would provide $7.7 million in the 2026-27 biennium for nitrate private well mitigation (including reverse osmosis), and private drinking water well repair and reconstruction in the affected counties.

Households at or below 300% of the federal poverty guideline and those with infants or pregnant women would be prioritized.

The House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee laid the bill over Monday for possible budget bill inclusion.

“There are a broad range of responses to the issues of nitrates in the groundwater in southeast Minnesota. This bill specifically funds the public health response,” Jacob said.

Consuming nitrate-contaminated drinking water can cause methemoglobinemia, a dangerous blood disorder, and has been linked to an increased risk for certain types of cancer and pregnancy complications, according to the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy.

“Every Minnesotan, whether they depend on a municipal water supply or their own well, should know that the water coming out of their kitchen faucet is safe for their family to drink,” said Jay Eidsness, a staff attorney at the center.

Municipal water systems are responsible for testing and treating their water supplies, but private well owners — about one-quarter of Minnesotans, Eidsness estimated — must test their own groundwater samples and treat their wells if contaminated.

“For low-income and vulnerable households, this can be a real problem,” he said.

Jacob said his bill would carry on the well decontamination work funded by a one-time $2.8 million appropriation in the 2024 supplemental budget.

That appropriation was an emergency response to a 2023 mandate from the federal Environmental Protection Agency requiring the state to fund decontamination procedures for homes in southeast Minnesota with private wells having nitrate levels exceeding the federal standard of 10mg/L.

The EPA estimated that 9,200 people living in that area rely on drinking water from private wells that are at or above that level.