Minnesota Pollution Control Agency

Media contact: Forrest Peterson, 320-214-3789 Technical contact: Larry Gunderson, 651-297-3825 Toll-free: 1-800-657-3864 St. Paul, Minn. -- A river barge deckhand in the early 1970s, Greg Genz recalls retrieving a rope from the Mississippi River mud. Trouble was, downstream from the old Pig's Eye waste treatment plant in St. Paul, it wasn't just mud. Back then, "if you fell in the river they'd actually check you for cholera and typhus," Genz told attendees at the 10th annual meeting of the Minnesota River Board at Bird Island April 14. "People just wanted to flush their toilet and see it disappear. After that they didn't care. For years rivers used to be in the backyard of America. We (the barge industry) wanted to be in the backyard. Now rivers are in the front yard." While improvements in sewage treatment have greatly reduced that source of pollution, the Minnesota River continues to have a great impact on the Mississippi and all the way down to the Gulf of Mexico. Genz said the volume of grain shipped on the lower 14 miles of the Minnesota River ranks among the largest in the world. In his lifetime Genz said he has seen the lower Minnesota widen, and in recent years sediment has formed a delta where the Credit River enters the Minnesota at Savage in Scott County. Since 1995, the Minnesota River Board, composed of more than 30 counties all or partially in the Minnesota River Basin, has taken on the mission of trying to clean up the river. Its water quality would improve by reducing the amount of pollutants such as human and animal waste, sediment and algae-producing nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus. The annual meeting focused on the impact to the river from drainage off the land. After a heavy rainfall, urban parking lots, ditches and tiled farm fields allow water to drain off quickly. This is convenient for cities and farms, but it can carry excessive amounts of pollutants into streams and rivers. And sudden, high volumes of water scours river banks, dislodging more sediment. Thousands of miles of ditches and subsurface tiles have been a boon for agriculture. Economic and population growth result in more rooftops and paved streets, which shed water instead of soaking it up as do soil and wetlands. "The challenge will be to find ways to maintain our productive crop lands and urban development without the harmful environmental impacts of drainage," says Shannon Fisher, executive director of the Minnesota River Board and Minnesota River Basin Data Center at Minnesota State University-Mankato. "We often blame agriculture, but cities are responsible, too." Fisher, who holds a doctorate in biological sciences, previously worked for the Department of Natural Resources in New Ulm. The day of the annual meeting was also Fisher's first day on the job. "It'll be interesting to see where the board goes over the next few years," he said. "There's a lot of untapped potential out there. There's a new understanding among the board members of what we have to do. We can't be just information gatherers, but we must take action." One action could be found in the practice of "nutrient farming," a program topic presented by Don Hey, director of Wetlands Research Inc., Chicago. Hey said converting crop land in floodplains back into wetlands could have an economic benefit of $4,000 to $5,000 an acre. Restoring five to seven percent of the original wetlands in strategic locations could create a great economic and environmental benefit, Hey said. "We don't need shopping centers in the floodplain, but they're there because the land is cheap. We are convinced wetlands could reduce flood damage, improve water quality and improve wildlife." Hey said the agriculture industry has "externalized" the cost of waste disposal, the nutrients and sediment in runoff. Urban areas could help pay those costs through nutrient farming. "We're trying to put the environment on an equal footing with agriculture and urban development." The underlying force is economics, Hey said. "There is an economic condition emerging in the U.S. that could lead to major wetland restoration." Total maximum daily load, a provision in the federal Clean Water Act, could restrict development in areas where water bodies exceed pollution limits unless something is done. Several total maximum daily load projects already are under way in the Minnesota River Basin. Currently, cities have been working with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency on ways to reduce phosphorus from waste treatment plants. Soon, the MPCA will be working with groups all across the basin to address turbidity -- murky water from algae and sediment. Eventually, these projects will set total maximum daily loads for these pollutants and determine how best to reduce them. Other speakers at the River Board's annual meeting discussed laws governing drainage ditches and the economics of installing subsurface drain tile in crop land. "Water quality is going to be big if not bigger than water quantity in the future," said attorney and drainage law expert Kurt Deter. "I can think of no reason to argue against buffer strips." With a few minor changes, the state's drainage law can be a tool for improving water quality, said Mark Ten Eyck, attorney and advocacy director with the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy. "Going forward into the future involves working with agriculture. We really won't make it with only regulation."