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UTICA, Minn. — Bob Christie said he had little reason to believe his family was drinking contaminated water. But the Utica farmer learned otherwise in the months following the August floods.
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Bob Christie on his farm near Utica, Minn. |
Christie didn’t initially worry because — unlike many of the 2,000-plus southeast Minnesota wells tested after the floods last fall — wells in Christie’s area were never submerged by floodwaters.
So Christie and his neighbors were surprised to learn their wells contained high levels of dangerous bacteria, including E. coli.
Though Utica-area wells had previously tested positive for coliform bacteria, it was the first time anyone in the area had tested positive for E. coli, Christie said. Such contamination often indicates water has had contact with human or animal waste.
The experience made some wonder if the contamination stretched beyond their wells and into the groundwater supply. Compounding his suspicion, Christie treated his well five times before a February test finally indicated his water was safe to drink.
“Nobody even thought of it until we started checking,” Christie said. “I personally don’t have any doubt (the contamination) got into the aquifer.”
The Minnesota Department of Health estimates 200 wells in southeast Minnesota are still unsafe to drink from, even after repeated treatment.
Some say those wells are evidence that local groundwater might be more contaminated than previously thought.
But state and local environmental officials say there’s little evidence the problem is widespread. It’s common for contaminated wells to require repeated disinfections, said Ross Dunsmoor, Winona County’s environmental services supervisor.
Furthermore, Dunsmoor said many residents don’t regularly test their wells for bacteria. That means their wells might have been contaminated before the floods, he said.
Winona County does not systematically monitor private wells, which supply drinking water to roughly one-third of its residents. State agencies also have no such system in place, though the Department of Health used a special legislative appropriation to sample wells after the August floods.
“The individual well owner kind of falls through the cracks,” said Mike Trojan, a hydrologist for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
In Winona County, older wells are at greater risk, particularly if they draw from the Prairie du Chien aquifer — a shallow aquifer accessible from ridgetops west of Lewiston. The Prairie du Chien has proven vulnerable to contamination because of its close contact with the surface, Dunsmoor said.
Doug Nopar, a spokesman for the Lewiston-based Land Stewardship Project, says the county needs to devise a system for monitoring bacteria and nitrates in the water supply.
Nopar says the county’s current policy puts responsibility “on the individual well owner, rather than really looking at the big picture.”
Dunsmoor said extensive groundwater monitoring would require “political will” in the form of increased funding.
And state officials say even widespread monitoring would do little to ensure every well is safe to drink from. Southeast Minnesota’s karst geology allows contaminants to move quickly from one aquifer to another through cracks in the bedrock, said Peter Zimmerman, spokesman for the Department of Health.
Such monitoring also wouldn’t help well owners detect bacteria growth inside their wells, Zimmerman added.
“Each individual well really needs to be tested,” Zimmerman said. “It can be clean today, and tomorrow it can have bacteria.”
County commissioner Marcia Ward said she hasn’t seen evidence of a widespread problem. Many residents whose wells tested positive for bacteria hadn’t tested their wells in years, she noted.
“I always ask: ‘Do we have a baseline? Do we know what (bacteria levels were) before?” Ward said.
After his recent scare, Christie says he will continue to test his well. He said careful monitoring would be far cheaper than drilling a new well for roughly $20,000.
Christie added that a new well doesn’t necessarily assure a clean water supply.
‘If (contamination) is in the aquifer, it’s not going to help you to drill a new well,” he said.
