What will Mower County do when the water becomes to polluted to drink?.

Sunday, March 24, 2002

What will Mower County do when the water becomes to polluted to drink?

From all the information that has been gathered in the last few weeks, the county’s water supply is in jeopardy.

What we don’t know is what the county or state will do to implement action that will protect this natural resource.

Mower County has DNR geological information about the sensitivity of its ground water to pollution plus the study by the county on the fecal coliform pollution of the rivers and the recent fish kill in the Cedar River.

According to the survey, every river in the county is way above the state’s highest acceptable level for fecal coliform contaminants. The geological survey indicates that in the western and southeastern parts of the county water travels rapidly to the aquifers that supply drinking water, not allowing time for natural filtering of contaminants.

It is suspected by the DNR that the recent fish kill in the Cedar River was caused by contaminant runoff.

The county should make an immediate plan to eliminate farmland runoff and failing septic systems, and do it before pollution claims the county’s supply of uncontaminated water.

Waiting for the problem to eliminate itself, through farmland attrition or because communities will eventually have wastewater treatment, is a plan to fail.