Lawmaker questions Lake Pepin cleanup effort

published 11/16/2009

Officials from the Pollution Control Agency aren’t doing enough to address pollution in Lake Pepin and the Mississippi River, one lawmaker said.

Rep. Jean Wagenius (DFL-Mpls) made the comments at a joint hearing of the House Environment and Natural Resources Finance Division and the Senate Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Budget Division.

Wagenius, who chairs the House division, criticized the PCA for focusing solely on water turbidity and phosphorus pollution in Lake Pepin, arguing the agency should also include other types of pollution such as nitrates and endocrine disruptors.

“We’re telling Minnesotans that we’re cleaning up their waters, and that’s what they think we’re doing, but we’re really only looking at two pollutants,” Wagenius said. (Watch Part I, Part II)

Gaylen Reetz, PCA regional division director, responded that there are no standards available yet for nitrates or endocrine disruptors in surface water. He said addressing all three issues at once would require developing standards, conducting assessments and coming up with implementation plans for the other pollutants — all of which could delay cleanup efforts.

“Do we wait for the phosphorus until we have nitrogen standards and endocrine disruptor standards?” Reetz said, adding that it is “potentially a very significant policy question.”

Wagenius replied that fixing all the problems separately could be costly to the state.

“I think the policy question is, do we spend money once or do we spend it three times and potentially cost a lot more?” she said.

At the hearing, PCA and Department of Natural Resources staff also provided legislators with an update on several other issues, including:
• status of the proposed Lake Vermilion State Park acquisition;
• update on disciplinary actions regarding DNR employees’ participation in a 2007 conference;
• the financial status of state parks and trails;
• biological monitoring in the Minnesota River; and
• recycling efforts for phone books, mercury switches and batteries.

- Nick Busse