Comment #2 on proposed class 3 and 4 water in Minnesota
Dear Judge Lipman,
This is a second comment from me. I won’t repeat the brief biographic information contained in my
earlier letter comments.
At the hearing on the 4th, there were a few testifier representatives from rural Minnesota municipal
wastewater facilities, and lawyers representing an association of rural cities, each of them testifying in
favor of the proposed rules, saying that the existing rules are based on “old science,” parroting the
language in the MPCA’s SONAR, and saying that the MPCA needed flexibility, which to an
environmentalist sounds chilling.
I prefer to think of it as “established” science, but regardless, I don’t think there is a national
groundswell to adopt the MPCA’s approach set out in the SONAR; the MPCA didn’t describe it, anyway. I
submit the proposed rules – abandoning the numeric standards, and adopting the inferential evaluation
of pollution discharges from some remove from their source – is not the rejection of old science: it’s the
adoption of no science.
The City of Willmar, in addition to testifying at the hearing, submitted a letter of comments to you.
Here’s the link to that letter:
https://speakup-us-
production.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/attachment/file/602d6b0f7d7965f20c00547e/Impacted_Cities
_-_Class_3___4_Waters.pdf
I’d like to address the economic hardship and economic development arguments made in the letter,
because it was repeated in testimony by the other municipal wastewater representatives and their
association counsel, too.
Willmar says it has spent $2.5 million dollars in the last five years to upgrade its wastewater facilities.
What isn’t recounted in the letter is that Willmar has received in EACH of the last ten years over $6
million and in some years over $7 million in local government aid. See the linked financial report at pp.
107. In the last decade, Willmar has received somewhere north of $60 million in LGA. It’s identified as
“intergovernmental revenues,” charmingly, in its financial report. The LGA amount reported for 2020
was down a little, to $4.9 million.
https://cms5.revize.com/revize/cityofwillmar/2019%20City%20of%20Willmar%20Financial%20Stateme
nt%20-%20Final.pdf
LGA may be used for “any lawful purpose,” but certainly one of the purposes of LGA is to help cities with
capital projects that might stretch their budgets and many use it for that. If Your Honor is inclined to
give weight to the pleas of hardship, it is legitimate, in Willmar’s case, to ask, where did the rest of the
last decade’s $60 million go? Did they use it to just buy down property taxes and then come begging for
relief from clean water? Parallel questions are probably in order for the other municipal wastewater
testifiers, too.
Other funds are also available to assist with water and sewer projects. In 2018, Willmar received a $1.5
million loan for the replacement of three lift stations.
https://mn.gov/deed/assets/willmar-09-10-18_tcm1045-352743.pdf
And in recent days, loans and grants for Kandiyohi County, in the amount of $1.1 million dollars for the
Glacial Lakes water and sewer systems were announced.
https://www.willmarradio.com/news/kandiyohi-county-gets-1-1-million-dollars-for-glacial-lakes-sewer-
and-water-system/article_d954f0d2-71eb-11eb-8823-cf833d8b6713.html
The legislature gives municipalities an extended period of time to comply with clean water regulations.
Municipal bonds have been quite cheap to issue for many years, as well.
To reiterate, I don’t think Your Honor should take complaints of economic hardship and loss of economic
development at face value without inquiry into the bona fides of those claims. Any student of
environmental issues knows they are the last refuge – sometimes the first one, too – of polluters. It’s
important to sort out the “we don’t want to” from the “we can’t.”
Thank you.
Respectfully submitted,
Steve Timmer
