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Experts caution about ‘finite’ amount of water in Minnesota
Most of us tend to think the Land of 10,000 Lakes has an unlimited supply of water, but environmental experts say they’re cautious about the use of groundwater.
MINNEAPOLIS — As you may know, water is more than a moniker in Minnesota; it’s a way of life.
We are, officially, the land of 11,842 lakes (> 10 acres). In Minnesota, we have 201 Mud Lakes, 154 Long Lakes and 123 Rice Lakes alone, while other states — like Ohio — have 110 total lakes.
There’s about an acre of water for every 20 acres of land here with more coastline than California, Florida and Hawaii combined, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
“We have a lot of water, but that doesn’t mean we have excess water,” said Barb Naramore, deputy commissioner of the DNR. “I think among some folks in Minnesota there’s a mindset that we have plenty of water.”
This is where the record scratch occurs in the video. Most of us tend to think that the Land of 10,000 Lakes has a rather unlimited supply of water. To explore what Naramore means by this, we set out to answer two seemingly simple questions: How much water do we actually have in Minnesota? And how much do we actually use?
We know there’s a lot of surface water in Minnesota, as about 6% of the entire state is covered with rivers, lakes and wetlands — but that’s not what most of us drink.
In fact, 75% of the drinking water and 90% of irrigation water comes from aquifers under the ground.
According to the University of Minnesota Water Resources Center, we drink, wash, water and flush about 315 billion gallons of groundwater a year. That’s like a half-million Olympic swimming pools or two-and-a-half Lake Minnetonkas.
But to know if our water use is sustainable, we have to know how much water we’ve drawn from underground.
Ellen Considine is a hydrologist supervisor with the DNR. She says we have a good idea of how much is down there, but certainly no perfect picture.
“I like to think of glaciers as drunk bulldozers,” said Considine. “Going back and forth over the landscape and they deposited our aquifers in very unpredictable ways and in unpredictable patterns and then they put a bunch of dirt on top of them. So we can’t see them.”
Our best tools for monitoring groundwater are wells. Considine says this can accurately show the effects of how much we’re pumping from the aquifers in different parts of the state.
At one site on the northwest side of White Bear Lake, the DNR has four wells, each drilled to a different depth to monitor the four, layered aquifers beneath most of the metro.
When asked about population growth and future use of these aquifers, Considine said, “Yeah, I’d say that concern is always there.”
A water-planning report from the Metropolitan Council shows that we are drawing more water from certain areas in the metro faster than they can fill back up.
The yellow dots show wells over time, where the water table is falling year over year.
In Dakota County, which draws the most groundwater per capita of any county in the metro, the Met Council projects that by 2040, periods of drought are “highly likely to result in local shortages” with some cities in the county seeing a 50% depletion of aquifer water.
“If we use water the same way now in the future, we are going to put additional stress on the aquifers,” said Lanya Ross, an environmental analyst with the Met Council. “We were trying to highlight areas where we want to pay attention going into the future.”
This does not spell doom across the state. Far from it. Experts say we could safely pump even more water in many parts of the metro.
But it does spell caution.
“In the metro, we are so lucky. We have generally pretty plentiful aquifers. We should be responsible with them, but they are pretty plentiful. Western Minnesota, the arrowhead in the northeast — very, very limited aquifers. There’s just a lot less groundwater available,” said Considine.
An example of what can go wrong — that did not make the news — happened two summers ago in Warren, Minnesota.
“We were worried that the city of Warren was going to run out of water,” said Considine.
During the drought year of 2021, agricultural irrigation quadrupled in the Warren area, according to a Groundwater Technical Review by the DNR. The extra usage plummeted the aquifer’s water level, dropping some 70 feet in one summer season down to a record low. This triggered the DNR to immediately suspend irrigation permits in the area.
“Irrigators were pumping a lot of water, understandably. They had permits, and they needed to keep their crops alive. But as we looked at the data, we realized that if we at the DNR didn’t intervene pretty quickly there was a risk there that the city of Warren would run out of water,” said Considine.
Understanding the complexity of the state’s hydrological system can be quite the task. So, we asked the DNR’s state climatologist, Luigi Romolo, to summarize.
“I think that perhaps the biggest change will be the perception that Minnesota’s water supply is a bottomless pit, and I think people are starting to realize that there is a finite amount of water here in Minnesota. Even in the Land of 10,000 Lakes,” said Romolo.
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Rescue! – A chase, a crash and martial arts store workers race to save mother and babies in Fenton.
Employees of a Fenton martial arts school ran to the aid of a mother and her babies after the rollover crash. They said their training helped them rescue the family.
FENTON, Mo. — Employees at a martial arts business in Fenton rushed to save a mother and her twin eight-month-old babies after their vehicle was struck during a police pursuit involving federal officers on Interstate 44 in Fenton.
Surveillance video captured the moment a car being pursued by the DEA and Homeland Security struck the woman’s car on Wednesday.
Those who helped rescue them said it was a miracle they walked away alive.
The woman’s car flipped multiple times from the interstate, over the fence, and onto South Highway Drive before it landed in front of Xtreme Krav Maga & Fitness in Fenton.
“All of a sudden, I heard a car crash, screeching noise, and my fellow employee, Lindsay, was here at the front counter, and she said, ‘Oh, that’s not good,'” said Dustin Pluth, a manager at the business.
Within seconds, Pluth sprang into action, running outside to the car.
“It was just kind of an instinct thing. Once I saw the car rolling, coming to a halt, and running up to it, I found a mom and two babies inside,” he said.
Pluth cut the mom’s seatbelt off to get her out and pulled her twin babies out of the sunroof. Then another employee, Lindsay Cross, comforted the mom while walking them inside to get warm.
“She was very terrified of just being in a car wreck number one, not knowing what was going on. She didn’t know what the outcome was, and then she was obviously worried about her kids,” Pluth said.
The business offers self-defense and martial arts classes, as well as medical training and trauma-one classes, which teach people how to become first responders.
Pluth said it’s training that helped them rescue the family.
“Luckily, the good people in this scenario had a few scratches on them, but it could’ve been a worse Christmas. And as a dad, kids being injured is the worst fear ever,” he said.
Of all places for a car accident to end, Pluth said it was the best result of a bad situation.
“She got handled and cared for, and the babies were cared for probably as quickly as we possibly could do. It’s definitely a Christmas miracle that it happened here, and they came as unscathed as possible,” Pluth said.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol said several suspects were taken into custody following the federal police pursuit.
Pluth said the mom was a little banged up, but thankfully, they’re all doing well.
Tracie Munce, owner of Merlin’s Rest, joined KARE 11 Saturday to discuss the upcoming singalong and share a dish.
MINNEAPOLIS — A neighborhood bar in south Minneapolis is sharing a popular recipe and announcing the return of a favorite holiday tradition.
Merlin’s Rest, which has been in the Longfellow neighborhood for nearly two decades, will host its annual pub carol singalong on Sunday, Dec. 22·from 2 to 4 p.m.
Merlin’s not only has the most extensive selection of single malt Scotch and Irish whiskey in the state, but it also serves award-winning pub classics like bangers and mash and authentic fish and chips.
Owner Tracie Munce joined KARE 11 Saturday to discuss the upcoming singalong and share a dish.
Recipe: Beef Wellington
- 3lb ribeye roast
- ¾ cups Beef Stock
- Steak seasoning
- 1 ¼ lb crimini mushroom
- ½ shallots
- ¼ onion
- 4 Tbls garlic
- 1 long stalks of rosemary
- 1 TBS bisto gravy mix mixed with 1 TBS cold water
- 1 cups water mixed with 1TBS beef base and 1 TBS garlic base
- 8oz of sliced and diced thinly Ham
- Puff pastry sheets
Coat thawed ribeye with oil and sprinkle steak seasoning all over the roast, cook each side for about 5-8 minutes then transfer to a roaster with about 1-2 cups of beef stock, fat side up. Cover with aluminum foil and roast at 350 degrees for 2 hours – remove from the roaster and let rest – save the juice for gravy.
Clean and quarter mushrooms and place into a food processor, pulse into a small dice. Rough chop shallot and add into the mushroom, pulse a few more times.
Remove rosemary leaves from stem & rough chop, combine with mushrooms and shallots
In a large skillet add 1 Tbs butter and add the mushroom mixture, cook on medium-high heat until all the water has evaporated, about 15 minutes, put in a large bowl
Cube beef, take off fat, and add to the mushroom bowl
Thin, long slices of ham then chop and to beef and mushroom mixture. Salt and Pepper (about 1TBS of each) and combine
Dice onion and garlic and sauté in 1TBS butter until just browning, add juice from roasting the ribeye and about 1 cup of Beef stock. Let boil then add slowly the bisto slurry to thicken. Add a small amount of gravy mixture to the beef mixture to moisten – do not need much gravy.
Cut pastry into large squares and place into jumbo muffin tin. Add ½ cup of meat & mushroom mixture and pull puff over top of meat, pinching to seal everything in. Brush top with egg, and sprinkle with smoked paprika. Bake for 25-30 mins at 350
Add your side of choice with Wellington pie and a side of gravy.
Jamie Preuss from So Happy You Liked It joined KARE 11 Saturday to demonstrate how to DIY a hot buttered rum mix and homemade Irish cream.
GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — There might not be anything more heartfelt at the holidays, than homemade gifts. While cookies might be your go-to… how about mixing things up, with a homemade drink mix?
Jamie Preuss from So Happy You Liked It joined KARE 11 Saturday to demonstrate how to DIY a hot buttered rum mix and homemade Irish cream.
Recipe: Hot Buttered Rum
- 1 pint vanilla ice cream, softened
- 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon1 tsp nutmeg
- 1 oz dark rum
- 6-8 oz hot water
Using a hand mixer, combine all ingredients except ice cream.
Once combined, add softened ice cream, and blend to thoroughly mix in.
Freeze the mixture for at least 2 hours.
In a mug, combine hot water, rum, and 1 heaping spoonful of mixture. Stir to dissolve.
Recipe: Homemade Bailey’s Irish Cream
- 2 T cocoa powder
- 2 t instant espresso
- 1 t vanilla
- 1 t almond
- 14 oz can of sweetened condensed milk
- 1 cup cream
- 1 1/2 cup Irish whiskey, optional
Mix cocoa and espresso powder with 2 tablespoons of hot water and mix to combine.
Add all ingredients except the cream to a blender (including whiskey if you are using it), and blend to fully combine.
Add the cream to the blender and pulse to combine. Don’t blend
too long because this will start to aerate the cream and make the drink super thick!
Transfer to 1 large or several smaller flip-top glass jars. Give them as gifts or keep them for yourself!
The mix will keep in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.
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