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Serving Northern St. Louis County, Minnesota

Legislators vote to nullify wild rice sulfate standard

If signed into law, faces likely lawsuit

Marshall Helmberger
Posted 5/2/18

REGIONAL— The fate of Minnesota’s longstanding wild rice standard for sulfate discharges has taken another step closer to potential litigation. Both the Minnesota House and Senate have now …

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Legislators vote to nullify wild rice sulfate standard

If signed into law, faces likely lawsuit

Posted

REGIONAL— The fate of Minnesota’s longstanding wild rice standard for sulfate discharges has taken another step closer to potential litigation. Both the Minnesota House and Senate have now approved legislation that would nullify the existing standard of 10 milligrams per liter and prohibit the state’s Pollution Control Agency from implementing a new equation-based standard that had been in the rulemaking process.

MPCA Commissioner John Linc Stine announced late last week that his agency was withdrawing its proposed new standard and that his staff would work with the Legislature on a path forward. An administrative law judge had earlier disallowed the proposed new standard, citing a laundry list of problems with it.

Representatives of the mining industry and some municipal wastewater treatment operators, particularly on the Iron Range, have strongly opposed enforcement of the existing wild rice standard for years, and have fought the adoption of the new equation-based standard as well, mostly over the cost of compliance.

But state-funded research has bolstered the claim that wild rice is sensitive to sulfate levels in water, and that research could pose a hurdle to the Legislature’s desire to scrap the bill. Paula Maccabee, attorney for Duluth-based Water Legacy, said any move by the Legislature to scrap the wild rice standard without a scientifically valid proposal to replace it would likely be rejected by the federal Environmental Protection Agency. If not, Maccabee says her group would almost certainly take the issue to federal court. She said under the Clean Water Act, states can’t arbitrarily weaken pollution standards that have been proven to be scientifically justified and have been previously approved by the EPA.

The issue has been a thorny one for more than a decade. While the wild rice standard dates back to the 1970s, it was rarely enforced until tribal governments and environmentalists began pushing the MPCA to act. As the agency slowly began the process of enforcing the longstanding rule, the MPCA faced political pushback from the mining industry and Iron Range legislators who argued that enforcement could make taconite producers uncompetitive in the global market.

Iron Range legislators backed the latest push to nullify the wild rice standard. Senators Tom Bakk, of Cook, and David Tomasonni, of Chisholm, were among a handful of DFLers who voted this week in favor of the Senate’s version of the repeal, which passed 38-28. Representatives Rob Ecklund, of I-Falls, and Jason Metsa, of Virginia, voted for the House bill earlier in April.

A spokesman for Mark Dayton said the governor is still reviewing the legislation.