Originally the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) set Jan. 15, 2018, to complete the new standard, but, due to the amount of interest from a wide variety of groups, the Minnesota Legislature granted an extra year to Jan. 15, 2019, and the MPCA may use extra time before it starts the clock on the one-year extension.
At a meeting hosted recently by the Range Association of Municipalities and Schools (RAMS) on the wild rice sulfate standard, RAMS brought in representatives from U.S. Steel and Minnesota Power to look at the progress on the rules. Also present were representatives of Range cities, local mines, and area businesses.
MPCA has also reached out to wild rice communities to carry the discussion forward.
Sometime this summer the agency expects a technical support document to be completed and the draft rule will come later in the year.
Once the draft rule is done, public meetings will be held on the Iron Range, St. Paul, and either in Duluth or Brainerd.
Minnesota adopted a sulfate standard to protect wild rice in 1973 based on studies that showed wild rice was found mostly in waters low in sulfate. In 2012 work began to update the rule. In 2016 the MPCA began to develop a standard for each of the 1,300 plus wild-rice lakes using a complicated equation that measures the mixture of iron, carbon and sulfate in the water to see where and how much toxic sulfide develops that can kill rice.
Minnesota has had a sulfate limit of 10 parts per million established in the 1970s but there was almost no enforcement of the rule. It wasn’t until 2010 that tribal and environmental groups started pushing for ways to restore wild rice beds that had been negatively affected by sulfide.
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