Safe Water? Who Takes Care of Boone’s Nitrates?
Bea Upah, Boone County Democrats communications
Nitrates: the invisible water problem
With the water quality concerns in Boone (and Iowa)…
There is a public hearing this coming Monday at 6:00 PM during the Boone City Council meeting to discuss the city's plan to accommodate the massive water demands of the incoming Daisy Brand facility.
If you look at the Environmental Information Document(pg. 75-83) provided in the official City Council Meeting Packet, it states:
“The addition of the Daisy Brand Industry in the community will significantly reduce the city’s operational flexibility for managing nitrates through well rotation since more of the high nitrate wells will need to be in operation to meet additional water demand.”
The Scale of the Impact: Right now, Boone’s baseline water usage is around 1.5 to 2.1 Million Gallons per Day (MGD). Adding Daisy's 1.4 MGD requirement immediately jumps our community's daily water usage by nearly 80% to 90% overnight once they are operational.
The Proposed Solution & The Cost: To support this massive surge in demand, the city is taking out a 20-year, low-interest State Revolving Fund (SRF) loan to pay for a long list of infrastructure upgrades.
The primary fix is the addition of Alluvial Aquifer Well No. 30. Currently, the city maintains acceptable nitrate levels by mixing water from a variety of different wells to dilute nitrates. Because Daisy will use so much water, the city must dig a new low-nitrate well just to keep our nitrates from becoming too concentrated under the heavy demand.
Essentially, these expensive upgrades will only maintain our current nitrate level status quo.
Due to this massive increase in demand and our already upward-trending river nitrate levels, is the City of Boone going to need an incredibly expensive Nitrate Removal Facility (like Des Moines has) much sooner than we ever would have otherwise?
If so, how soon might we hit that breaking point, and how will a future multi-million dollar treatment facility be paid for?
Will those long-term operational costs impact residents' monthly utility bills?
