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Point o f View vi oar source ci for r a r water by Lawrence Baker, Senior Fellow, WRC Many Minnesota cities that have constructed structural best management .practices (BMPs) such as wet ponds, dry detention basins and wetlands as part of their MS4 programs are experiencing the limitations of their BMPs, which may lead them toward greater use of source reduc- tion (pollution prevention). The first ofthese limitations is that stormwater ponds and other BMPs have often required far more operation and maintenance than originally anticipated, driving up costs. According to a recent :paper by Weiss:et al. (2007), the full cost of removing a`pound of phosphorus from a wet pondcanexceed $1,000. There also is growing concern that the accumula- tion of pollutants that are trapped in the soils of infiltration basins may lead to long-term soilpollution. Finally, pollu- tic~n treatment efficiencies are often low and variable, even during the growing season, and winter performance is cer- tainlyworse. These low efficiencies will be a problem when stormwater programs in watersheds of impaired waters are re- quired to achieve specific load reduction requirements under their TMDL plans ~-vithin'the next'few years. These limitations are leading to greater emphasis on source reduction. In Minnesota; one of the key source reduc- tion steps has been the passage of the lawn P fertilizer ban, which was enacted in 2002. According to a new study by the Ivtinnesota Department of Agricul- tune, .this law reduced sales of P in lawn fertIlizer by 48% between 2003 and 2006. A study done by the Three Rivers Park ': Districfsuggests that the ban may result in about a 15% reduction in stormwater P loading during the first several years fol- lowing its enactment. The State has gotten more serious about`erosfonand sediment control (ESC) programs. Even as recently as 2002;-only 2% of ESC inspections in Da- kota County were conducted by trained inspectors. Since then, more than 4,000 people have attended ESC training ses- sions at the University of Minnesota, a ro the irecr's es When I was in my twenties, I had the energy and desire to save the world. Years of working has tamed my passion somewhat, and I pursue change with a more practical approach than I did in the past. I see students now in the Water Resource Sciences Graduate Program who have the same passion and energy that I had in my twenties. It gives me great comfort that the next generation is ready to take on today's even greater water resourc- es management challenges and those that loom in the future. In Minnesota, we have been blessed with huge quantities of water resourc- es. In the past, the mission of some organizations and agencies was to preserve water quantity, while others' was to protect water quality. Looking at the work of the past, it is obvious that quality and quantity were often addressed at the same time, but work was separated into quality and quantity "boxes" to give organizations -and agencies a clear focus. Several recent events have highlighted for me that we now more clearly acknowledge the interaction between water quality and quantity. The extent of interconnectedness has been highlighted to me in several re- cent news items: industrial demand for water that may soon exceed the supply in some parts of the state; the actual and feared impact of this year's drought; the impact of too much water during various floods; Governor Pawlenty's sig- nature on legislation to formally ratify the Great Lakes - St. Lawrence Seaway River Basin Water Resources Compact, which includes a ban on new diversions of water outside the Basin with limited exceptions; and the issue of Great Lakes water diversions being raised by one presidential hopeful. While we have a history of including both quality and quantity in water management activities, new pressures will force us to talk about these issues together. Minnesota's water is valuable not only because of the amount of fresh water we have, but because Minnesotans have wori<ed to protect and restore those resources over the past years. Water-poor states would not be as interested in diverting our water if we had not made the effort to restore and protect our waters. While we still have work to do in this area, we should be proud of the work that has been done.. I am heartened to know that current and recent students at Minnesota's universities and colleges start their careers with an understanding that water management involves on quality and quantity issues simultaneously. They also bring to their work the passion that we all have felt to protect the water resources that Minnesotans value so much. As 2007 comes to a close, it is my hope that we take time to celebrate our successes in water management and to develop new resolve and passion to take on the tough issues facing us in 2008. LJ7, L Y , ro~'~ ~'GS/~ C Faye Sleeper, WRC Co-Director step that should result in greatly im- proved ESC inspections and less sedi- ment reaching stormwater BMPs. One emerging problem that can only be dealt with by source control is pollu- tion by road salt. Since 1980, road salt use in the United States has more than doubled, resulting in some very salty snowmelt runoff -with peak concentra- tions approaching one-third of seawater! MNDOT has used brine rather than dry salt, application based on on-board tem- perature sensors in snowplow trucks, and "anti-icing" (applying salt before major winter storm events), but there has been no study to determine how much these tactics reduce salt loads to streams. Min,negram 2 December 2007