Revisiting Wild Rice Protection Standards

A never-used 45-year old sulfate standard meant to protect the health of wild rice would be retired under a bill approved by the Senate Monday, April 30th. According to bill sponsor Senator Justin Eichorn, R-Grand Rapids, the proposal would eliminate the Pollution Control Agency's obsolete sulfate standard that "is based on 1944 science and has never been enforced."

Proponents of the measure argued that meeting the standard, if imposed, would greatly increase the cost of wastewater treatment and impact Northeastern Minnesota mining supporting steel production.

Senator David Tomassoni, DFL-Chisolm, who co-sponsored the bill, said, "Let's not say we're going to implement a standard, make people pay hundreds of millions of dollars to implement the treatment systems and then find out that maybe it doesn't make any difference whatsoever." According to Tomassoni, the biggest factors impacting the growth of wild rice are water levels, competing vegetation and weather.

Speaking against the measure, Senator Carolyn Laine, DFL-Columbia Heights, explained that sulfate needs to be measured to determine the amount of sulfide that is in the water. "We want to know how the sulfate turns into sulfide, which is an acid and is toxic to many things, all underwater vegetation," she said.