"MANKATO, Minn. — Rising nitrate levels in the Minnesota and Blue Earth Rivers are forcing Mankato to adjust how it provides drinking water to residents and potentially threatens the city's attempts to limit the amount of water it takes from the region's most critical aquifer.

'The fix is going to be big,' City Manager Pat Hentges said of the looming cost of reacting to the rising pollution levels in the rivers.

Options range from new water treatment systems or drilling another well into the Mt. Simon aquifer, which provides all or part of the drinking water for more than a million Minnesotans from southern sections of the state to the Twin Cities metropolitan area."

Mark Fischenich reports for the Mankato Free Press May 28, 2017. [2]