Minnesota cities launch system to treat water underground

Just northwest of the Twin Cities, in the bedroom communities of St. Michael, Albertville and Hanover, something unusual is happening. A pump is taking water from the jointly run treatment plant and rather than sending it to people's homes and faucets, it's injecting it into the ground at a rate of 300 gallons a minute. The pumping won't stop until 100 million gallons of treated drinking water have been stowed in an aquifer beneath the cities.

The process is called aquifer storage and recovery, and it involves capturing water during times of plenty, storing it underground and pulling it out later when it's needed. It's a strategy used a lot in the western and southeastern parts of the country, where drought and water shortages are common. There are hundreds of these storage wells operating in the United States; the project in St. Michael is the first in Minnesota.

"This is the first year where the project has been fully up and running," said Kelly Daleiden, project manager for Veolia Water, which operates the well and other joint water efforts for the three cities. The water will be pumped out of the aquifer this summer, when residents want it for lawn watering and drinking. "It's interesting," she said, "the water comes out just like it went in for the most part."

Read detail

Media

Taxonomy

• Water Treatment Solutions
• Aquifer Recharge