DAKOTA COUNTY, Minn. — For the second time in four months, there's a request to ship nearly a half a billion gallons of ground water a year from two wells in Dakota County to the southwestern region of the country.
The water would be transferred to states like Arizona and Utah. This latest request is raising all sorts of red flags for people who call Dakota County home.
"That deeply concerns us, we've got indications we're a growing county we expect by 2040 we're going to have our own water quantity issues in places like Inver Grove Heights, Rosemount, Apple Valley," said Dakota County Commissioner Joe Atkins.
The half-billion-gallon request comes from Progressive Rail, a small Lakeville railroad company, which is in the process of submitting an application to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources to ship ground water to regions near the Colorado River.
Empire Building investments is the real estate sector of Progressive Rail. It’s submitted a well assessment, which the DNR requires before any drilling can begin that would withdraw more than a million gallons of ground water.
They want to draw water from the Mount Simon Aquifer which is the deepest aquifer in Dakota County.
"If this application gets approved where does it end? It’s not just Dakota county, there's 86 other counties around Minnesota that could face this very same issue," said Atkins.
Al Bester, a Dakota County farmer says approval of such a proposal could be detrimental to agriculture and the nearby irrigation wells.
"We have a lot of crops in Dakota County and you have to have irrigation for that," said Bester.
"In places like Arizona farmers industry can virtually use endless amounts of water and while they're doing that they want to come here and take ours," said Atkins.
Dakota County officials say things would be different if this were an emergency situation.
"This isn't an emergency situation in Arizona they brought this upon themselves by years and years and decades of waste and lack of conservation," said Atkins.