Groundwater Quantity
Most citizens are most familiar with water quantity conservation because of water use restrictions placed by their cities. Based upon water usage, especially during the summer months, city governments may ask or require citizens to limit water consumption. Most often, this comes in the form of lawn watering restrictions. State agencies provide additional, overarching regulation to ensure adequate water is available for current and future use. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (MN DNR) regulates water appropriations. Anyone pumping more than 10,000 gallons per day or one million gallons per year needs a permit from the MN DNR. Smaller users with their own well should also take measures to ensure they are not being wasteful with water. Measures you can take include putting a rain sensor on your lawn irrigation system, fixing leaky faucets, doing only full loads of laundry, and installing water conserving showerheads and toilets.
Ground water is monitored to track the quantity below us. The link to ground water usage is obvious, but it is also linked to climate conditions and serves as a measure of long-term precipitation. In Anoka County, this monitoring takes two forms. The first is deep groundwater monitoring by the MN DNR, in conjunction with the Anoka Conservation District. This monitoring is at 14 observation wells across the county. This deep ground water data can be found on the MN DNR website. The second monitoring is of shallow ground water. This monitoring of water table depth is most often used in evaluating development projects and in wetland regulatory disputes. Because this monitoring is done at the boundary of wetlands, it is termed Reference Wetland monitoring. These Reference Wetland monitoring sites and data can be viewed using the Mapping Utility and Data Access tool, respectively.
