On Friday – Aug. 3 – the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency will take advantage of unusually low water in the Minnesota River to begin a week’s worth of testing of the effectiveness of improvements in sewage treatment plants along the river.
Read an MPCA news release about the effort to measure dissolved oxygen in the river water.
A 2004 anti-pollution plan set new standards requiring sewage treatment plants to cut phosphorus discharges by 40 percent. Wastewater treatment plants are already meeting their 2015 reduced phosphorus discharge goals, according to MPCA researchers.
The river monitoring to begin Friday will test whether the phosphorus reductions are achieving the desired effect of keeping the river’s oxygen levels healthy for fish and other organisms.