Three Minnesota Counties to receive state’s first water regional district in forty years

CLAY COUNTY, Minn. (KVRR) — Since 2022, organizers in Polk, Norman, and Clay Counties have been working through the judicial process to create a new water district. And just this month, a Clay County District Court Judge approved the decision.

“I think that there’s a great deal of excitement. I think that with a lot of things we’ve worked really hard to get the word out about the water district…And we’re getting a great deal of excitement about the potential project from our citizens,” said Stephen Larson, Clay County Administrator.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health, all three counties have exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant level of 10 micrograms per liter for arsenic in the private wells that were tested.

“Part of our study, we reached out to citizens, we’ve had multiple reports from a standpoint of wells not being able to keep up with the needs of their houses. We’ve had one citizen report that for every gallon of water that they pull, there comes a cup of dirt in that. And so it’s challenging to utilize from safety, cooking, bathing, those types of things,” said Larson.

While the project has just been approved, construction has yet to begin. But Larson hopes they can start as soon as next year.

“This project is going to be a phased project over several years, and so again if citizens, cities are involved earlier in the process, they would probably be at a cost-benefit savings to that. But from the standpoint of our cities, they don’t have to choose to be a part of that or not,” said Larson.

Currently, Moorhead and Dilworth are not on the list for the water district. But cities and citizens who may be interested in the future can reach out to the board for more information.