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Elizabeth Dunbar and Dave Peters

Charting Minnesota's future water supply

Receding water levels
Docks extend into White Bear Lake, where water levels have steadily decreased over the last decade, in White Bear Lake, Minn. September, 2011.
Jeffrey Thompson/MPR News

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The Metropolitan Council has outlined options for restoring water levels in White Bear Lake. The Legislature asked the Met Council to study possible solutions both to White Bear Lake's low water and to concerns about unsustainable groundwater pumping in the region.

From MPR News' Elizabeth Dunbar:

White Bear Lake is down several feet, and property owners on the lake have sued the Department of Natural Resources, saying the agency failed to manage the situation. Research by the U.S. Geological Survey showed a link between increased groundwater pumping in the growing northeast metro suburbs and lake levels, but weather patterns have also contributed to the problem.

Perhaps of greater concern than the lake, though, is ensuring that growing nearby suburbs will have enough water to meet expected needs.

The council outlined three solutions in a draft report released last week.

But concerns about groundwater in Minnesota are certainly not confined to White Bear Lake. We'll take a look at how these concerns are playing out throughout the state, and what it means about water sustainability in Minnesota.