Jul. 17—WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Brad Finstad, R-Minnesota, has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to rescind its acceptance of an April 2023 petition from environmental groups concerned about nitrate levels in southern Minnesota water.
In April 2023, a group of environmental groups — Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy, Environmental Working Group, Minnesota Well Owners Organization, Center for Food Safety, Clean Up the River Environment, Food & Water Watch, Friends of the Mississippi River, Izaak Walton League Minnesota Division, Land Stewardship Project, Minnesota Trout Unlimited and Mitchell Hamline Public Health Law Center — sent a petition to the EPA saying more action was required to protect water quality in the karst region, which includes Dodge, Fillmore, Goodhue, Houston, Mower, Olmsted, Wabasha and Winona counties.
Several of the groups who signed on to the April 2023 letter have been involved in a subsequent lawsuit seeking to force tighter regulation of Minnesota’s agriculture industry.
In southeast Minnesota, contaminated groundwater is a result of the karst geology that dominates the region with sinkholes. Porous rock delivers water and contaminants to flowing aquifers. The karst geology, combined with the region’s row crop agriculture, puts groundwater at risk, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. High nitrate levels can lead to health problems, particularly in infants.
In a letter dated Nov. 7, 2023, the EPA notified the state of Minnesota that it had 30 days to submit a timeframe and work plan to help affected well owners, to include education and outreach as well as alternative drinking water to residents with water above the maximum contaminant level — 10 mg/L or 10 parts per million — for nitrates in groundwater from their private wells. The letter followed surprise inspections by the EPA at several southeastern Minnesota farms. The state released its plan in December 2023.
In Finstad’s July 17, 2025, letter to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Regional Administrator Anne Vogel, Finstad expressed concern that the petition urged the EPA to issue orders that would prohibit concentrated animal feeding operations from expanding or building new in the area and that the EPA’s subsequent letter to the Minnesota Departments of Health and Agriculture and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency encouraged the state to develop and implement more stringent CAFO permitting standards.
Finstad wrote that many of the groups that sent the petition to the EPA “have a well-documented history of anti-agriculture environmental activism.” He said the farmers of southern Minnesota “have long demonstrated a commitment to protecting their natural resources as they work to produce the highest quality, lowest-cost food supply in the history of the world.” Finstad’s letter also noted the work done by the Minnesota government to protect groundwater, including the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s voluntary Nitrogen Fertilizer Management Plan, state funding for private well test kits in the counties in the petition, and the Southeast Minnesota Nitrates Strategies Collaborative Work Group’s report outlining recommendations for state agencies to address nitrate levels in drinking water.
“Given these realities, I respectfully urge the EPA to immediately rescind its acceptance of the April 2023 petition by environmental activists and withdraw the resulting November 2023 letter to state agencies in Minnesota,” Finstad wrote.
Finstad expressed concern in his letter that MPCA was moving forward with new rules for feedlots , citing the EPA’s November 2023 letter as reasons for the actions.