A new $1 million state study on nitrate in drinking water showed, in its final report, that nitrate levels are, on average, decreasing in Nebraskans’ tap water provided by cities and towns.
But an interim version of the report, included in a batch of emails obtained via Flatwater Free Press’ public records request, shows the state didn’t publicly release information suggesting that nitrate appears to be increasing in the wells supplying water to these public water systems.
Those results show an average nitrate increase in the supply wells analyzed by NDEE from 2003 to 2023, according to the interim report.
The final, public report left out that information.
Amanda Woita, spokesperson for the Nebraska Department of Environment and Energy, said this supply well information wasn’t included because of inconsistent testing of the supply wells. It also wasn’t included, she said, because the focus of the report was drinking water quality.
(Correction: A previous version of the story incorrectly identified the agency Woita works for.)
But the exclusion of the supply well information worries University of Nebraska Medical Center researcher Eleanor Rogan, who after viewing both reports said the final public report appeared to be “toned down.”
It’s also noteworthy because it may suggest that Nebraska’s untreated well water – water essentially pumped from the ground – is growing more nitrate-laden, even as most Nebraskans’ tap water is slightly cleaner on average.
Some of that improving water, if it comes out of faucets in towns that previously had sky-high nitrate levels, is likely treated to lower nitrate in order to comply with federal law. That water treatment comes with a price tag often in the millions, a burden for small towns and for the state when it shoulders some of the cost.
The state released its report in January, after Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen requested the state set aside $1 million to commission the study. Jim Macy, then-director of the NDEE, told lawmakers at a 2023 public hearing that the study would provide guidance on the “implementation of solutions to provide safe drinking water and reduce point source discharges.”
The resulting study was Nebraska’s largest-ever effort to test registered domestic wells, which most Nebraskans who live outside of a city or town use to shower, cook and drink.
The state provided homeowners on these private wells with free test kits, eventually collecting samples and testing the drinking water quality at more than 3,000 rural Nebraska homes in 2023.
Roughly 15% of those rural Nebrakans’ private wells exceeded the federal drinking water standard for nitrate, the level that would trigger mandatory water treatment if they lived in a city or town and used public well water.
Several experts, including University of Iowa professor David Cwiertny and former UNL professor Mary Exner Spalding thought the study was well done and provided valuable information and resources.
But experts also noticed a data gap of irrigation wells and monitoring wells in the state report.
Several Natural Resource Districts didn’t – or weren’t able to – submit their water testing data to the state’s Groundwater Quality Clearinghouse starting in 2020.
The NDEE, responsible for maintaining the data portal, said the clearinghouse system went through an update in 2020. It cited issues with vendors for the data processing delay. It didn’t analyze those local water testing records missing from the clearinghouse.
Macy himself once said the data portal “act(ed) with little direction” in an email to a state budget analyst obtained by FFP.
Tim Gragert, a former Republican state senator from Creighton and longtime critic of Nebraska’s water quality efforts, called the data gap “unacceptable.”
The NDEE noted the data gap likely didn’t impact the results of the study, since “recent sample years are not expected to differ dramatically from previous years.”
Woita told the Flatwater Free Press that the data gap will likely be closed this year.
Our Dirty Water
Nebraska’s nitrate level has doubled in the past four decades. Despite this, state and local governments have taken little action to regulate the farming practices that lead to nitrate seeping into our drinking water.
3 Comments
The map is labeled 1983. 32 year old data?
Thank you for your researching skills and writing a good and informative article about a subject that is not just an elephant in the room, but it’s ‘monster’ like implications is a fair warning for everyone in Nebraska and border places too like Belleville KS, where I live.
FAIR WARNING to all of us – don’t believe the implementation of ‘optics driven’ news reporting from Legacy type media sources!
what a good pest!