Hearing attendees overwhelmingly oppose Pattison water withdrawal increase

By Audrey Posten | Times-Register

Not one of the at least 80 people who attended a public hearing in Elkader on April 22 spoke in support of a request by Pattison Sand Company to dramatically increase water withdrawals and sources of water at its sand mining operation near Clayton.

According to an Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) water use permit summary report, Pattison would like to modify a permit to triple its current maximum water withdrawal quantity from 976.8 million gallons per year to 3.7 billion—a level that would rank it in the top 10 of roughly 320 quarries in the state. Roughly 1.4 billion gallons are proposed to come from the Jordan aquifer.

In the water use permit summary report, the DNR recommended the permit be granted, citing no evidence the permit modification would constitute a waste of water resources of the state, be incompatible with the state’s comprehensive plan for water resources, impair pollution control laws or navigability of water or be detrimental to the public interest or the interests of property owners with prior or superior rights who might be affected.

“The requested amount of water use is also justified by law, barring compelling circumstances that mitigate to the contrary,” continued the report, signed by Chad Fields, geologist III with the Iowa DNR’s Water Supply Engineering Section. “No substantial adverse effect upon other water users is foreseen at this time.”

Pattison’s application to the DNR states the water will be used for the quarrying and production of silica sand from an underground St. Peter sandstone mine. More specifically, a majority of the requested increase in allocation is projected for dewatering of the mined formation and through the quarry/rail track dewatering basins. Additional information was not provided to the Times-Register by press time, but owner Kyle Pattison recently told The Gazette the increase reflects the need to eliminate groundwater from caves, along with surface water near rail lines. 

No representatives from Pattison Sand Company spoke at last week’s public hearing. Two officials from the DNR—Fields and Bradley Adams, an attorney for the Water Quality Bureau—led the hearing but would not make a statement or answer questions. The intent of the hearing was to collect public comments, said Adams.

“This is what DNR is legally required to do,” he stated.

The DNR held the hearing and extended a comment period due to public interest and feedback. That was despite a notice published only in the Calmar Courier newspaper in Winneshiek County on March 18 and not in The Guttenberg Press or Times-Register newspapers, the publications closest to the Pattison site.

The lack of transparency was cited by several hearing attendees.

“It might have gotten approved without anybody knowing about it because it came out in the Calmar paper and not anywhere here,” said Kay Vifian, who lives near Pattison and has since spearheaded a Facebook page about the water use issue called “Protect Clayton County Water Sources.”

“The fact Pattison is able to get away with that shady underhandedness should be reason enough to deny the permit to begin with,” added Brian Bruening from Elkader.

Pam Hoefer has property adjoining Pattison, and said she and Kyle Pattison are on a first name basis. She, too, was disappointed by the lack of notice.

“He has never brought this up. If your next door neighbor was doing something that was going to greatly affect you, would you not be disappointed?” Hoefer asked.

“The fact there’s no Pattison person here—I’m disappointed,” she continued. “I was hoping to come to this meeting to be informed. I would like to know facts from the DNR. We need more information, we need the truth, before we can say yes or no.”

Many attendees were concerned about potential impact on other local wells and municipalities. 

According to the DNR, two other water use withdrawal permits utilize wells open in the Jordan aquifer near the Pattison Sand wells—one for the city of Garnavillo at 39.8 million gallons per year and another for the city of Clayton for 11.5 million gallons per year. The city of Guttenberg is granted 185 million gallons of water through its permit but, on average, uses 50 to 55 million gallons.

One Pattison neighbor said spring flows have significantly decreased on her property and that her well went dry for the first time this year. She and another neighbor said Pattison previously agreed to test their wells regularly, but that’s never been done.

“I don’t know whether that’s Pattison’s fault or not. But we don’t have enough water,” she said. “I also want to know who’s holding Pattison accountable. Who’s going to pay when I have to dig my well deeper? How are we going to hold them legally responsible for the fact they did this?”

One summer resident at nearby Willie’s Resort said at least 90 people have wells there. His sand point well has been a dependable water source since the 1960s.

“If there’s much drop in the water level, we’re going to be in big trouble,” he said.

Attendee Steve Veysey, who offered diagrams and a 25-page report analyzing the permit, encouraged people to submit well interference claims.

Phil Specht from McGregor feared the withdrawal would impact agriculture in Clayton County. 

“I spent about $20,000 to get water to pastures to graze cattle correctly. My well, if it goes dry, what’s going to be the use of that land? Agriculture is a big business in this county and we need water for livestock,” he explained.

Director of Clayton County Conservation Jenna VanMeeteren stressed that hearing attendees were not opposed to folks in and around Clayton County who work at Pattison Sand, or their work, but rather the strain on limited natural resources. 

Resources “so unique that it draws visitors to our region and helps boost our economy,” she said, and could be “turned away if we put this resource at risk.”

Others worried about the overall strain on the Jordan aquifer. Citing data from Fields, Laurie Kloesterboer of McGregor said 25 billion gallons of water are taken from it each year, with use increasing 8 percent annually.

“And it’s only going to get worse,” she said. “Aquifer recharge is painstakingly slow—5 to 12 inches per year—and we’re draining a lot more than that. Iowa cannot automatically approve such large scale requests for our most precious and irreplaceable resource for unrestrained industrial progress without considerable study and a plan for Iowa’s future water supply.”

“If we’re going to be doing anything like this, we need hard science to say it’s OK,” agreed Ben Hoksch of Elkader.

Attendees disagreed with the DNR’s assessment that Pattison’s need for more water is justified.

“Is Pattison going to increase frac sand mining that much?” questioned Larry Stone of Elkader. “The world is moving away from fossil fuels toward wind, solar, geothermal and green energy. Frac sand mining may be a dying industry.”

Daryl Bruxvoort, also of Elkader, asked a series of questions. 

“Has there been an economic impact study? What’s going to be brought to the citizens of Iowa? How do we quantify that? What are the costs and risks associated? What mitigations have been addressed?” he wondered. “We rely on the Department of Natural Resources to ask and answer these types of questions to determine the future of this critical natural resource.”

Hoksch and Frederic Boudouani-Bruening disputed that a corporation should be allowed to pull water from a public resource without being charged for it.

Boudouani-Bruening and his partner own Schera’s Restaurant in Elkader. He said, “We gladly pay a water bill because we believe we have to contribute because we live in a civil society. The fact a corporation gets billions of gallons of water for free is obscene.”

Jim Larew, an attorney who represents the board of directors of the Driftless Water Defenders, said DWD believes it is the fundamental right of Iowans to have access to clean water. The statutes of the state of Iowa say water is the wealth of the people. 

Others cited that same principle in encouraging attendees to contact their state legislators. 

When Pattison proposed, over five years ago, its intent to sell water and ship it by rail car to western states, the DNR three times did not approve that request on grounds that it did not meet a beneficial use or permitting requirements. Patti Ruff, speaking as a private citizen, said not a single legislator representing Clayton County or the state who knew about that request did anything to fix the laws.

“The legislature works for you,” she said. “If you feel that the DNR’s regulations are not working for you, you need to not only write your comments to these folks [at the DNR], but you also need to let your legislators know the water rights need to go for the good of the people of Iowa and not for private corporations.”

At the conclusion of the hearing, Fields said the DNR would transcribe the public comments and “look at what we have for issues” while continuing to review the application. He later confirmed there will be an extension of the written comment period until May 27. Comments should be sent to chad.fields@dnr.iowa.gov and  specify the log number 33,483. A copy of the summary report for the application is also available upon request. 

Fields anticipates the DNR will make a decision 60 days after May 27, at most. “We will also have a public meeting of some sort to communicate the decision and what goes behind it,” he said.