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Ws - Lino Lakes Public Services Department 600 Town Center Parkway Lino Lakes, MN 55014 (651) 982 -2440 Fax (651) 982 -2439 www.ci.lino - lakes.mn.us • • April 19, 2004 TO: Mayor Bergeson and City Council Members FROM: Rick DeGardner, Public Services Director Tim Hillesheim, Utilities Supervisor SUBJECT: DNR Water Appropriations Issues As part of updating the City's Comprehensive Water Plan, a related issue that needs to be addressed is our annual water appropriations permits from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). To better understand this issue, we have summarized some basic points related to the permitting process. On an annual basis, the city completes an application to the DNR requesting a certain volume of water for consumption. The DNR then takes into account several factors such as historic growth, existing conservation measures, etc., to determine the city's permitted water volume. When cities exceed their approved water appropriation, the DNR fines the offending city based upon the amount of the overage. The city of Lino Lakes has exceeded the approved water appropriation the past several years. If left unchecked, the fines can become quite severe. There are several factors that the DNR takes into consideration when cities request a higher annual appropriation. The most significant issue is the cities existing conservation measures. The most common conservation measures are sprinkling bans and tiered water rates. Since Lino Lakes does not have any type of a sprinkling ban in place, our requests for additional appropriations have been denied. The same types of conservation measures are evaluated when the DNR reviews requests for additional well houses. A large percentage of the resident's water consumption is directly correlated to summer lawn sprinkling /irrigation. The table listed below summarizes the gallons of water consumed per quarter in 2003. Quarter 1 (typically Jan - Mar) is considered the Base Consumption, or domestic use that is attributed to typical household needs since outdoor watering does not occur in the winter.