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<br />[204185/1] 6 <br />29. Groundwater pumping also reduces water pressure in the Prairie du Chien <br />and Jordan aquifers.29 <br />30. If communities near White Bear Lake significantly reduced their pumping of <br />groundwater, the level of White Bear Lake would rise.30 <br />31. Accordingly, the needs and interests of the communities with water <br />appropriation permits clash with the needs and interests of those who use and enjoy <br />White Bear Lake for fishing and recreation.31 This case is about the lawful resolution of <br />those conflicts. <br />III. The Power to Regulate Groundwater Supplies in Minnesota <br />32. The Commissioner of Natural Resources has the duty to: <br />[m]anage water resources to assure an adequate supply to meet long-range <br />seasonal requirements for domestic, municipal, industrial, agricultural, fish <br />and wildlife, recreational, power, navigation, and quality control purposes.32 <br />33. Minn. Stat. § 103G.261 (a) establishes a hierarchy of priority uses for “the <br />consumptive appropriation and use of water.” The statute includes six priorities, four of <br />which touch upon the contested cases in this matter: <br />A. The first priority is domestic water supply which is defined as <br />water used for “general household needs such as cooking, <br />cleaning, drinking, washing, and waste disposal.” <br />B. The second priority is uses that are less than 10,000 gallons <br />per day. <br />C. The third priority is agricultural irrigation and processing in <br />excess of 10,000 gallons per day. <br />D. The sixth priority is all non-essential uses.33 <br />34. DNR maintains that whenever there is not a sufficient supply of water, the <br />DNR allocates water according to the statutory hierarchy of priorities.34 <br /> <br />29 Id. at 131. <br />30 Tr. Vol. 3 at 221 (Champion). <br />31 See generally Tr. Vol. 5 at 70-71 (Grubb); D. Owen, Taking Groundwater, 91 Wash. U.L. Rev. 253, 256- <br />67 (2013) (“Most aquifers span property boundaries, and one property owner’s pumping can compromise <br />or even dry out her neighbors’ wells. That pumping also can strain ecological systems protected under a <br />wide variety of environmental laws. Consequently, groundwater use routinely activates the tension between <br />a widely shared desire to protect private property rights from regulation and an equally widely recognized <br />need to use regulation to curb problematic uses of property. As many commentators have noted, resolving <br />that tension forms one of the central challenges of American property and constitutional law.”). <br />32 Minn. Stat. § 103G.265, subd. 1 (2022). <br />33 Minn. Stat. § 103G.261 (a); DNR Exs. 3, 6, 32; Tr. Vol. 3 at 221, 223-24, 228 (Champion); Tr. Vol. 4 at <br />100 (Grubb); Tr. Vol. 5 at 66 (Grubb). <br />34 Tr. Vol. 10 at 9-10 (Moeckel); Tr. Vol. 10 at 241 (Doneen).