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Bill to make groundwater mapping more accessible advances to committee layover
Summary
Senate File 3015 would expand DNR and MINGEO work to produce a user-friendly water availability atlas to help local governments and private developers evaluate high-capacity water uses. DNR cautioned maps are general and not a substitute for site-level hydrogeologic studies; the bill was laid over.
Senate File 3015 would fund a statewide water-availability atlas designed to make existing hydrologic and geologic mapping easier for cities, counties, engineers and prospective large water users to use in preliminary siting decisions.
Why it matters: Rapid siting of high-capacity water users such as bottling plants and data centers has heightened demand for accessible groundwater information; local governments often lack the technical resources to evaluate potential impacts.
What supporters told the committee - Senator Johnson Stewart presented the bill as a practical step to convert existing DNR and Minnesota Geospatial (MINGEO) datasets into a more accessible water-availability atlas. "This bill will fund a hydrological mapping ability...to create maps that use localized data sets which are more refined and better for Minnesota," said Carrie Jennings of Freshwater, who testified in favor.
Agency cautions - Katie Smith, director of DNR Ecological and Water Resources, urged caution: the atlas would be a general planning tool and "would not be able to predict water availability at the scale of an individual site." The DNR said county-scale geologic and groundwater atlases are still incomplete in many areas and the statewide product would need periodic updates as new data become available.
Committee action - Sponsors asked to lay the bill over for possible inclusion; the committee laid SF 3015 over for further work with DNR on scope and fiscal details (house fiscal note cited in committee materials at roughly $300,000).
Ending: DNR and supporters agreed the tool should not replace well siting studies; the committee left the bill for additional drafting and fiscal specification.
