01-25-1993 Council Packet - Laserfiche WebLink

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! r TO: FROM: DATE: Mayor and City Council Ron Moorse, City Administrator January 22, 1993 C/fy^ / % SUBJECT: Hennepin County Ground Water Plan % % Hennepin County has prepared a draft County Ground Water Protection Plan. Several cities have expressed concern that the Flan duplicates regulations being developed by other government agencies and unnecessarily creates a new level of government to address ground water issues. In reviewing the County's Plan in light of these concerns, it is clear the Plan does duplicate the work the Minnesota Department: of Haalth is doing regarding well head protection. If the City is to be subject to new regulations regarding well head protection it is at least preferable that the number of organizations to which the City is responsible regarding these regulations be limited as much as possible. The Plan creates a County wide joint powers organization to coordinate the implementation of the ground water plan and assures cities the County will provide the technical staff for the organization. Although the technical assistance would be helpful to cities this would put the County into the lead position in developing regulations and would relegate small cities such as Orono to a small role and in all probability little control in the process. The Plan does provide a very good outline of information useful to cities in planning their ground water protection activities. As such, it is an excellent technical assistance tool. It would be much more useful to the City if the County concentrated on providing technical assistance versus imposing a plan on cities. The County Board has scheduled a public hearing to receive comments regarding the plan. The hearing will be held on Thursday, February 4th. The Council may want to send a letter to the County Board prior to the hearing expressing the concerns indicated above.