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3M Co., Pentair, Ecolab and other Minnesota businesses see great potential in the growing worries over the supply and demand for water, as MPR News reporter 

But there's a flip side to the money-water question.

Water issues threaten to throttle economic development in places -- mainly rural -- where the costs of delivering good water and carrying away sewage are set to overwhelm taxpayers,  the Mankato, Minn.-based

Beneath the Surface: Minnesota’s Pending Groundwater Challenge

The center is a non-partisan, non-profit research organization that has generated a variety of research in the state, looking at issues from a rural perspective.

For many reasons -- water scarcity, increased demand, contamination, old and leaky pipes -- a lot of Minnesota communities from Worthington to Two Harbors need water infrastructure help, the center says. Without it, the chance for economic growth is dim.

Upgrading facilities raises water and sewer rates, which makes it harder for a community to compete with neighbors, the report argued.

The report took note of MPR News reporter 

 last week on the hundreds of irrigation wells that lack permits, making it harder to figure out the status of Minnesota's groundwater.

Likewise, it notes that many small cities similarly have something out of whack. Of the 264 small towns with state permits to pump water for their residents, more than two-thirds failed to report to the state either how much water they pumped or how much end users used or they reported delivering more water than they actually pumped.

It's hard to get a handle on things if that's the case.

Is it time, the report asked, "to invest again in an overhaul of the way we handle water and wastewater infrastructure in Greater Minnesota—particularly in how it’s funded? If so, who has the will to lead the way?"

The center makes several recommendations:

"It is hard to admit, but there are some towns that do not have a realistic chance of growing," the report says, but adds:

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Ground Level®: Amplifying Community Voices

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Dave Peters

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A rural Minnesota research group is suggesting that water availability is becoming an economic bottleneck and that development is being threatened by a need to re-build water and sewage systems around the state.

Across rural Minnesota, water woes threaten to choke small town growth

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