A Water Online article from July 2018 discussed the findings of the Northeast-Midwest Institute’s report, Source Water Quality and the Cost of Nitrate Treatment in the Mississippi River Basin. It quoted the report’s findings that “[i]n years when influent nitrate levels were the highest, utilities spent 4-9 percent of their overall operating budget on nitrate treatment” and “[c]onservation programs have the potential to limit some of these costs to utilities, although the extent of their impact will depend on a variety of factors specific to the watershed.”
The article also included part of a Hill op-ed written by the Institute’s Eric Heath, Senior Policy Counsel for the Mississippi River Basin Program, which explained that it would cost small communities millions of dollars to remove nitrate pollution and build a treatment facility in order to have safe drinking water.
The full article titled “Report: Cost Burden of Nitrate Pollution Is High” can be read here.