ELBA, Minn.—Jeff Broberg’s well sits inside a wooden shed not too far from a field he rented about a decade ago to a local farmer.
One day, Broberg discovered the farmer was fertilizing with hog manure. In doing so, combined with the commercial fertilizer he was already using, the farmer was almost doubling the amount of nitrogen on the field in hopes of producing a better corn yield.
Not all of that nitrogen went to the corn. Some of it seeped into the groundwater and was pumped through the well that supplied the water Broberg drank in the form of nitrate, which is made when nitrogen and oxygen combine.
It’s an alarming local effect of a persistent problem that washes far downstream through the Mississippi River watershed, eventually ending up in the Gulf of Mexico, where nitrates are one cause of a low-oxygen “dead zone” that chokes off plant and aquatic life.
In Minnesota, Broberg’s well water tested at 22 parts per million nitrate—more than double what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is the safe limit for the contaminant.
Broberg, a retired geologist who’s now a clean-water advocate, had his well tested when he first bought the house in 1986. For the first decade he lived there, it hovered close to 10 parts per million nitrate, the EPA’s limit. When it started to test above that, he began to haul water from a friend’s house in a nearby town.
Finally, he installed a system that reduced nitrate levels in the water he drank, a system that protected him after the incident with the farmer.
Retired geologist Jeff Broberg is framed in the doorway to his well house April 11, 2024, at his home in Elba, Minnesota. The water from his well exceeds the guidelines for nitrate contamination. Credit: Mark Hoffman, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ” data-medium-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?fit=780%2C520&ssl=1″ tabindex=”0″ role=”button” src=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?resize=780%2C520&ssl=1″ alt=”a man stands in a dilapidated wellhouse in front of equipment” class=”wp-image-44877″ srcset=”https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?resize=1024%2C683&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?resize=300%2C200&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?resize=768%2C512&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?resize=400%2C267&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/broberg_cred-Mark-Hoffman_Milwaukee-Journal-Sentinel-1024×683.jpg?w=370&ssl=1 370w” sizes=”(max-width: 780px) 100vw, 780px” data-recalc-dims=”1″>Retired geologist Jeff Broberg is framed
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