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Water Quality
We are dedicated to ensuring the safety of our community's drinking water. Through testing, monitoring, and reporting, we closely follow the quality of our drinking water and reguarly our findings to the state.
Download a PDF of recent water quality reports below.
Water Quality Reports (Issued in May of the following year)
Presentations
American Water Works Association (AWWA) Presentation – Presented by Doug Rovang and Donn Richardson at the Minnesota Section AWWA Conference in Duluth, MN in September 2007.
Storm Water
The city of Rochester's storm water management program is an important part of ensuring the safety and health of the Rochester community.
Wellhead Protection
RPU's Wellhead Protection Report
Water Supply
Does our municipal water supply travel underground to Rochester from the Great Lakes? Does it come from an underground spring linked to the Mississippi River?
No, it comes from a source much closer to home! As the map shows, your drinking water comes from a relatively small underground basin underneath and surrounding the city of Rochester. It is replenished by rainfall and is subject to, or affected by, contaminants as it percolates from the surface to the Prairie du Chien-Jordan aquifer, which is 400-1,000 feet below the surface.
Of the nearly 32 inches of rainfall we receive each year, approximately six inches of rainfall actually soaks into the ground and ultimately reaches the aquifer below. The remainder of the water evaporates, is used by plants, or runs off the land and is carried away by the Zumbro River. Rochester's annual use of water is equivalent to one inch of precipitation on the groundwater basin, or approximately five billion gallons of water each year. Rochester's water is a mix of recent and ice age water. The recent water was recharged within a 20-mile area around Rochester.
For more detailed information on national, state, and local water quality issues, visit the EPA United States Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Water's site at http://water.epa.gov/drink/index.cfm.
