Planning for the Future

Planning for long-term water sustainability

The Metropolitan Council continued to lead regional efforts to integrate water supply, wastewater, and water quality planning, shaping a sustainable path forward for the growing Twin Cities region.

The Metropolitan Council adopted Imagine 2050, the regional development guide for the Twin Cities region. Staff supporting subject areas across the Met Council collaborated with a multidisciplinary team of experts and community partners to develop the 2050 Water Policy Plan as part of this regional guide. Our plan is tailored to address the needs of our region, guiding local and regional water supply, wastewater, and water quality and quantity investments to support sustainable growth. The policy plan outlines the Met Council’s commitment to equitable water access, climate resilience, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions, partnering with communities, and water reuse and conservation.

The Met Council developed a water supply planning atlas to support planning and policy discussions and serve as an outreach and education tool. The atlas compiles water supply data and information from state and federal agencies, local communities, and a variety of technical studies. It also organizes information by subregions — groups of neighboring communities connected by a combination of shared water challenges, hydrogeologic landscapes, and organically developed by community water supply planning groups from previous planning cycles. The information helps communities communicate, collaborate, and better connect with regional plans, policies, and goals.

In 2023, the Metropolitan Council was directed by the Minnesota Legislature to develop a comprehensive plan to ensure communities in the metro region have access to sufficient safe drinking water to allow for municipal growth while simultaneously ensuring the sustainability of surface and ground water resources to supply the needs to future generations.
In early 2024, a workgroup with representatives from local communities and several agencies was formed to advise the Met Council in this comprehensive plan for the northeast metro area. The work group developed an overall goal for the project which is to ensure access to sufficient, safe and affordable drinking water for all communities in the Northeast Metro Area to meet current and growing needs while safeguarding the sustainability of surface and groundwater resources.   The work group has been meeting to prioritize studies that need to be completed to help develop the recommendations in the report.
The White Bear Lake Area Comprehensive plan developed recommendations for future actions that will ensure communities in the White Bear Lake area have access to sufficient safe drinking water to allow for municipal growth while simultaneously ensuring the sustainability of surface water and groundwater resources to supply the needs of future generations.

Investing in resilient infrastructure

Our infrastructure serves more than 2.8 million residents across 111 communities every day, and maintaining its reliability requires thoughtful planning, continuous improvement, and adaptation to changing conditions. This year, we made strategic investments to upgrade aging assets, improve system performance, and prepare for future challenges, including population growth, climate change, and evolving regulatory requirements.

The Met Council is planning to build a new water resource recovery facility to treat wastewater in the northwestern part of the region to replace the existing Rogers facility. The proposed Crow River Water Resource Recovery Facility is planned to have a variety of features to reduce energy use, manage stormwater, and recover heat from effluent just before it is returned to the environment.
The facility will also create opportunities in the northwestern part of the region to reuse treated wastewater both on- site and off-site for things like commercial and agricultural irrigation, and evaporative cooling for data centers and manufacturing.

In 2024, the Met Council continued to evaluate numerous proposed data centers for our ability to meet wastewater service needs, both pipe capacity and treatment. High heat generating computing centers must be cooled, so in some cases, the Met Council evaluated our ability to provide reclaimed wastewater effluent for these cooling needs. In nearly all cases, the final decision for cooling these facilities resulted in either using air-cooled processes or municipal water supply sources. Air cooling greatly reduces the amount of wastewater that needs to be discharged into the regional wastewater system. The Met Council is currently conducting a study to evaluate the impact that potential post-cooling water might have on the treatment process at regional wastewater reclamation facilities and conducting policy research on the environmental and water supply impacts of datacenters.

Innovating water reuse and resource recovery

As water challenges grow more complex, we’re reimagining how we manage and recover water. In 2024, we expanded our work, finding new ways to reuse water, recover valuable resources, and reduce environmental impacts across the region.

At our Eagles Point Water Resource Recovery Facility, we conducted a demonstration project for energy savings from low-dissolved oxygen, which received the Resource and Recovery Energy  Award from the Central States Water Environment Association. The award recognizes projects that contribute to energy savings in wastewater treatment across the region. An important aspect of the team's ongoing demonstration at the Eagles Point facility is fully investigating the impact of operation in the low-dissolved oxygen mode. As with most things, there are trade-offs and impacts. Low-dissolved oxygen operation worsens the settling characteristics of the bugs and, potentially lowers their growth rate. Both can reduce the volume of wastewater a facility can treat. The team is conducting studies of these issues to help determine what volume of influent flow would require the facility to have to return to normal low-dissolved oxygen operation. These studies provide groundbreaking fundamental understanding of an emerging innovation.