The City received verbal notice from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) in January, with a formal written notification dated January 30, 2023.

The City’s latest water tests at the Inver Grove Heights Water Treatment Plant show a continued trend of steady radium levels based on tests taken since March of 2025.  Water samples taken on October 29, 2025, by the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) as part of the 2025 fourth quarter testing cycle for the City resulted in a combined radium reading of 3.1 picoCuries per Liter (pCi/L). The test decreases the City’s rolling annual average for combined radium to 2.9 pCi/L, which falls below the 5.4 pCi/L maximum contaminant level allowed by the Environmental Protection Agency.  

The City has contracted with a chemist to take City water samples and make recommendations regarding operational changes in the water treatment process to lower radium levels as quickly as possible. These operational adjustments, including additional sampling and radium testing above and beyond MDH testing requirements, have already been implemented and are being monitored for effectiveness. 

No. Boiling water does not remove radium.

The City is not recommending drinking bottled water. If you have a specific health concern, please consult your healthcare provider.

Yes. If you have a specific health concern, please consult your child’s healthcare provider, or you can visit the MDH website for more information at: www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/water/contaminants/radionuclides.html.

No. Carbon filters, such as Brita filters, are not recommended for removing radium. 

Some other water filters, such as reverse osmosis filters, are recommended for removing radium. Water customers that utilize home water treatment systems, such as water softening and distillation, are also likely reducing radium concentrations through these additional treatment processes. 

Yes. Radium must be ingested in high concentrations over extended periods of time (i.e., several years) to adversely affect health.

Updated May 30, 2025: Progress Update on Water Treatment Facility Rehabilitation Improvements

Work on the Water Treatment Facility Rehabilitation has progressed well over the past five months, and work on the first half of the sand treatment filters has been completed. Work on chemical feed systems is approximately 75% complete and will be fully complete in the next month. 

The original contact completion date for the Water Treatment Facility Rehabilitation was at the end of May 2025. Due to several procurement and supply chain issues experienced over the first half of 2025, not all materials were received with enough time to complete the rehabilitation work on the second set of sand treatment filters by the end of May, as originally planned. While all materials are now on-hand, due to the increased water usage needs for the community during the summer months, and the need to reduce the water treatment capacity to 50% or less while work is occurring on filters, work on the second set of filters will not begin until the Fall of 2025, and is anticipated to be completed by the end of December 2025. 

Throughout the construction of the improvements, the City has coordinated with the Minnesota Department of Health regarding the supply chain challenges, which have been prevalent on several active water treatment facility projects across the state. These issues, related to general material availability and ongoing challenges with the availability of American-made products (a requirement of some of the project funding), are items that are beyond the control of the City and our Contractor. City staff have worked with our Contractor to maintain the project costs within budget and have worked with the MDH to revise the completion date of the work through an amended Compliance Agreement, which was approved by the City Council on May 12, 2025. 

Please visit the City’s website at www.ighmn.gov/waternotice for more information on the radium notice. This site contains additional resources for water consumers, including past IGH Consumer Confidence Reports, which are annual water quality reports issued by the City, and links to more information about radium from the MDH.

Notices were sent in February 2023 to every property that receives water from the IGH water treatment facility. If you are a renter, your landlord might have received the notice for your address, or if you have a private well and do not use City water, you would not have received a notice. Additionally, some residents who receive a water bill from the City of IGH actually get their water from either the Eagan water treatment facility or the South St. Paul water treatment facility. In these cases, you would not have received a notice about radium levels in your water because your home or business does not get City of IGH water. 

Per the City's compliance agreement with MDH, the City is providing quarterly updates in its Insights newsletter. These updates can be viewed at ighmn.gov/newsletter.

To view the public notice, please visit www.ighmn.gov/waternotice, or email water@ighmn.gov with any questions. 

Private wells are not as deep as the aquifers from which the City sources its drinking water, and therefore the water in private wells comes from different ground strata. The City does not have data on radium levels in private wells on properties within the City of IGH. For more information on how you can test your private well water, please visit the Dakota County Water Testing website at: https://www.co.dakota.mn.us/Environment/WaterResources/WellsDrinkingWater/Pages/radium.aspx or the Minnesota Department of Health Well Testing website at: https://www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/water/wells/waterquality/index.html.