Minnesota regulators say that keeping White Bear Lake at the court-ordered water level would require such draconian restrictions they'd have to cancel all water use by schools, hospitals and businesses in a 5-mile radius.
Tens of thousands of residents in at least 10 east metro communities would be restricted to 55 gallons of water per person per day — a prospect that one city official called "absolutely absurd."
That's a far cry from the 90-gallon restrictions ordered by Judge Margaret Marrinan in 2017 to keep the lake at 922 feet above sea level. Marrinan ruled that the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) had mismanaged the lake for decades, allowing its waters to be drained.
