Proposed new rules governing the aquifer that provides 50 to 60 percent of the water in Fort Dodge are inching closer to reality.

Strict controls on how much water families and businesses can use aren’t being considered, however. What state environmental officials are working on are rules that would govern how much water can be pumped from the Jordan Aquifer and some new processes for monitoring its water level.

”These rules are certainly intended to be an early warning rather than an announcement that we’re in dire straits with the Jordan Aquifer,” Michael Anderson, a senior environmental engineer with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, said Friday in Fort Dodge.

Anderson was one of three Department of Natural Resources officials who conducted a public meeting on the proposed aquifer rules Friday morning in the Fort Dodge Public Library. About 15 people attended.

The Jordan Aquifer is an underground sandstone formation that has water within it. Fort Dodge has five wells that tap into it.

Late last year, Iowa environmental officials began considering new rules for the aquifer because of concerns that, statewide, water is being drawn from it faster than it can recharge.

Currently, state rules prohibit draining the water level in Jordan Aquifer wells more than 200 feet below a static water baseline established in 1978.

Chad Fields, a geologist with the Department of Natural Resources, said Friday that the new rules would be based on pumping water levels which can be measured more accurately than the static water levels now in use.

Wells, he said, would be classified into three tiers. He said most wells would be in the first tier, which he described as “pretty much business as usual.”

In a February interview with The Messenger, Fields said the Fort Dodge water system would fall into that first tier.

“Your water levels haven’t declined to a point where you would be placed in any other tier,” he said then.

On Friday, he said the second tier would include wells in which the pumping water level has declined more than 300 feet below an established level. The third tier would include wells in which the pumping water level has declined more than 400 feet below the established level.

Fields said water use reduction plans would be required for communities with wells in the second and third tiers.

As part of the new rules, Fort Dodge would be placed in a Protected Water Source Area.

Being placed in that area will mean that any additional wells the city proposes to drill into the Jordan Aquifer will be subjected to a new type of analysis, called a predictive model, to determine their impact on the water supply.

Part of Friday’s session was a formal public hearing on the proposed rules at which three people spoke. Two of them stressed the need to protect the water supply.

”It’s the most important thing we have,” said Gene Holtorf, of Fort Dodge. ”I can live without ethanol, but I can’t live without good drinking water.”

The third speaker was John Horrell, the superintendent of the John W. Pray Water Facility in Fort Dodge. He asked if communities that already have Jordan Aquifer wells will be subject to any more monitoring.

Fields replied that some different information will be required on the monthly reports Horrell already files.

Diane Moles, the executive officer of the department’s Water Supply Engineering Section, said the proposed rules will be considered by the Iowa Environmental Protection Commission in June.