Clean Water Now? Or in 2029? Your Choice…

A guest post from Mark Langgin, director of Citizens for a Healthy Iowa

It is great to see Governor Branstad recognize that we need a constitutionally protected and sustainable source of funding for water quality through the Natural Resources & Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, but his proposal doesn’t fulfill the promise of what Iowa voters approved in 2010.

The constitutional amendment approved by the voters in 2010 created the Trust Fund, and specified that it would be funded with revenue generated from 3/8ths-of-a-cent from state sales tax revenue. The amendment also specified that this would not be triggered until the state sales tax was increased by one cent.

Even so, after tens of thousands of dollars in attacks from the Iowa Farm Bureau calling it a tax increase, voters in 79 of Iowa’s 99 counties approved the constitutional amendment. Since then, the fund remains empty while the quality of our drinking water, soil, parks, trails, and wildlife habitat worsens each year.

Some Iowa legislators and Governor Branstad will tell you that Iowans were uninformed in 2010, that they didn’t know they were voting for a tax increase. Iowa voters aren’t uninformed – they understood that creating the Trust Fund would require a sales tax increase to fund important water quality, habitat, outdoor recreation and soil conservation programs. To say otherwise is disingenuous. Iowa voters are a well-educated and well-informed lot.

When the Branstad Administration took office in 2010, the number of polluted waterways in Iowa was just over 400. That number has increased by nearly 40% since then, burdening Iowa with over 600 polluted waterways, as well as burdening Des Moines taxpayers with ever-increasing utility rates to remove nitrates from their drinking water.

But this isn’t just an urban issue – it’s impacting rural Iowa as well.

Iowa’s agriculture industry is also losing out on critical funding for soil health and farm conservation programs. The state loses an average of five tons of soil from every acre of farmland each year caused by erosion from ag runoff. Iowa farmers are interested in soil conservation and want to protect the investment in their farms so future generations of farmers can farm the land that has been owned for generations by many families. Some farmers are beginning to admit the damage of runoff to soil and drinking water, and have implemented or expressed interest in implementing conservation practices.

And let’s not forget the importance of parks, trails and wildlife habitat and the money generated from each. A 2007 study of outdoor recreation in Iowa estimated $2.63 billion of spending supporting 27,400 jobs and $580 million of personal income (“The Economic Value of Iowa’s Natural Resources” Daniel Otto, Dan Monchuk, Kanlaya Jintanakul, and Catherine Kling) & (“Iowa’s Natural Resources Significant Factor in Economy, Wallace’s Farmer, October 8, 2012). Yet many beaches at Iowa’s parks are polluted with bacteria, the backlog of trail projects continues to grow, and wildlife habitat increasingly disappears as farmers eliminate their brushy fields and grasslands – the required habitat for wildlife – to plant crops.

Here’s how the new money from the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund would be used – and this is just the short list:

• Installing conservation practices and watershed protection improvement
• Improving rivers and streams to reduce runoff/restore habitat
• Establishing wetland and wildlife habitat restoration and protection
• Developing, maintaining and promoting trails and water trails to enhance economic development and solidify Iowa’s reputation as national leader in trails
• Promoting programs for soil, water, wildlife and conservation

Governor Branstad’s latest proposal is to extend the one-cent sales tax for school infrastructure that’s set to expire in 2029, and divert 3/8ths-of-a-cent from that one-cent sales tax to water quality. The rest would go to schools. In Branstad’s eyes, everyone wins. But it’s not a win – not by a long shot.

First of all, it takes much-needed money from schools – no Iowan wants that, except Governor Branstad it seems. Second, it would be almost 13 years from now that we’d receive money that we’ve needed for centuries for our diminishing natural resources, and nearly 30 years past the year the Trust Fund was approved by the voters. Polling demonstrates that Iowans are willing to pay more for clean water through a 3/8ths-of-a-cent increase in the state sales tax and we don’t have to take from other priorities to do so.

Branstad’s proposal completely diminishes the purpose of why Iowans went to the polls in the first place in 2010. In fact, Branstad and the Legislature are treating it as if we didn’t even go, or that we don’t remember what we voted for. But we remember, just like we remember that the voters approved creating a Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund in 2010, with over 32,000 more votes than Governor Branstad received that year.

Citizens for a Healthy Iowa is an Iowa-based non-profit organization that works to promote sustainable public health, agricultural, economic development and environmental policy. Learn more about CFHIA at www.citizensforahealthyiowa.org

by Mark Langgin
Posted 8/9/16