Nitrate levels routinely exceed levels considered safe by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Des Moines River, the major source of drinking water for Iowa's capitol city. (Adobe Stock)
The environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch has announced a 20-point “clean water blueprint” it says would help protect Iowa’s waterways from toxic levels of nitrate and phosphorous pollution. Manure from large-scale agriculture operations routinely pollutes ground and surface water nearby.
Jennifer Breon, senior organizer for Food & Water Watch, said the plan calls on large-scale operators to comply with a series of mandates, including adhering to a moratorium on new factory farms in vulnerable groundwater areas and stopping the application of manure on snow-covered or frozen ground.
“We have a voluntary nutrient reduction strategy in Iowa that has failed to produce results,” she said, “and so we need to require farmers to follow science-based management practices for applying manure and synthetic fertilizer to cropland.”
Researchers currently monitor nitrate levels in real time through a series of 500 sensors in the state’s rivers, lakes and streams that comprise the Iowa Water Quality Information System. Clean-waterway advocates have called on the Legislature to increase funding for the network and make it permanent. The plan also calls on ag producers to be more transparent about what they are applying to their land and when.
Breon said the blueprint also calls on the Legislature to pass a Clean Water for Iowa Act that would require water-pollution monitoring at more than 4,000 factory farms in the state, most of which currently lack state or federal oversight.
“We’ve reached a breaking point and Iowans around the state are fed up with inaction on water quality in the legislature,” she said, “and they want assurances that the water that they and their families are drinking is safe, and they want lawmakers to do something to make sure that that happens.”
Last year’s bill to improve water-quality standards, Senate File 183, died in the Legislature. Food & Water Watch is working with supportive lawmakers to introduce a similar measure this year.
Related: The link between Iowa’s worsening water quality and rising cancer rate
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