Searching for sustanence in Iowa’s water quality tussle

I guess it's fitting for an organization that bites the hind-ends of so many Iowa public officials that run afoul of its principles to serve up such delicious barbecued pork butt.

It was Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement that pulled the pork for its meeting earlier this month at the Johnson County Fairgrounds. Locally farmed and, of course, offered alongside many meatless alternatives. A nice crowd, 50 folks or more, came to enjoy a potluck and hear about issues the outspoken, take-no-prisoners liberal advocacy group cares about, from wage theft to water quality.

But tasty food was not the main attraction.

They came to hear Bill Stowe, CEO of the Des Moines Water Works, which has filed a federal lawsuit against drainage districts and boards of supervisors in three northwest Iowa counties over water quality. The water works, which draws its drinking water from surface water on the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, charges that the counties are doing too little to curtail farm chemical runoff.

It ends up in the Raccoon, and Stowe must remove it. Nitrates, in particular, have been a problem for the water works, which installed special equipment to remove them.

Interestingly enough, I was invited to check out Stowe's speech by Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Corbett. The mayor is on the board of directors for the Iowa Partnership for Clean Water, a Farm Bureau-backed group targeting Stowe's lawsuit. It's running a TV ad insisting the lawsuit could drive farmers off the land and make food prices spike. I recommend testing for high levels of hyperbole.

But I've gotta give Corbett credit for being willing to walk into a CCI meeting and trade TV caricatures of Stowe's crusade for a chance to see and hear the real thing.

'Bill is a very articulate speaker, coupled with a lot of passion, he can be very persuasive,” Corbett told me later. 'People want the issue addressed. The best solution is to shake hands and work together, not point fingers and blame others.”

Corbett even met some of his own fans.

'Keep those traffic cameras going,” a guy says to the mayor.

Stowe, with his long gray locks and wearing a bright green water works shirt, clearly is a skilled speaker. He's a funny, friendly and effective evangelist for tough regulation of farm runoff, and at a CCI meeting, he's preaching to the choir.

'Iowans should be ashamed of surface water quality in this state,” Stowe says, characterizing its condition as 'horrible,” while pointing to the state's growing list of impaired waterways. He says 90 percent of the problem comes from ag land. And the state's voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy designed to curtail pollutants, though based on 'great science,” won't repair the damage.

Mandatory regulation and permitting of 'point sources,” spots where farm runoff from drainage tiles flows into waterways, would do the job. He doesn't have an optimistic view of the sort of voluntary cooperation advocated by Corbett and farm groups.

'You and I can agree on fighting a fire. But we have to agree there is a fire,” Stowe says. 'How do we come to the center there? I don't know if we can.”

At one point, a guy in the audience, asks whether conservation practices being pursued by some farmers, including buffer strips, bioreactors to filter tile drainage, four-crop rotations and others, actually work. Stowe says they do work.

'We could be part of the solution,” the guy says, arguing that the CCI could advocate for those practices.

'They need their nose rapped first,” a woman says from the back of the audience.

Curt Zingula, who farms 1,300 actress in Linn County, has a nose. And he smells a rat in Stowe's plan.

'While many people will ask ‘how high?' when Bill Stowe says they need to jump on this ag nitrate issue, those people should be made aware of the futility of Stowe's goal of regulating tile outlets,” Zingula wrote to me in an email after I wrote a piece defending the lawsuit, and before I attended the CCI meeting.

'Many, if not most drainage systems, incorporate multiple parcels of land ownership. The question of regulating drainage tile becomes an unworkable determination of who adds how much to the effluence. Different methods of farming and different, unrecorded tile linages makes Stowe's regulation approach a pandering to ignorance.”

So I asked Stowe about Zingula's concerns. Stowe says he wants to require permits for drainage districts, not individual farmers, focused on 'final” outlets into waterways. Those districts, in turn, could require farmers to take steps necessary to help it meet permit requirements. He concedes it would give back-of-the-ballot-elected drainage district trustees considerable power.

So I called Zingula, who contends Stowe is changing his tune in the face of criticism. 'Mr. Stowe needs to get his story straight,” he says.

He also points out that nitrates removed by the water works are returned to the river. Stowe was asked about that by a CCI member.

'Are we proud of that? We're not,' Stowe said, contending his facility lacks the technology needed to 'break” the nitrogen cycle.

Zingula may not care much for Stowe's crusade, but he cares a lot about this issue. He's a member of the Iowa Watershed Improvement Review Board, which hands out state bucks to farmers and others for projects aimed at improving water quality. He's asked the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS, for engineering reports on two projects he's planning - a cellulosic bioreactor that uses bacteria in wood chips to eat nitrates at a tile outlet, and a saturated buffer, also designed to filter nutrients.

'If we don't handle this problem, it's going to get more expensive. It's pay me now or pay me later,” said Zingula, who retired from the county Farm Bureau board. 'I think about this almost every day. How can we motivate farmers to be more concerned about nutrients?”

The thing is, Stowe and Zingula both are right. Water quality in Iowa has gotten bad enough that something has to be done beyond the usual lip service and lack of leadership. Zingula is right that regulation is a great sound bite that's vastly more complicated in reality. And having watched Iowa politics for a long time, the day our state approves tough, mandatory ag drainage rules is a long way off.

So that brings us to one thing both sides should agree on. Without more bucks and strong political leadership, neither voluntary standards nor regulations will work. Our Legislature just voted to spend $9.6 million on the state agriculture department's Water Quality Initiative, the flagship program intended to help farmers meet voluntary nutrient reduction goals. The estimated cost of meeting those standards statewide is in the $1 billion to $2 billion range.

Drop, meet ocean.

It's not just the state. Zingula submitted his request for engineering assistance to the NRCS four months ago and has heard no word back. Farmers have been required by the feds for nearly two decades to submit conservation plans, but few, if any, have ever been checked for compliance. 'They don't have the manpower,” he said.

And our legislators don't have the willpower to do what needs to be done to address what's becoming a huge statewide issue. With the general fund budget saturated by big promises to local governments, schools, low-income folks who need health coverage and other state priorities, it's time for Plan B. Long past time.

A three-eigths-cent sales tax increase would fund the Iowa Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, created by an overwhelming public vote in 2010. The fund would bring in up to $200 million annually, including a big chunk for water quality and related conservation efforts. That would be a huge boost.

Maybe you don't like a sales tax increase. Then, by all means, come up with something else. Get creative. But do something, governor, lawmakers, members of Congress. If not, you may start feeling the heat. We'll bring the barbecue sauce.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com