Iowa lawmakers hear pitch to remove phosphorous in water

DES MOINES - Removing phosphorous from water used for farm and residential consumption, which would help lower nitrogen in the water supply, could be cost-effective, perhaps lucrative, according to a presentation to Iowa legislators Monday.

The House Environmental Protection Committee heard from EcoProducts, a Florida-based company that has done successful demonstrations in Storm Lake and Prairie du Chien, Wis., of its process for removing phosphorous from water.

EcoProducts' process is an offshoot of one used by Pattison Sand Co., which mines frack sand in Clayton County.

The lawmakers' interest stems, at least in part, from a lawsuit filed by the Des Moines Water Works against Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac counties. It claims drainage districts in the northwest Iowa counties allow nitrates to move from farm fields into the Raccoon River, one of the city's drinking water sources.

Excess nutrients, such as nitrogen, in the water supply can displace or kill aquatic life and can make humans sick. However, algae blooms and vegetative growth are accelerated by phosphorous in the water.

'If you pull the phosphorous out of the water, it will do a lot to clean up the water,” Gil Gutknecht, a former Minnesota congressman who grew up in Cedar Falls and attended the University of Northern Iowa, told the committee.

It's not cheap. Reducing phosphorous to 1 part per million - the level mandated by several states - can cost as much as $200 a pound, EcoProducts technical director David Aubry told the lawmakers. However, the cost-effectiveness increases as the level of phosphorous increases.

EcoProducts doesn't propose to address the issue on a farm-by-farm basis. Instead, it makes more sense to use the firms' scalable and modular chemical process as an 'add-on” to typical municipal water treatment plants, Aubry said.

Gutknecht acknowledged that might be seen as shifting the cost of removing phosphorous from the landowner to wastewater treatment rate payers.

'We're all going to pay. We all drink from the same well,” he said.

With new technology, he said, the cost is not prohibitive. Plus, Gutknecht said that if the removal is done properly, there is a market for the phosphorous used in fertilizer and feed additives.

In his presentation, Gutknecht, a Republican, said, 'Clean water not a partisan issue.” However, only two of the nine Democrats on the committee attended the presentation.

Ranking member Rep. Chuck Isenhart, D-Dubuque, explained that typically, standing committees don't meet after the second funnel deadline, which was last week.

Besides, he questioned 'whether it is appropriate to provide a forum for an infomercial on a proprietary process.”