Farm, environmental interests clash over quality checks

Mistrust between farmers and environmentalists has resurfaced over a bill to shift some water quality responsibilities from the Department of Natural Resources to the Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

While farm interests say the bill would increase the efficiency of efforts to reduce pollution, environmentalist say putting an agency whose mission is to promote agriculture in charge of identifying and mitigating agricultural pollution is tantamount to assigning the fox to guard the hen house.

The House, by a 64-32 vote, passed House File 643 on Wednesday. The Senate may or may not consider its companion, Senate File 500, yet this session, according to Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids.

Proposed by Gov. Terry Branstad, the bill would transfer responsibility for non-point source pollution - which in Iowa typically occurs as agricultural runoff of sediment, manure and chemicals - from the DNR to the Department of Agriculture.

Branstad spokesman Tim Albrecht said the move will yield more efficient administration of Section 319 of the federal Clean Water Act, which provides grants to states to identify and mitigate non-point source pollution. “The idea is to get more of the available money channeled into conservation projects on the ground,” he said.

Farmers trust agriculture department personnel, which will increase participation in voluntary conservation programs, said Rick Robinson, environmental policy adviser for the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, which has registered in support of the bill.

Robinson said the legislation was motivated by recent rigorous federal Environmental Protection Agency measures to limit pollution in Chesapeake Bay. Those measures include the potential for mandatory agricultural limits in four states if goals are not reached by 2013.

“We want to make progress so that does not happen here,” he said.

Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey said his department welcomes the additional responsibility and believes it will enable the department to make headway in the effort to control non-point source pollution.

The DNR recently signed on as a supporter of the bill, though opponents question whether the move was strictly voluntary.

Iowa's 319 program is “one of the more effective and successful programs in the region,” said Karen Flournoy, a director at the EPA's Region 7 office in Kansas City, Kan.

Asked to comment on the proposed changes, Flournoy cautioned that the split responsibility - with the DNR in charge of point-source pollution and the Department of Agriculture in charge of non-point source pollution - could result in duplication of effort and increased stress on limited resources.

“This is a bad idea. The DNR has collected good scientific data to develop plans to reduce non-point pollution,” said Marian Riggs-Gelb, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council.

Riggs-Gelb said the DNR's pinpointing of pollution sources through monitoring and assessment has complemented the agriculture department's efforts to coordinate with landowners on voluntary conservation projects and practices.

This bad cop-good cop arrangement has worked well, she said.

The bill “is a step in the wrong direction” that will lead to more rather than less pollution, said Steve Veysey of Ames, a water quality advocate for both the Sierra Club and the Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association.

Government, he said, has a fiduciary responsibility to protect water quality. “It doesn't have authority to give that right away to the Farm Bureau,” he said.

Likening the proposed responsibility shift to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic,” Hogg said the “real story here” is that the Legislature has cut funding for watershed management by more than $10 million in the past two years.

“The bottom line,” he said, “is that this bill is not greased and will not pass the Senate without further scrutiny.”