Land amendment would offer endless benefits

The Iowa's Water and Land Legacy amendment on the Tuesday ballot offers many rich benefits: cleaner waters; efforts to hold our rich topsoil, the state's “black gold,” in place rather than sending it down the Mississippi River; trails, parks, hunting and fishing lands, and other recreational amenities that would improve our quality of life, improve our economy and help keep our children here in Iowa.

I think of the proposed amendment as “infrastructure improvement.” Just as our road system allows us to navigate the land, the amendment will help build biodiversity, buffer strips, grassland wildlife habitat, recreational lands and trails, conservation partnerships and other amenities that will reintroduce beauty, integrity and sustainability into our landscape.

Our natural world blesses us each day in so many ways: by channeling and cleansing our waters, by building the soils that will feed our grandchildren, by producing pollinators for our gardens and orchards, by decomposing our wastes and even, when we let it, by lessening the size and damage of Iowa's increasing number of floods. The list of benefits is endless.

Vote yes on this amendment.

Connie Mutel

Solon