Will legislators ever require stream buffers?

Why isn’t it a no-brainer? Why plant crops where they’ll regularly get flooded out? Why farm where you risk dropping your $500,000 combine over a creek bank during harvest?

And how easy it could be to improve Iowa’s deteriorating water if all farmers would leave a vegetated buffer along the creek bank to slow the erosion of topsoil and reduce the runoff of farm chemicals. Many farmers already do that — but the Iowa Legislature has a chance to mandate the conservation practice. Kudos to Democratic Reps. Beth Wessel-Kroeschell, Ross Wilburn, Elinor Levin, and Sharon Sue Steckman for sponsoring HF 2029, which would require a permanent vegetated buffer strip at least 30 feet wide in stream corridors.

In the 60-plus years I’ve canoed and fished Iowa streams, I’ve witnessed the increasing pollution of the water and the loss of uncountable tons of our precious soil resources. Will this ever change while I’m still able pick up a paddle or a fishing rod?

Larry Stone

Elkader