Use eminent domain to clean up Iowa’s waterways

Eminent domain is the right of governments or their agencies to take private property for the public good with just compensation. It‘s been used to take homes for building roads, city lots for development, tribal lands for highways and railroads, farmlands for pipelines.

Safe drinking water is surely a highest priority for us all, so why aren’t all our waterways and extensive adjoining banks given eminent domain protections to serve this incredibly critical public good?

For decades we have politely “asked” corporate farmers and animal confinement operations not to pollute our water. We have created recommendations for them to use voluntarily to decrease polluting public waters, and we even pay them taxpayer money to do so. In essence, we are paying them to not damage or destroy what rightfully belongs to every living being.

Eminent domain should be applied to all our waterways including large setbacks, this to cease polluting by those few farmers who care less, by livestock confinements and all corporations, and any damage should be punishable by large fines, even jail time. The public should not have to pay endlessly to clean up and protect this most important public good.

Mary McBee

Tama