Clean water must be a priority

During the bank bailouts 2008 the phrase “privatize the profits, socialize the losses” came to describe crony capitalism. It seems an appropriate term to describe the stance of big agriculture in Iowa. They are poisoning our water for bigger yields and efficient hog production and the rest of us are paying with high rates of cancer, high medical costs, the high cost of water treatment and the loss of safe water recreation. James Larew’s editorial last Sunday spelled out the problem but Joel Wells letter in the same paper put it more succinctly. We must make the right to clean water a major issue in the next and future election cycles to make candidates take a stand so that we can vote accordingly. We cannot live without clean water.

Fred Easker

Cedar Rapids