Izaak Walton League launches campaign to fund Iowa water quality sensor network

As researchers behind an Iowa water quality sensor program race to find a new funding source before money runs out and they’re forced to pull the sensors from the state’s rivers and streams, a nonprofit has launched a crowdsource campaign to try to keep the program afloat.

Last week, the Iowa division of the Izaak Walton League established a GoFundMe page to help raise money to support the Iowa Water Quality Information System. The League’s goal is to raise $500,000 to keep the statewide program funded for another year.

The IWQIS network consists of dozens of sensors that measure nitrate, pH, dissolved oxygen concentrations, discharge rates and temperature in Iowa’s rivers and streams. Readings are taken every five minutes, providing researchers — and anyone else who wants to monitor the website — with real-time data about water quality.

The funds the University of Iowa program has relied on for years were diverted when, in 2023, the Iowa Legislature passed and Gov. Kim Reynolds signed Senate File 558. The bill moved $500,000 from Iowa State University’s Nutrient Research Center — which previously funded the sensors — to a water quality program at the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

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While the ISU Nutrient Research Center has continued to provide funding for the UI water sensor program, that funding has decreased each year, and it will run out in July 2026.

As funding has decreased, so has the number of water sensors — from 75 in 2023 to 65 in 2024, and 60 this year.

Without a new source of funding, no UI sensors will be deployed next summer, although sensors deployed by the U.S. Geological Survey will remain.

Larry Weber, director of hydroscience and engineering in the College of Engineering at UI, said his team needs to raise about $600,000 annually to continue the program.

‘Every dollar helps’

Although the GoFundMe had only raised about $2,000 as of Tuesday evening — less than 1 percent of the $500,000 goal — Weber said every dollar helps.

“The issue in Iowa right now is we have poor water quality, and the water quality is worsening, and that's starting to attract more and more attention,” he said. “Folks want to find a way to help, and this is a structure that allows people to help.”

Dale Braun, president of the Iowa Division of the Izaak Walton League of America, helped spearhead the GoFundMe. He said the fundraiser was set up with two goals: to raise money for the program and to “make the public aware that we have to step up and do the legislators’ jobs for them.”

“I mean, $500,000 to the Iowa legislator is a drop in the bucket that's nothing,” Braun said. “And I personally feel that (the funding) was held back as a way to keep the public ignorant of the nitrate issues that are in our Iowa streams.”

Braun said the Iowa Division of the League will contribute funding as well, but he hasn’t approached the nonprofit’s board about how much can be allocated to the program.

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He said all 39 Iowa chapters of the Izaak Walton League will be asked to contribute some money from their local chapters, but the amount will be dependent on their individual budgets.

“Each chapter is responsible for their own funding. We're just going to ask them to give whatever it is that they can bear. If it's 10 bucks or $1,000 or $1,500, that's up to them,” Braun said.

‘Every day at least, somebody reaches out’

Weber said he has heard concern from conservation organizations, watershed management authorities and members of the public about the sensor program’s future.

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“There isn't a single day that goes by that someone new to me reaches out with concerns about the fact that the network has been defunded,” Weber said. “Truly, it is every day at least, somebody reaches out. Often, it's many times a day, folks wanting to know what's going on, asking how many sensors we are losing or about the cost.”

In fact, he said many watershed management authorities across the state have offered to pick up the cost of a sensor in their area for a year.

Weber said he and his team are interested in that idea but have concerns that the program could become “very piecemeal” rather than a statewide sensor network.

Weber said the network is vital to monitoring the safety of Iowans’ drinking water and that commitment to funding the program should be on the same level as other public safety initiatives.

“We're starting to lose that resource in our state.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues. She is also a contributing writer for the Ag and Water Desk, an independent journalism collaborative focusing on the Mississippi River Basin.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com