Johnson County weighs $200,000 request to keep Iowa water sensor network running

IOWA CITY — As Iowa researchers continue the search for a new funding source for the state’s largest water sensor network — which provides real-time data about nitrate, phosphorus and flow levels in the state’s rivers and streams — the network’s director said Iowa’s nitrate issues are continuing to expand.

Larry Weber, director of hydroscience and engineering in the College of Engineering at the University of Iowa said nitrate levels in Iowa’s waterways have been growing over the last several decades.

Between the 1930s and 1950s, Weber said the average nitrate rate in Iowa’s water was 1 milligram per liter. In the 1970s and 1980s, he said it grew to 3 to 4 milligrams per liter.

Today, Weber said the nitrate concentration in Iowa’s rivers and streams statewide averages 7 to 8 milligrams per liter, barely under the Environmental Protection Agency’s 10 milligram per liter threshold.

“We're hearing an awful lot about the cancer rates in Iowa and I will say that whether we can make that correlation at this moment or not, it's important to have the data, so we continue to do the studies that then either do disprove or prove that there is a correlation and causation there,” Weber told the Johnson County Board of Supervisors on Monday.

Weber and representatives of IIHR’s Iowa Water Quality Information System met with the Johnson County board on Monday to request financial assistance in keeping the network afloat after its current funding dries up in July 2026.

The network is currently comprised of about 70 water sensors scattered throughout the state. 53 of them are owned and operated by UI, while eight are owned by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and 10 are owned by the U.S. Geological Survey.

If the program is shuttered due to a lack of funding, the USDA and USGS sensors will remain deployed.

Johnson County Supervisor Rod Sullivan said he thinks the data the network provides is “incredibly critical” and believes the network is a “state function.”

“I think this is critical to the health of Iowa,” Sullivan said Monday. He said that it is “premature for the county to make a commitment” but the Board would have a better idea of whether the county can invest in the program after looking at revenue for the year.

“Even when the state abdicates its responsibility to the Iowans, we're going to step up,” said Jon Green, chair of the board.

Finding new funding pools

The Iowa Water Quality Information Network — which has been monitoring water quality statewide since 2012 — was funded by the Iowa Legislature through 2023, until the program’s funds were reallocated and funneled to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

For the last two years, the program has been operating on “bridge funding,” Weber said, from the Walton Family Foundation.

The network is seeking about $200,000 from Johnson County — one-third of the cost of the program for one year — and is making a similar request of the Linn County Board of Supervisors for an additional $200,000 in the coming weeks.

It costs roughly $600,000 per year to operate the program fully. This goes toward maintaining and checking on the sensors deployed statewide, labor, upkeep of the network’s database, other materials and inflation costs.

Weber and other IIHR researchers met jointly with the Linn County Board of Supervisors and the Linn County Conservation Board on Oct. 27.

  Buy Photo

The Linn County Board of Supervisors told IIHR scientists they would consider investing funds in the program as well.

Linn County Board of Supervisors Vice Chair Kirsten Running-Marquardt told the researchers the board will look at the county’s budget and “see what we can do.”

“I think that's something we could look at and consider,” Running-Marquardt said, adding that the county is not currently ruling out partially funding the network.

The Polk County Board of Supervisors announced in October that it would invest $200,000 of county funds in the program to help fund the network after the current funding dries up in July.

Polk County’s contribution will come from two pools of money. About $90,344 will come from funds remaining from the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment, a study commissioned by the supervisors and published this summer. The other funding — just under $110,000 — will come from the county’s American Rescue Plan Act funds.

Weber said Polk County’s contribution is “year-by-year” funding.

Weber told both the Linn and Johnson counties’ boards of supervisors that he hopes financial investments on the county level will be “bridge funding” until the network is funded by the state again.

In addition to Polk, Linn and Johnson counties, Weber said he also plans to speak with the boards of supervisors in Fayette and Dubuque counties to see if they could assist the program.

He said he spoke to officials in Winneshiek County last week.

In September, the Izaak Walton League of Iowa launched a GoFundMe campaign to support the sensors network. As of Monday, it had raised $17,685.

  Buy Photo

Weber said in addition to the GoFundMe website, the Izaak Walton League has received $14,000 in checks to go toward the network. In total, Weber said the League has raised about $30,000 toward its goal of $500,000.

“We appreciate the work that you folks do, the data that you collect,” Green, of Johnson County, told the researchers. “I think we all recognize that we have some problems with water quality, and it's damn difficult to fix something if you can't measure it.”

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.

Sign up for our curated, weekly environment & outdoors newsletter.

Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com