Scientists say Polk County’s water research findings are applicable to Eastern Iowa, too

IOWA CITY — Despite continued contamination and nitrate spikes in Iowa’s rivers and streams this year, University of Iowa researcher Elliot Anderson insists that the state’s water quality issues can be solved.

“When we're approaching this issue, there's nothing we've reported on tonight that is unsolvable, there's nothing that we can't fix (and) nothing that we can’t improve to make society better,” Anderson, a research scientist in the UI’s IIHR — Hydroscience and Engineering Department, said during an event Wednesday.

Anderson was one of four researchers who participated in an event called Our Water, Our Future. It provided an in-depth look at the Central Iowa Source Water Research Assessment, which studied central Iowa’s Des Moines and Raccoon watersheds.

The CISWRA report was released this summer, after more than 4,000 hours of research by more than a dozen environmental scientists from around the state. The report, commissioned by the Polk County Board of Supervisors, was published at the same time Central Iowa Water Works was reporting prolonged high nitrate levels in its source water, which led to a nearly two-month lawn watering ban.

The CISWRA report focused on six key environmental areas of concern: livestock manure management; stream channel protection; land use adjacent to rivers; harmful algal blooms; pathogens; and nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.

Although the report focused on the Raccoon and Des Moines watersheds, Anderson — one of the science advisers on the report — said the results could be applied to Eastern Iowa’s watersheds too.

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“They have very, very similar characteristics in terms of ecology land use and climate. … A lot of these same issues are transferable to other locales in the Midwest, and so we have a lot of the same issues here in Johnson County and in Iowa City,” Anderson said. “Des Moines is unique that they use a lot more river water than other parts of the state for drinking water sources, but by and large, there's not really anything that special or that unusual about Des Moines and Raccoon River in comparison to the other watersheds in Iowa.”

Adam Shriver, director of wellness and nutrition policy at Drake University’s Harkin Institute, said that although the report was a deep dive into central Iowa watersheds, the findings are relevant for all Iowans.

“The problems that are discussed, the issues and challenges, are things that maybe impact other parts of Iowa, even more than Des Moines, because Des Moines actually has a pretty high tech monitoring system and has a world-class waste treatment center, Des Moines Water Works,” Shriver said, adding that when Des Moines Water Works was built it was the world's most expensive nitrate removal system.

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Health impacts

Shriver said for many Iowans, the health risks linked to water quality issues are top of mind.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 capped the limit for nitrate in drinking water at 10 milligrams per liter, mainly to protect pregnant women and infants from blue-baby syndrome.

But Jerald Schnoor, professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering at UI and a co-author of the study, said there can be health risks associated with drinking water that has nitrate levels below 10 mg/L.

He said recent studies have found health risks from consuming water with even 3 to 5 mg/L of nitrate. And studies have linked nitrate consumption to colorectal, bladder and breast cancers, thyroid issues and birth defects.

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“We can't take much comfort in the fact that we're drinking nitrate concentrations under the EPA’s standards,” Schnoor said.

Shriver, who participated in cancer listening sessions held across the state this summer, noted that Iowans in attendance at several of the meetings raised questions about the findings of the CISWRA report.

“We asked people what they were concerned about when it came to cancer, and the top two answers were drinking water and agricultural exposure. … When you talk about cancer, it's always going to be complicated, but I think Iowans are greatly concerned,” Shriver said. “Having been a state where we're No. 2 in cancer in the country for three years in a row, Iowans are very concerned about this and so this is an issue that's really impacting people all over the state.”

The latest Cancer in Iowa report, released in February by the Iowa Cancer Registry, shows Iowa has maintained its second-highest and fastest-growing rate of new cancers nationally, while the number of cancer survivors in the state has risen.

Rescinded funding for water quality measures

As discussions continue about water quality in Iowa, the state’s largest water sensor network — which provides real-time data on nitrate, pH, dissolved oxygen concentrations and more in multiple watersheds throughout the state — is set to run out of funding next year. State money that has funded the network for more than a decade was reallocated by the Iowa Legislature in 2023.

The Polk County Board of Supervisors voted to allocate $200,000 to the sensor network, about one-third of the cost to run it for one year. The funding from Polk County will come from surplus funds from the CISWRA report and remaining money from the American Rescue Plan Act, which was set aside for water quality purposes.

Larry Weber, director of IIHR -- Hydroscience & Engineering at UI, met with the Linn County Board of Supervisors and the Linn County Conservation Board Monday to discuss whether Linn County could help fund the program as well.

Weber and other representatives from UI will meet with Johnson County’s Board of Supervisors and the Johnson County Conservation Board next month.

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Changing the conversation

John Norris, former Polk County administrator, said Wednesday that during his tenure he pushed to make water quality a priority for investment by the county.

Norris said that the CISWRA report was one of those investments and stemmed from having an “honest conversation about our water quality” around the state.

“Our water quality has deteriorated throughout the 12 years since the Nutrient Reduction Strategy started, which tells us what we are doing presently isn't going to solve the problem,” Norris said. “So now we have to not just come up with policy ideas recommendations. We've got to create a political will state to want to do something.”

Norris urged the people in attendance at Wednesday’s event — more than 200 who gathered in Iowa City — to go to state policymakers “with confidence and empowerment” and say, “what we're doing is not enough.”

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Norris also noted that while water quality is a top environmental issue for many Iowans, by and large, environmental issues are not often a key voting issue in Iowa.

“It's most important that we establish and address the problem,” Norris said. “You can all help. So please take this forward, push it out, make this a voting issue for Iowans this year and beyond, because that's how we're going to address 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.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com