Iowans can’t accept more delays on water

Scientists, farmers, rural communities and health practitioners have known for years that industrial agriculture pollutes water, endangering both human and environmental health. This crisis is approaching a boiling point in Iowa.

Two weeks after the state’s largest fertilizer spill in a decade dumped 265,000 gallons into a river, killing every fish for 60 miles, reporting on the intersection of agricultural pollution and Iowa’s second-in-the-nation cancer rates is drawing much-needed attention to our mounting water crisis.

The Iowa DNR’s biannual report on statewide water pollution, released in March, found that over half the state’s tested waterways are too polluted for their intended use — be it drinking water, fishing, recreation or supporting aquatic life. This has been true since 2012.

Today’s water contamination crisis is the result of decades of Big Ag lobbying. Today Iowa has far more factory farms than any other state, and leads the nation in ethanol production. Intensive corn and soy production for livestock feed and ethanol refineries has built a system rife with chemical-laden fertilizer, pesticides and manure. Iowa’s factory farms produce a whopping 109 billion pounds of waste every year — more than 25 times the state’s human waste. It all has to go somewhere.

Iowa’s latest impaired waterways report finds that E. coli, a telltale indicator of animal waste, is responsible for the large majority of impairments. University of Iowa Professor Dr. Silvia Secchi and other academics submitted an amicus brief in a Ninth Circuit Food & Water Watch lawsuit last month, citing no less than 50 published studies on the clear connection between these enormous animal factories and water pollution.

Recent Gazette reporting asked the question: Is research, or action, on Iowa’s agricultural water pollution necessary?

It could not be more obvious Big Ag is ruining Iowa’s water, and with it our health. While study after study confirms this conclusion, the problem is only getting worse. Calls for further research only enable the crisis. The higher the burden of proof, the more time Big Ag has to consolidate control in Des Moines.

Gov. Kim Reynolds has consistently supported environmental deregulation — including defunding statewide water quality networks last year — and gutting critical karst region protections from updated factory farm water pollution regulations, leaving the area vulnerable to significant contamination. The state Senate entertained legislation this session to eliminate manure management plans for factory farms, and even basic common sense legislation to require farmland buffer strips along waterways did not make it past the first funnel.

The Clean Water for Iowa Act, introduced for the first time this year, would tackle the pollution at its source, requiring all factory farms to obtain water pollution permits that adequately protect clean water and monitor discharges.

Iowans will not accept continued delay, inaction, or further environmental rollbacks. We’ll expect to see legislators back the Clean Water for Iowa Act next session.

Jennifer Breon is an Iowa organizer with Food & Water Watch. She lives in Iowa City.