EPA chief speaking at Iowa State Fairgrounds Thursday

The administrator of the federal Environmental Protection Agency will be in Iowa later this week to deliver remarks at an awards luncheon at the Iowa State Fairgrounds, officials said Tuesday.

EPA chief Gina McCarthy, who won U.S. Senate confirmation last month, is slated to be in Des Moines on Thursday to speak with farmers at the Iowa Farm Environmental Leader Awards ceremony at the Farm Bureau Picnic Shelter on the Iowa State Fairgrounds.

McCarthy will discuss the federal agency's role in rural America and the EPA's partnership with the agricultural community to protect water, land, and air, according to an EPA news release. She also will highlight EPA's commitment to carrying out President Obama's Climate Action Plan to reduce carbon pollution, and the new environmental challenges that agriculture and rural communities face.

McCarthy's Iowa visit comes at a time when Clean Water Act negotiations are under way between the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which cited Iowa regulators in July 2012 for failing to have an adequate inspection program for large-scale livestock facilities, failing to act in response to manure spills and other environmental violations, and failing to assess adequate fines and penalties when violations occur.

Iowa environmental activists have accused Gov. Terry Branstad and Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds of interfering with those negotiations by interceding on behalf of corporate interests by attempting to shield livestock producers from effective public oversight.

Branstad administration officials have countered that Iowa has embarked on a proactive, science-based nutrient reduction strategy that works with stakeholders, including farmers, to make direct efforts to reduce nutrients that enter waterways in a practical and cost-effective manner.

They argue the voluntary effort has just commenced and will need some time to produce results, and that the governor has expressed a willingness to work with the EPA to ensure regulations that protect natural resources without becoming "overly burdensome, redundant or unnecessary."

However, clean-water advocates have called for state-mandated action to reduce pollution levels in Iowa waterways, saying voluntary efforts are not working and threaten the safety of Iowans' drinking water.

Environment Iowa, a statewide citizen-based advocacy group, has urged state action to set standards for farm runoff, create a “polluter pay system,” and establish a plan with real timetables and goals to clean up Iowa's lakes, streams and rivers.

On Monday, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) members awarded a State Fair-style giant brown ribbon for polluted water to the governor. They called on him to implement a strong clean water plan that would require at least one unannounced inspection every five years for large-scale livestock facilities which include on-the-ground tours of confinement buildings, manure pits, production areas, tile inlets, and fields, as well as water quality monitoring up and down stream.

The EPA has threatened to revoke Iowa's enforcement authority and take over protection of Iowa's waterways unless DNR officials develop a plan for more aggressive livestock enforcement. The DNR and EPA have been negotiating this work plan agreement to bring Iowa into compliance with the Clean Water Act after the EPA released a report last year finding the DNR's factory farm enforcement program does not meet federal requirements.