HER Stories: Mary Beth Stevenson recognized for commitment to clean drinking water for Cedar Rapids

This story first appeared in HER Stories 2025, an annual special section that features Eastern Iowa women who have experienced powerful paths of achievement for themselves, their families and their communities.

Mary Beth Stevenson was recently on the Sac and Fox Trail along the Cedar River when she moved a toad to the side of the trail so it wouldn’t get hit by a bicycle.

This lifelong fascination with amphibians and care for wildlife ultimately led to Stevenson’s current job of restoring and preserving wetlands in the Cedar Rapids area.

“I was always a kid who was riding their bike to their local stream and catching crayfish and catching frogs,” said Stevenson, the watersheds and source water program manager at the City of Cedar Rapids. “I’ve just always been kind of a nerd that way.”

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Stevenson, 48, grew up in Oberlin, Ohio, a small town outside of Cleveland with a small liberal arts college not too different from Grinnell where Stevenson completed her undergrad degree in biology. Her commitment to the wetlands accelerated at the University of Michigan where her master’s research focused on salamanders’ response to prescribed fires.

“I spent a lot of time at night on my hands and knees looking for salamanders,” she said.

Today, Stevenson’s commitment to watersheds in Cedar Rapids and the surrounding areas played a key role in the completion of large-scale water quality initiatives and in securing millions of dollars in funding to ensure the residents of Cedar Rapids have clean drinking water.

For her efforts, Stevenson was recognized with the 2023 Iowa Agriculture Water Alliance (IAWA) Public Impact Award.

“The watershed work that we’re doing is really important for today,” Stevenson said. “But I’d say it’s most important for the future. We can’t take for granted our agricultural land. We can’t take for granted the fact that we’re going to continue to have clean water. We’re going to have to invest, and we’re going to have to plan for the future … As Iowans, we really deserve that.”

Stevenson’s position with the City of Cedar Rapids was created in the wake of the 2008 flood when the overflowing waters of the Cedar River caused destruction to 10 percent of the city. In addition to flooding, the city recognized that its drinking water, sourced from a shallow alluvial aquifer, was under threat by an increased level of nitrates in the Cedar River caused by crop fertilizer and natural soil nutrient runoff from farmland.

Hired in 2019, Stevenson was charged with leading the Cedar River Source Water Partnership (CRSWP), and in 2021 she helped secure $7 million in funding from the USDA to implement various conservation practices in the Middle Cedar watershed, which includes five counties from Black Hawk County down to Linn County.

Through Regional Conservation Partnership (RCPP) initiatives, among other endeavors, local farmers have implemented approximately 90 edge of field practices such as saturated buffers, denitrifying bioreactors (buried trenches of woodchips), nutrient removal wetlands and oxbows, all of which are 100 percent paid for by grant funding.

Since 2021, more than 340,000 acres of farmland utilized cover crops, which is when farmers plant crops such as cereal rye and oats during the winter months to help prevent soil erosion.

From left, Mary Beth Stevenson, Karen Wilke of The Nature Conservancy in Iowa, and Kate Hoheisel from the City of Marion conduct a survey of a potential oxbow restoration site. (Submitted photo)

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Karen Wilke of The Nature Conservancy in Iowa, left, and Mary Beth Stevenson get down and dirty in a potential oxbow restoration site. An oxbow is a place in the landscape where the river has abandoned its channel. (Submitted photo)

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“When we can connect farmers with both the financial and the educational resources to make really good decisions about their land, that’s where we see the most success,” Stevenson said.

She said Linn County farmer Jim O’Connell built a “beautiful example” of a nutrient removal wetland. The wetland acts as a natural filter for nitrates running off farm drainage tile before the contaminants reach the surface water.

O’Connell said Stevenson also helped him implement additional “batch and build” projects including denitrification bioreactors, saturated buffers and prairie strips. He stressed that no money comes out of his pocket, and continued testing shows that nitrates have successfully decreased.

“What Mary Beth is doing is such an important job. She is bringing the farm and city together to achieve a certain goal — clean water that we all need,” O’Connell said. “That is an incredible task, and she is actually doing it.”

Evan Brehm, a conservation agronomist with the Iowa Soybean Association who works closely with Stevenson on batch and build projects, said Stevenson has an uncanny ability to gain the trust of farmers and understand their needs.

“Mary Beth has created funding sources that otherwise would not allow farmers and landowners to add cover crops or install edge of field practices,” Brehm said. “This gives [farmers] an ease of mind, less risk and a strong support system that makes conservation happen.”

Not only does Stevenson build trust with farmers, but she also builds partnerships with organizations such as the Iowa Soybean Association, the Iowa Department of Agriculture, and The Nature Conservancy in Iowa — organizations that, according to Stevenson, all have “different slices of the pie” but are all working towards the same goal.

Karen Wilke, associate director of freshwater at The Nature Conservancy in Iowa, said their work would not be possible without collaborations with partners such as Stevenson and the City of Cedar Rapids.

“Mary Beth has been a critical partner,” Wilke said. “Together we have found proven solutions and are hopeful for Iowa’s future.”

Stevenson said critical to achieving this future of clean water is continued education and outreach with Iowa farmers. In one year alone, Stevenson held more than 40 outreach events.

She said one field day in Grundy Center was particularly meaningful, because the hosting farmer was motivated to implement a nutrient removal wetland after attending an earlier outreach event.

“Any time that we can really help a farmer achieve their water quality goal, that’s to me very rewarding,” Stevenson said.