Huge cattle feedlot threatens NE Iowa waters

The State of Iowa wants to throw out a lawsuit by the Iowa Sierra Club that challenges how the Department of Natural Resources issued a permit to allow 11,600 head of cattle in a facility in the headwaters of Clayton County’s Bloody Run Creek. A judge will hear the DNR’s motion to dismiss the suit on Jan. 6.

WHAT? The state agency whose mission it is to protect our environment insists that a leading conservation organization should NOT try to safeguard Iowa’s natural resources?

The Sierra Club’s suit alleges that the DNR will allow manure from Supreme Beef LLC to be applied to farm fields at four to six times the legal rate for nitrogen and phosphorus. That would pollute Bloody Run Creek, a popular trout stream, and other streams in the sensitive “Driftless Area,” which is underlain with fractured limestone (karst) bedrock.

It’s not just Sierra Club members, but all Iowans who value clean water and enjoy the Driftless who will be affected by any missteps by Supreme Beef LLC. The DNR should stand up to industrial agriculture and require protection of Iowa’s waterways.

Larry Stone

Elkader