Protect water, not bottom line

David Osterberg is right in his editorial ('Voluntary measures aren't enough,” July 23).

Our whole economic system is based on making the biggest profit in the least amount of time.

If the ag industry was really serious about doing the right thing to protect our waters, they would have started 30, maybe 50, years ago. We knew then what we should have been doing.

Yes, certainly, there are farmers who have done the right thing over the years and they will have saved their soil and not sent pollutants down the waters to New Orleans. We need to celebrate them.

But we all know that there are farmers and ag corporations who are interested in the bottom line at the end of the year, not the long term health of our land and our water. Voluntary rules are not enough. We need regulations with some teeth in them and with deadlines.

The Environmental Protection Agency is on the right path.

Katy Hansen

Iowa City