Pollution is making Iowa a scum pond

Summer vacations when I was a kid meant Lake Okoboji and Spirit Lake. The Iowa Great Lakes were only a few hours from where my parents lived. We had a 1952 Buick stuffed with essentials. I was in the back seat with a box of comics.

We went to the same resort every year and stayed in Cabin 3 for a week. The cottage was rustic but comfortable and not far from the fishing dock. The Iowa we lived in was a Lakeland state, ranked third after Minnesota and Wisconsin, with rolling hills and awesome bluffs as well as Loess shoreline.

Later, we would drive all day to a resort near Park Rapids, Minn. We also had a winterized cabin overlooking the Missouri, so we could see Iowa every day.

Since the state has gone “super red,” we spent nearly $1,000 to place a filtration system in our home. When I worked on sabbatical with the Army Corps of Engineers, we had a nickname for water bodies that smelled and were slurry. We called them industrial lakes, or scum ponds.

Iowa is changing. A handful of people own land on which the runoff is changing the state to pond scum for the rest of us. We can change it back and the polluters can still make a dollar or two. We are now growing trees after the Derecho. We still live in the woods. Pollution need not be permanent. Woodsy memories can be pleasant for the rich and poor.

Joe Snell

Cedar Rapids