‘Goose poop excuse’ bill smells up the Iowa House

Iowa Republican lawmakers want to send the Iowa Department of Natural Resources on a wild goose poop chase.

A bill being considered in the Iowa House would require the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to determine which animals are the source of E. coli contamination in an impaired waterway and what percentage of the bacteria load can be attributed to each critter. And the department must solve that mystery before placing a waterway on the impaired waters list.

Human bodies don’t care where E. coli came from. It can make us severely ill regardless of whether it’s from pigs or geese or dogs. But for some reason, it matters to Republican lawmakers. Why could that be?

“We believe this is a distraction and a means of trying to avoid putting waters on of 303(d) (impaired waters) list,” Pam Mackey-Taylor, director of the Iowa chapter of the Sierra Club testified at a recent subcommittee hearing on the bill. (Thanks to Bleeding Heartland for posting video of the meeting)

The Iowa Environmental Council calls the bill the “Goose poop excuse.” It comes from the golf-courses-and-goose-poop wing of the water quality debate. These are folks who can look at overwhelming science and still argue water pollution in Iowa is caused by all sorts of stuff other than agriculture.

Jason Palmer from the DNR told the subcommittee it is possible to determine, in broad terms, which animals bacteria comes from. Such as swine, birds, dogs or cattle.

“But what you can’t do is attribute a percentage or a breakdown of the amount of the actual indicator bacteria,” Palmer said.

So, the notion you can determine 40% of a waterway’s E. coli load came from geese, while only a smidgen came from hogs, is not something the DNR can do.

With more money and new technology, the DNR could learn a lot more about water contamination. This Legislature isn’t going to give it them.

The impaired waters list has become a pesky reminder of Iowa’s water woes. The bill would mean the removal of more than 300 waterways from the list, which currently includes more than 700 rivers, streams, lakes and other water bodies. And once removed, they couldn’t be placed back on the list until the DNR answers a question it can’t answer.

“This change would significantly undercount impaired waters, increase public health risks and leave people unaware of unsafe conditions for recreation, pets and livestock,” Colleen Fowle, Water Program Director for the Iowa Environmental Council, told the subcommittee

There is no reason for this bill, other than to muddy the waters around agricultural culpability for pollution.

About the only thing longer than Iowa’s impaired waters list is the list of impaired bills majority Republicans have approved over the last decade. The bad bills pile is so high it needs flashing lights to warn aircraft.

Instead of working to clean up water, state government prefers a cover up. No one needs to know about environmental damage done by row crop agriculture and large hog confinements. Republicans defunded a network of water quality sensors tracking nitrate levels. We can’t have numeric water pollution standards for lakes because not knowing and not addressing them are cheaper.

What are the health effects of contaminated water in a state with the nation’s second highest cancer rate? Stop asking questions.

To these folks, Iowa’s environment is a commodity to be exploited, not a precious public asset to be protected. And when in doubt, blame geese.

(319) 398-8262; todd.dorman@thegazette.com