News from our journalists and contributors about Iowa water quality, trends, conservation, watershed, stream nitrate levels and investigative journalism from The Gazette.
With the 2026 Iowa legislative session just days away, renewed debate is expected over water quality, nitrate runoff and pesticide policy. Lawmakers, along with environmental and agricultural leaders, are preparing for discussions that could shape the state’s approach in the years ahead.
Corn dominates U.S. farmland and fuels the ethanol industry. But the fertilizer it relies on drives emissions and fouls drinking water.
Food & Water Watch is proposing new policies that it says would mandate best management practices, increase transparency and “hold corporate polluters accountable.”
While the Iowa Department of Natural Resources requires farmers to submit documents outlining their plans for spreading livestock manure, the agency doesn’t collect records of where and how much manure is actually spread.
Nitrate concentrations, exacerbated by a wet spring that followed years of dry conditions, reached near record highs in Iowa rivers this summer.
Experts say that the majority of the state’s field have a drain tile system to help remove soil moisture, but it can come at an environmental cost.
EPA discovered in March 2021 that a confined animal feeding operation in Orange City had been discharging wastewater through a drainage pipe that led to a “relatively permanent” tributary of the West Branch of the Floyd River.
Researchers and public health advocates said Wednesday that water quality and land use continue to be modifiable elements impacting public health, and in particular cancer, in Iowa.
As Iowa researchers continue the search for a new funding source for the state’s largest water sensor network — which provides real-time data about nitrate, phosphorus and flow levels in the state’s rivers and streams — the network’s director said Iowa’s nitrate issues are continuing to expand.
Of the 38 agricultural violators identified this year, only one has been fined for its violations, in a “sweetheart deal” according to lawyers involved in a case against the facility.
Despite continued contamination and nitrate spikes in Iowa’s rivers and streams this year, University of Iowa researcher Elliot Anderson insists that the state’s water quality issues can be solved.
In a meeting with Linn County officials Monday, Larry Weber — who oversees a program that deploys dozens of sensors in rivers and streams across Iowa — said the quality of the state’s water is not improving, and that monitoring of the water must continue.
Linn County Sustainability Director Cara Matteson explains the reasoning behind the research.
In an effort to keep an Iowa water quality sensor program afloat past next June, Polk County Supervisors voted this week to invest funds in it, and they invited Linn and Johnson counties to do the same.
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