Two decades of bacteria and algae have plagued Iowa beaches, leading to constant warnings. The Gazette and Investigate Midwest analyzed 20 years of beach monitoring data from the Iowa DNR. The results show that although individual locations show some progress, Iowa’s beaches overall show little to no improvement.
Republican incumbent Mike Naig is facing Democratic challenger John Norwood
Just like Americans once rushed out to buy toilet paper because of feared price hikes, farmers stocked up on fertilizer last fall, according to Chad Hart, an Iowa State University economics professor and crop market specialist.
Fishers on the Tennessee side of the Mississippi River are told: don’t eat the fish because they may contain high levels of contaminants. But on the other side of the same river, in Arkansas, fishers find no such warnings. Those state-issued fish consumption advisories for the Mississippi River make it difficult to make informed health decisions, experts say.
Iowa’s fish consumption guidelines are now based on tissue sampling, but state officials want to move to a system based on size of fish, regardless of where they swim.
In The Gazette’s first round of exploring what the new legislation means to Iowa, we’re focusing on six ways you’ll see changes in energy, climate and farming.
Three are statewide projects, some of which may go toward the Middle Cedar Watershed.
The Gulf of Mexico Hypoxia Task Force, a partnership formed in the late 1990s with the goal of reducing the size and severity of the hypoxic zone, currently is co-chaired by Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig.
Like the Great Lakes initiative, it would operate within the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and provide hundreds of millions in federal funding to groups throughout the 10 states including Iowa along the river.
Seven Iowans have appealed state regulators’ decision to grant a water use permit to an 11,600-head northeast Iowa cattle feedlot.
The over-application increased the risk of contaminating nearby waterways with nitrate, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
A Cedar Rapids landscaping company has partnered with a team of former Iowa State University researchers to sell a climate-friendly additive to fertilizer that some experts tout as key to soil rejuvenation and carbon sequestration. It may also help with water quality.
The report, released last month, shows increasingly wetter conditions in the Upper Mississippi River over the past few decades, a trend that — spurred by climate change and land-use practices — looks likely to continue.
The city of Cedar Rapids has published its annual water quality report for 2021, which provides a comprehensive look at the past year’s drinking water quality. The city’s finished water had no violations.
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