Iowa Water Quality

Professor Lisa Schulte Moore, a landscape ecologist who has conducted groundbreaking research to help address sustainable farming, water quality and climate change, Tuesday became the university’s first MacArthur Fellow.

In 2004, a group of Midwestern soil scientists, including John Sawyer at Iowa State University, developed the Maximum Return to Nitrogen, a practice that calls for weighing the prices of corn and fertilizer to find the sweet spot of productivity and profit without waste. The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation criticized the approach in a July podcast.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources reported 24 swim advisories at state park beaches this summer because of microcystins, toxins generated by harmful algae. These toxins, if ingested, can cause gastroenteritis, allergic responses and potentially-fatal liver damage. This is double the number of microcystin warnings in 2020.

The Des Moines Metropolitan Wastewater Reclamation Authority has begun sampling sewage as part of a national program to track the spread of the coronavirus and its variants.

Chad Ingels, a northeast Iowa farmer and Republican state representative, said he was angered by a March 26 opinion piece on the Civil Eats website written by Chris Jones, an IIHR research engineer, about race and water quality.

Des Moines has become an extreme example of the conflict over clean water between agriculture and cities in farm states with minimal regulation.

In just the Midwestern states of Iowa, South Dakota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Minnesota, Missouri and Kansas, outdoor recreation generates about $60 billion in spending about 550,000 jobs, a trade association says. Iowa would like to keep a larger share of that spending within its borders

Explore the challenges and opportunities Iowa's colleges and universities face in a post-COVID-19 world. June 21-June 25.

A majority of four justices agreed to reverse a district court decision and dismiss a lawsuit challenging whether provisions of Iowa’s nutrient reduction strategy are adequate to protect the Raccoon River from agricultural pollution.

Iowa Republican U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley said he will vote against President Joe Biden’s pick to be an assistant administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over recent actions by the Biden administration related to clean water rules and biofuels.

Wildside column: Maybe it’s time to try it again

The funding for a new city-led project will involve other communities and agricultural partners to address water quality conditions in the river