Less than 10 percent of Iowa’s private wells were tested for safe drinking water in 2020. Officials urge residents to take advantage of state funds.
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News from our journalists and contributors about Iowa water quality, trends, conservation, watershed, stream nitrate levels and investigative journalism from The Gazette.
Less than 10 percent of Iowa’s private wells were tested for safe drinking water in 2020. Officials urge residents to take advantage of state funds.
This fall, the towns and rural farmsteads along the Mississippi River received alarming news about their drinking water. Chemicals from a large 3M factory north of Cordova found a way into the river and their wells.
This marks the first time the DNR has proposed to withdraw such a plan.
By grouping projects together for design and installation, coordinating groups can save money and get things done faster.
Big Grove Brewery and GreenState Credit Union have partnered, for the second year in a row, to release A Greener State of Mind, with proceeds going to benefit Wings2Water, an environmental group started at the Eastern Iowa Airport.
The report focuses only on releases from industry - not farm and animal feeding operations, which exacerbate the pollution problem.
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.
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