This summer the Iowa Department of Natural Resources posted 14 swimming advisories cautioning Iowans to stay out of the water at 11 state parks due to toxic blue-green algae blooms, which feed on excess phosphorous and nitrogen mostly from agricultural discharge. The Boone water utility also violated safe drinking water standards due to high nitrate concentration.
For decades, DMWW has sought to work with government officials and groups to find solutions to water pollution. Time and again, the voices of those DMWW represents were silenced by big agriculture’s political machine. Their heavy-handed tactics have increased since the lawsuit was filed. An Iowa Farm Bureau formed group has spent more than $275,000 the last two months airing campaign-style attack ads. Those wishing to deny that farm-related water pollution is a problem continue to take to the media with misleading information.
It is time Iowans put a stop to politics as usual. Trade groups may see this as their latest public relations gambit, but I sense Iowans no longer want to gamble with water.
DMWW cannot compete with industry’s political war chest and it will not try. Iowa needs ideas, which turn into plans, which lead to action. Let’s examine one.
At its core, DMWW’s lawsuit has two goals, stopping agricultural pollution at its source and cleaning polluted waters. This must be done without over-burdening farmers or focusing on cleanup alone — it is better to keep pollutants from the waterways than it is to mitigate the problem after the pollutants have been released.
The following two-part idea contemplates managing the costs of limiting and cleaning pollution caused by commercial agriculture:
1. Regulate all discharges into waterways: The state should work with drainage districts and Iowans to develop comprehensive plans that empower and require drainage districts to meet the reasonable standards established by the Clean Water Act and other laws.
Discharge from drainage district pipes and systems into rivers, streams and other bodies of water is no different than any other man-made discharge, a city’s regulated storm water system, for example. Reasonable standards can be designed to protect the greater good by regulating drainage discharges.
Today, Iowa’s voluntary pollution compliance scheme puts too much on individual farmers. Iowa asks farmers to solve this problem alone voluntarily and to self-regulate — something we do not do with any other industry. Some farmers will and some will not. Good regulation provides incentives for those who do the right things and penalties for those who do not.
We all have an interest in this. We should all have a say and responsibility in solving the problem.
2. Establish a clean water fund: Help fund drainage districts’ clean water efforts and assist water providers to remove pollutants.
Ensuring discharge from drainage districts meet Clean Water Act standards will not be inexpensive, but it is far more effective and better for the environment to attack the problem at the source than it is to absorb the impact and cleanup costs downstream.
Most of the clean water fund should be used to stop pollutants from entering in the first place, but this will take time and the costs for downstream cleanup need to be part of the effort as well.
The cost of keeping pollutants from being discharged should not be borne by drainage districts alone. State and federal government resources need to part of the mix.
The clean water fund could be underwritten through a special sales tax, fertilizer taxes or some combination of these and other revenue sources.
But before we get bogged down in the details of how, let’s agree on the concept. No farmer, drainage district, water utility or community is in this alone.
The problem of Iowa’s water pollution is troublesome, but I am betting Iowans are up to solving it. The first step is to stop denying that a problem exists. The next is putting our heads together to decide how to act now to protect our shared water resource.
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