Iowans Suffering From Dirty Water

 [The following commentary is full of data that clearly illustrate the impact of polluted water on all Iowans and places the problem source, the many public financial benefits given to farmers,  and the required regulation and financial reparation required to improve water quality strongly on Iowa agriculture.  Bold italics on article content are mine.  Kinseth]

Craig Cox, Lawsuit's real losers: Iowans suffering from dirty water, Des Moines Register, 3/23/2017:

Friday, March 17, was a bad day for Iowans’ health, quality of life and belief in fairness. That day U.S. District Judge Leonard Strand dismissed the lawsuit the Des Moines Water Works brought to protect city residents’ drinking water from pollution carried by underground pipes from farm fields in upstream counties. Legal technicalities arising from outdated state drainage law and loopholes in the federal Clean Water Act did the suit in.

Agricultural interests and their political patrons are celebrating the Water Works' loss. But the real losers are all Iowans suffering from dirty water.

The state Department of Natural Resources lists 253 community water systems as highly susceptible to the same nitrate pollution that threatens the Water Works’ 500,000 customers. Sixty-two systems draw water from the same watersheds that supply Des Moines. Thirty-nine systems are targeted for immediate action because their drinking water is already contaminated with nitrate at levels half or more of the legal limit.

Private wells are even more likely to be polluted. Between 2006 and 2008, the University of Iowa tested 473 private drinking water wells and found nitrates in almost half, with about one in eight higher than the legal limit. New science suggests that long-term ingestion of drinking water with nitrate levels that high is linked to increased risk of bladder and thyroid cancer and birth defects.

The Water Works has been accused of waging war on rural Iowa. But the water of many rural Iowans is likely just as polluted with nitrates, or more so, than in Des Moines, and they don’t see the lawsuit as an attack. A Register poll found that more people living in small towns and rural areas support the lawsuit than oppose it. The same is true for Democrats, independents and Republicans.

Nitrates get all the attention, but algal blooms caused in large part by fertilizer and manure running off or drained from farm fields set off a cascade of problems. When utilities disinfect water overloaded with algae, a suite of chemical byproducts are formed that elevate the risk of cancer. Utilities then try to remove the dangerous chemicals, but sometimes they can’t. In the last five years, 163 Iowa systems reported that their treated water exceeded the legal limit for disinfection byproducts at least once.

Toxic algal blooms and bacteria already ruin vacations and sicken people. Since 2006, state beaches reported 185 instances of unsafe levels of algal toxins. A record 32 warnings were issued in 2015 and 37 last year. The Department of Natural Resources’ Water Quality Index classifies water quality as good in only one of 58 streams monitored in 2015. Water quality was listed as poor or very poor in 53 streams. In much of the state, the primary culprits are polluted runoff and drainage from farm fields.

Even as their health is threatened and costs to treat dirty water rise, Iowans are also supposed to pay farmers to stop their activities that pollute the water. How fair is that?

Agriculture interests and their government patrons dither over ways to find more money to pay farmers to cut pollution by making often simple changes to how they farm. But U.S. taxpayers already send billions of dollars to farmers and landowners every year.

In 2015, Iowa farmers and landowners got $660 million in income subsidies through the federal farm bill and an additional $378 million in subsidies for insurance premiums. A study by the Iowa Department of Revenue reported that in 2010 alone agriculture enjoyed $278 million in state tax credits and another $32 million in property tax benefits.

Diverting a small slice of this largesse to pay farmers to stop polluting would jump-start the agonizingly slow progress seen today. But maybe farmers should do something to cut pollution in return for the support they already get. In the 1985 farm bill, farmers agreed to cut soil erosion in return for farm subsidies. Thirty-two years later, surely farmers would agree to do more to cut pollution in return for more billions in federal and state support.

Iowans have waited too long for clean water. In 1979, the Register won a Pulitzer Prize for James Risser’s reporting on the environmental crisis on Iowa farms. It shouldn’t take a lawsuit to focus the state’s leaders on a problem that’s been right in front their eyes for decades.

Iowans should be grateful to the Water Works leadership and staff who took financial, political and personal risks to put water quality front and center.

Progress in cleaning up Iowa’s water is moving at a snail’s pace at best. Agricultural interests constantly complained the lawsuit was distracting from their efforts to clean up Iowa’s abysmal water quality. They are out of excuses now.

Judge Strand has put the ball firmly back in agriculture’s court. Let's see how they play it.

Craig Cox is senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources, based in the Ames office of the Environmental Working Group. 

Ahhhh..Fresh Spring Water Pollution On It’s Way...

[It’s the first astronomical day of Spring in 2017, and warehouses in Iowa are filling up with ag chemicals being readied to be splayed out across the 23 million acres of Iowa’s corn and soybeans.  Regulation to prevent nutrient losses? Sorry, nope.  Pesticides, herbicides, fungicides too.  Regulation(?) translates to either loss of personal rights or protection of public health.  Likelihood of improvement in water quality: None.  

Iowa Department of Ag reports 12 new urban urban-rural water project that will join work in 22 watersheds, and there is a state legislative push for a statewide 3/8th cent tax [public tax, with no ag tax] to improve Iowa’s natural resources, including water quality.  So, that’s a good thing, right?  Sorry, nope.

Remember, 23 million crop acres, no regulation and a drainage system that encourages rapid release of water from cropland that would only be effective every field had a water retainment system (really, a personal wetland is about the only chance), and a chemical application fee, and regulations that would limit application and measure both use to assess compliance and effectiveness to improve chemical retention,  and a less intensive crop rotation--not going to happen.

What is also going to realistically happen is a deep restoration of he federal EPA recommendations and even the ability to talk about it.  When functioning at its best, the EPA was aspiring in 2013 to seek a 45% reduction in nitrogen and phosphorous levels, and the scale of change to improve water quality would cost billions for decades.] 

No more DMWW lawsuit, no more independent DMWW likely, so best of luck holding up those protest signs to reverse Ag $$$ grip on government changes.]

Your 2 Cents’ Worth excerpts, Part 8 [various readers submissions/ Des Moines Register]:

When I first moved to Iowa after growing up in a large urban area, I was surprised when I found out some Iowans didn’t like farmers.  Wow, do I understand it now.

--The most self-promoting entitled polluters in the state

[Kinseth: Iowa Ag has used the state legislature to prevent legal recourse to rural community damage, abuse and nuisance concerns with factory farming.  Whistle-blowing of animal abuse can be prosecuted.  A current bill in progress would limit the rewards possible in lawsuits.  The ability of rural communities to prevent large factory farms from being constructed has been made nearly impossible to oppose.  Beyond mass animal-farming, any regulation to reduce water pollution or soil loss has been shot down in the Iowa legislature for decades.  Modern farming as changed and become industrial but there is no industrial regulation. 

Never as much as a peep from farmers saying these protections go to far, in fact there is a sense that these protections do not go far enough.  So not liking farmers is a realistic response.]

*****

I own a restaurant.  I got tax breaks to open it.  I pay no taxes for any basic supplies to run my business.

I throw my garbage in to the street and expect the public to pay for its cleanup.  I make two basic meals to the point that there are not enough customers to keep me in business but have insurance paid for by the public to make sure that I stay in  business.

I get paid by the government a percentage of each meal to continue making as many as I can even though there is no market to support it. Sound familiar?

Just a parallel scenario of farming.

*****

Coming Federal Disaster: Say One Thing, Do The Opposite

New, abrupt and broad federal changes in environmental policy will degrade air and water that mock Trump’s stated intent to promote clean air and water. Changes in the departments of Energy, Interior and Environmental Protection ill broadly de-regulate  limits on use and open access to natural resources as well as sell public land.  The following is the complete March 3, 2017 DSM Register that focuses on coming wide-scale water and air degradation.

Editorial: President's speech spread fog and smog

The Register's Editorials 5:30 p.m. CT March 3, 2017

President Trump is 'promoting' deregulation, not clean air and water

On the surface, at least, there was much to admire about President Trump’s speech to Congress this week.

Unfortunately, many of the president’s words, while deserving of praise, don’t square with his actions. In that context, his address before a joint session of Congress should be considered an elaborately staged piece of performance art, not a speech.

It must have been easy, for example, for the president to tell Congress he intends to “promote clean air and clean water.” But to applaud the president’s words, you’d first have to ignore all of the actions he is taking that pose a direct threat to clean air and clean water.

Within hours of addressing Congress, Trump signed an executive order that initiates a rollback of one of the federal government’s most significant water-protection regulations: the Waters of the United States rule, which is intended to impose federal pollution limits not just on major bodies of water, but on the streams and wetlands that drain into those larger waters.

The president is also preparing to cut by 30 percent the Environmental Protection Agency’s funding for state grants and its federally administered air-and-water programs.

He is also poised to sign an executive order instructing the EPA to initiate the process of withdrawing climate-change regulations that would curb greenhouse gases emitted by coal-fired power plants.

And, of course, there’s the president’s campaign pledge to dismantle the EPA “in almost every form,” so that only “little tidbits” remain. Toward that end, Trump has appointed former Oklahoma attorney general Scott Pruitt, who has sued the EPA more than a dozen times, to lead — well, “destroy” is the more accurate word — the federal agency.

Scott Pruitt, President Donald Trump's controversial appointment to head the EPA, spelled out his vision for the agency at a key gathering of conservatives outside Washington, D.C. on Saturday. (Feb. 25) AP

Pruitt is dutifully complying, denouncing “regulations that in the near term need to be rolled back in a very aggressive way” and pursuing a plan to quickly eliminate one out of every five jobs in the agency.

Remember the president’s inaugural-address denunciation of the “rusted-out factories scattered like tombstones across the landscape of our nation?” Well, his preliminary budget for the EPA would eliminate grants to clean up contaminated brownfields and abandoned industrial sites, so you can expect to see even more of those tombstones.

As reported by the Washington Post, the EPA budget, which is still subject to revision, also calls on states to assume a far greater role in protecting air and water, but it does so while simultaneously cutting the federal grants that typically pay for such efforts.

Trump’s goal is to make U.S. manufacturing more competitive with nations like China, where the air quality contributes to 4,000 deaths per day and 80 percent of the underground wells contain water that’s unsafe to drink.

So why did the president tell Congress he is determined to “promote clean air and clean water”?

Probably because no politician in his right mind — yes, we're counting the president among that select group — would promote polluted air and toxic water. On top of that, polls show a majority of Americans believe environmental protection should be one of the president’s top priorities.

So, rather than tell Congress and a nationally audience of TV viewers that he is in the process of gutting the EPA and rolling back decades of regulations that protect the public health, Trump simply claimed he was doing just the opposite.

And with that, Congress stood and applauded.

Lance Kinseth, The Colors Of Water, 2017

Iowa Ag = Assault On Landscape

WITH FEW EXCEPTIONS, Iowa Ag is neither Aldo Leopoldian nor spiritual stewardship.

It’s industrial, and it is degrading land and water quality at a rapid pace.

The basic infrastructure of modern Iowa farming is an industrial model that allows the rapid release of both soil and chemical applications that pollute water and create costly public health problems.  Rather than alter the industrial model, Iowa Ag seeks public $$$ to mitigate the damage.  As an industrial process, it is impossible for any meaningful mitigation techniques to help recover landscape quality.   And there will not be any legislative or self-restriction on chemical application and no uniform statewide effort to minimize soil loss and resistance to any legislative regulation or explicit monitoring of damage.  Use of fertilizers, pesticides, and fungicides can be anticipated to increase in the future. 

There is no willingness to pay for any damage and there is resistance to monitoring of soil and chemical release from specific properties.  Even with public funding, the level of mitigation compliance can be expected to be resisted by landowners as has always been the case.  Even with decades of conservation efforts and billions $$$ public funding, compliance has been minimal.  For decades, Iowa Ag has resisted legislative efforts to mitigate water pollution and soil loss from farm runoff, with strategies such as field edge buffer zones.

And so, an industry that damages a vast proportion of the Iowa landscape generates only 10% of GDP contributes to 90% of water quality issues.  In the Iowa economy, nearly 91 cents of every dollar generated comes from businesses other than agriculture.  And while Iowa is often described as a farm state, 98% of Iowans are not employed in agriculture.  Water treatment is regulated and publicly funded, but water damage is void of any responsibility.  This is not only poor citizenship by Iowa agriculturalists, but also dismal stewardship.  Iowa Ag lives off the thousands-years-old “fat” of the land, taking rather than sustaining, to the point of assaulting/abusing perhaps the richest soil quality in Earth with no consequences.  

Ignorance About Our Own Landscape

Your 2 Cents’ Worth excerpts, Part 7 [various readers submissions/ Des Moines Register]:

*****

Californians know and appreciate their beaches, Vermonters know and appreciate their forests, but most Iowans still don’t know what a prairie is, even though prairies covered 85% of Iowa.

There is a direct connection between our ignorance about our own landscape and our filthy water.

***** 

My new weight-loss strategy is based on Iowa’s farm pollution reduction strategy.  So I have no goal weight and no requirements or deadlines, and I’ll rarely weigh myself, but occasionally, If I’m paid enough, I’ll eat a little less.

*****

China has some of the most polluted air and water in the world.  Terry Branstad [ Donald Trump’s choice for ambassador to  China and longstanding governor of Iowa who has ] should feel right at home.

*****

As I see it, the two pipelines area a security threat with hundreds of miles of them left unguarded.  A worst-case scenario would be if one exploded under the Missouri River, ruining hundreds of municipal water supplies.  Many other security threats are all around.  Cheer up, it’s bound to get worse.

*****

The news that the Iowa pipeline spill was “only” 46,380 gallons instead of 138.000 gallons is really comforting ...like finding out that a murdered loved one was “only” shot twice, instead of five times. [Magellan diesel leak in Iowa]

[The strong public concern that pipelines will leak are dismissed by the pipeline industry.   The largest national controversy over pipelines that could degrade water quality involves the Dakota Access pipeline.  The parent pipeline company, Energy Transfer Partners / Sunoco have reported discharges to the federal government of nearly 200,000 gallons of oil across 42 spills.]

*****

When Terry Branstad moves to Beijing, China as ambassador, he will get to experience the “Ghost of Iowa Yet to Come” due to his policies here while Governor.  The Beijing air is often unsafe to breathe and the tap water is unsafe to drink because of pollution. Even some bottled water brands can’t be trusted as there are few regulations and enforcement is minimal.

*****

I was flabbergasted when I found out that people earning $87,000 a year got welfare.  This is ridiculous.  Not only do they think that they deserve it, they rail against the very people who need it.  That would be the elderly, poor, handicapped and children.  You know who these freeloaders are?  Farmers. 

[Like most of the businesses on this welfare, agricultural groups also legislate protection against damages, and complain when the public is bothered that it has to pay to clean their messes up.]

*****

Increasing Major Threats To Clean Iowa Water For 2017

Walnut Creek, Des Moines, 1/2017

Iowa Supreme Court decision:  Des Moines Water Works cannot sue another state body period, so no state legal pressure on farm chemical discharge.  Next up, beyond the state of Iowa, federal court arguments on clean water impact of water districts on water pollution without regulation by DMWW. Given coming federal departmental de-regulation as environmental policy that enhances business [SEE BELOW], any governmental mechanisms to monitor and require any environmental value outweighing business values would largely nix any legal DMWW gain.

Can you imagine how insensitive federal lawmakers would be regarding toxic agricultural runoff after this? Toxic chemicals and waste dumping as “excessive regulation:” U.S. House of Representatives voted to overturn a rule to prohibit dumping of coal mining wastes in nearby streams, seeing this rule as excessive regulation.  This is essentially regulation of streams and the environment that has been proven for decades to be toxic to the environment and, in turn, to human populations.  So more of this type of de-regulation to expand.

U.S. Supreme Court: “Waters Of America” case likely to be heard soon to either support or overturn U. S. EPA ruling that would require land owners, ranging from farmers to golf courses, to obtain a permit to apply chemicals to land that would discharge into waters.  Trump’s pick for U.S. Supreme Court may be in place to participate in this decision, and that likely means landowners rights trump public rights.

Federal environmental de-regulation: U.S. Federal Departments of Energy and Interior and EPA will be directed by new Trump appointees, with current nominations having histories of opposing these agencies to the point of wanting to abolish them, and explicitly stating for sure that they want to undue restrictions ASAP.  The overall theme is one of de-regulation that lessens both responsibility and cost for damage to water quality.  There will also be a focus on reducing monitoring because it fosters calls for regulation.  The focus in business ann this ideological approach is self-regulation and it is evident how that means no regulation.

Pipeline expansion: Trump’s executive presidential memorandum  to approve and expand oil pipeline infrastructure:  (a) directing the secretary of the Army to review and approve completion the Dakota Access Pipeline that will be capable of pumping one billion gallons of toxic waste at any one time through it’s large 30” pipes over 1,172 miles and (b) to encourage the Keystone XL pipeline to reapply after being nixed by Obama. The Magellan Midstream Partners 12 “ wide diesel pipeline in Worth County, Iowa recently ruptured releasing 46,830 gallons.

Selling federal land:  U. S. House of Representatives first passed a new rule package with one of the new rules declaring “lands are worthless.”  For example, this will allow a new bill, H.R. 621 to sell 3.2 million acres of public land as “worthless” to generate new $$$ for government.  Public lands including formal national parks and refuges and so forth are estimated to be worth mucho-billions.  While public lands such parks and refuges and national forests and grasslands will not be sold, we can expect more opening of such lands for leased use as well as a lessening of now restricted activities in such landscapes.

 2017 State of Iowa Budget cuts affecting environment: EXAMPLES: Cuts in Department of Energy and Department of Natural Resources (monitors toxic spills) and Iowa Department of Agriculture and Lands Stewardship (that is tries to implement an Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy).  

A lower incoming statewide tax base will promote more farm production to sustain.  Trump’s anticipated taxes on foreign imports will likely reduce Iowa farm exports as a foreign reaction, and this will further reduce statewide tax contributions from agriculture.

Other major factors are described in these recent Iowa Water posts:

The Pending Trifecta of Disaster For Iowa Water Quality 11/28/16, and

Iowa Water Stats of Interest 12/16/16