Are The Politicos Just Protecting The Polluters? Does Anyone REALLY, Really Care About Clean Iowa Water? If So, What Does That Require?

Walnut Creek, Des Moines, January, 2017

1.

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.

(reader’s submission, Your 2 Cents Worth, Des moines Register0

REGULATION, Oh that dirty, unfreedomed, un-American word, not going to happen, not anywhere in the works, ever.

So, expect increases in fertilizer use on farmland as well as increased factory farming for various meat products.  Whether commodity prices drop [requiring more production to sustain]  or raise [creating a profit opportunity not to be missed], the need for fertilizer in grain production and the myriad costs of factory farming will assure for increases.  AND, of course, with no payback to the ag producer.

2.

Industrialized ag not only increases the application of multi-chemicals, but also excretes more pollution.  Tiling of agricultural land increases, and tiling feeds more chemical into the watershed.

The primary effort to improve water quality involves mitigation techniques that are not effective primarily because of the tiling model of ag land as well as the concentration of livestock in dense, contained structures.

WE SHOULD REALLY STOP RIGHT HERE.  THIS STRUCTURE IS NOT GOING TO CHANGE.  WETLANDS, BIO-REACTORS, AND SO FORTH DO NOT REALLY PHASE THIS INDUSTRIAL AG STRUCTURE.  

FURTHER, COMPLIANCE WITH BILLIONS OF CONSERVATION DOLLARS OVER THE LAST FEW DECADES HAS NOT DENTED THE CLEAN WATER PROBLEM.  PARTICIPATION, DESPITE MYRIAD COUNTRY OFFICES AND AND UNIVERSITY EFFORTS AND LOTS OF $$$ HAS RESULTED IN MINIMAL PARTICIPATION.  IT IS ENOUGH TO JSUT PLANT AND HARVEST AS IT IS TO TRY AND SUSTAIN THE FARM IN THE CURRENT ECONOMIC REALITY.

FOLKS DON’T LIKE TO BE TOLD WHAT TO DO.  AND THEY HAVE HAD TO BUY INTO AN INDUSTRIAL AG MODEL, AND THEY CANNOT MAKE A LIVING AS IT EXISTS, RESULTING IN THE LOSS OF FAMILY FARMS AND THE INCREASED INDUSTRIALIZATION OF AG LAND, THAT HAS ALSO DECIMATED THE ONCE-THRIVING RURAL POPULATION BASE.

TODAY, FARMERS ARE STUCK BETWEEN A ROCK AND A HARD PLACE.

MITIGATION TECHNIQUES ARE A MASK THAT THE FARMER PUTS ON AND THE PUBLIC PAYS FOR.

SO LET’S JUST FACE THE FACTS, FOR ONCE, OR NOT.  CLEAN WATER IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN IN IOWA WHERE WE WILL INCREASE THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM.  WE WILL THROW $$$ TOWARD THE FARMERS AT THE PROBLEM AND WE WILL TRY TO PUNISH THE WATER TREATMENT FOLKS who should likely be getting the $$$.  Even if the farmers became Gandhi-esque saints and overlooked their situation for the public good, and so complied with mitigation on a wide scale, it will take decades to attain even a 45% reduction in pollution.

The facts are there folks--rates of application, compliance with conservation efforts, poor efficacy of mitigation efforts, etc.  We need a big re-think on the physical structure of agriculture land (i. e., tiling and animal concentration), mono-culture of grains, a value for watershed vs only ag land, funding water treatment, and regulation, Regulation, REGULATION (not to control people, but for public health).