The A-holes Are In Charge Of Iowa Water Now

Tracy Wang, “Stand up for the Mississippi River,” [letter to editor, Des Moines Register, 6/30/2017

[Tracy, Tracy, Tracy, like that is going to happen.....]

Here in Iowa, summertime always reminds us why we care about clean water:  Thanks to the Clean Water Act, many of the places we go swimming, fishing or boating--like the Mississippi River--are now cleaner.

That’s why I was so appalled to learn on June 27 that the EPA is proposing to repeal key protections for Iowa’s waterways.  finalized in 2015 with widespread public and scientific support, the Clean Water Rule restored federal protection to 62 percent of Iowa’s streams, which feed the Mississippi and Iowa rivers and help provide drinking water to 667,428 iowans.  The rule also protects wetlands, which help filter out pollutants and provide wildlife habitat.

More than 800,000 Americans, including 3,469 Iowans, urged the EPA to adopt the Clean Water Rule.  Ye the new EPA is now proposing to dismantle it.

Repealing this rule tuns the mission of the EPA on its head:  Instead of protecting our rivers, lakes, and streams, the Trump administration would leave them open to pollution.  It defies common sense, sound science and the will of the people of Iowa.

EPA should reconsider this reckless repeal and stand up for the Mississippi River.

[Tracy, the problem is really not Trump or pressure on the EPA.  Only 3,000 Iowans in a state of millions, even had a clue and most really do not care a rat’s ass, AND many more than 3,000+ iowans believe it’s a good idea to remove restrictions and not let those EPA fake-news elite a-holes continue run things.  Plus, what is most important, Tracy, is going to the mall, not water.  And the cost to have "clean water" is far too much to ask.]

Iowa Farmers Leave No Acres Unturned

Farm to the edges and beyond: The industrialized Ag model [CHEMICAL FARMING ABOVE, DRAINS BELOW, FACTORY ANIMAL FARMS, MONOCULTURE CROPS LOCKED MAXIMUM PRODUCTION, PLANT TO THE EDGES] forces Iowa farmers to NOT MITIGATE their damage to Iowa water quality and soil loss.  

Iowa farmers reverting thousands of idled acres into production, hurting water quality efforts, study says.

Donnelle Eller , deller@dmreg.com June 7, 2017

Iowa farmers have pulled nearly 750,000 idled acres back into production in a seven-year span, undermining conservation efforts that are crucial to improving the state's poor water quality, a new report says.

Roller-coaster corn and soybean prices have spurred farmers in Iowa and across the nation to remove nearly 16 million acres from the federal Conservation Reserve Program, commonly referred to as CRP, between fiscal years 2007 and 2014, the Environmental Working Group said in a study released Wednesday.

As a result, Iowa taxpayers lost nearly $760 million in environmental benefits from farm conservation program as protective ground cover was plowed under to grow more crops, a new report says.

"We need these critical water-quality practices to be sustained," said Craig Cox, the environmental group's senior vice president for Agriculture and Natural Resources. "Otherwise, we're just spinning our wheels."

Corn and soybean prices hit record highs in 2012, when a drought hit Iowa and the nation. Since then, prices have tumbled about 50 percent, "likely starting the revolving door of acres again" as growers jump in and out of the CRP program.

"When crop prices are low, landowners are more likely to put acres into the CRP," the report said. "But if prices go back up, they can just as readily take the land out and return it to row crop production when their contracts expire."

The 15.8 million CRP acres removed nationally from the program cost taxpayers “at least $7.3 billion to rent and establish protective cover," the Washington, D.C., group said. "The billions taxpayers invested in water quality, wildlife habitat and soil protection were lost when these acres dropped out of the program."

But Bill Northey, Iowa's agriculture secretary, said farmers and landowners provided the environmental benefits the program pays for.

"Those benefits shouldn't be under-estimated," he said, adding that some conservation practices likely remain, even if part of the land returns to crop production.

Under the program, the federal government pays landowners an annual fee — "essentially rent" — to shift environmentally sensitive land out of crop production and cover it with grass and other protective plants.

Farmers who leave their 10-year contracts early are required to pay a penalty.

Despite the shifts, Iowa had nearly 1.7 million acres enrolled in CRP last year; and across the U.S., 23.9 million acres.

The water quality conundrum

The reduction in CRP acres comes as Iowa continues to wrestle with water quality.

Des Moines Water Works unsuccessfully sued drainage districts in three north Iowa counties, claiming underground tiles funneled high levels of nitrates from farm fields into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents.

Each summer, high phosphorus and nitrates levels, along with warm temperatures, feed algal blooms that can make water from lakes, rivers and streams unsafe for drinking or using for recreation.

"Issues around agriculture and the environment are affecting people directly — through drinking water, algal blooms and impaired quality of life," Cox said.

The report said almost three-fourths of the protected acres lost from the CRP program were in just 10 states: North Dakota, Montana, Texas, Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska and Minnesota.

"Lost rental payments for these states cost taxpayers over $5 billion between 2007 and 2014," the report said. "And the newly enrolled acres did not make up the deficit: In those 10 states, 11.5 million acres were not re-enrolled, while only 4.3 million acres were newly enrolled."

A longer solution?

The Environmental Working Group wants congressional leaders to put more money and acres in the longer-lasting Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program, called CREP, or Wetland Reserve Easements.

Both programs, supported through state and federal spending, were hurt with 2014 Farm Bill cuts, the group said. Work is beginning on the new 2018 Farm Bill.

But the U.S. Department of Agriculture is already looking at steep budget cuts in 2018, with discretionary spending slated to drop about 20 percent, under President Donald Trump's proposal.

Northey warned that requiring longer commitments or permanent easements could cut conservation participation.

"There could be a lot less interest from producers and a lot less acres out there" in conservation, Northey said.

And beefing up permanent easement programs would be more costly, given high land prices in Iowa and other states, Northey said.

Farmland values have tumbled over three years to $7,183 in 2016, but they're still 84 percent higher than 2007, based on Iowa State University surveys.

"We don’t want to back away from the CREP program," which is used for wetlands in Iowa. "But I would hate to give up CRP acres," Northey said. "I think we need both."

A better return on investment

Last year, Iowa's CREP program tapped $37 million to build seven wetlands that covered 3,330 acres that included buffers.

About 104,000 acres will drain through the wetlands, removing 85,400 tons of nitrates over their lifetime, an annual report estimates.

And Iowa farmers received nearly $244 million for nearly 1.7 million acres in CRP last year.

Cox said higher costs for more permanent programs would be worthwhile to keep the benefits in place.

"We're trying to figure out how we get more return on the investment that taxpayers are making," he said.

Over the seven years examined in the report, U.S. farmers enrolled about 6.7 million "new acres" back into CRP. Still, about 9 million more acres were lost than added.

Iowa landowners farmers added 361,262 new acres over that time, but the state ended up with 493,388 fewer CRP acres altogether, the group said.

The report said some congressional leaders want to expand the CRP's cap from 24 million acres up to 40 million acres.

Iowa Farm Bureau Gets Rich While Iowa’s Natural Environment Degrades

[IFB’s fight for farmers’ rights supports legislation to prevent environmental improvement.  The follow excerpt from Cedar Rapids Gazette, 4/30/2017, takes a deeper look at IFB. Kinseth]:

Farm Bureau flourishes as water quality flags

Powerhouse ag organization has millions in surplus, seven-figure executive pay

Even as low commodity prices strap Iowa farmers and the Legislature pinches pennies to fund water quality initiatives, one agriculture group has been socking away tens of millions of dollars a year and paying its executives up to seven-figure salaries.

The Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, which will celebrate its centennial next year, is the alpha dog of agriculture, using its vast influence and money to “help farm families prosper” — part of its mission — but also to ensure success for farm-related corporations like the Farm Bureau itself, a Gazette investigation shows.

Some Iowa farmers, even dedicated former board members, say it’s time for the Farm Bureau to take ownership of the role agriculture plays in poor water quality and put its weight behind meaningful change to help the environment.

“I look at this as more of an issue for my daughter,” said Josh Nelson, a 35-year-old farmer from Belmond, about his 5-month-old. “For her to be able to swim in the ponds around Belmond, I need to get my act together.”

The Iowa Farm Bureau started in 1918, one year before the American Farm Bureau was born. As a nonprofit, the Iowa group is exempt from income taxes.

There are 100 county Farm Bureaus in Iowa — one in each of 98 counties and two in Pottawattamie County. Issues that resonate at the local level make it to state meetings where members vote on a platform that influences the organization’s statewide agenda, explained Iowa Farm Bureau President Craig Hill during an interview at his southern Iowa farm.

Steve Swenka, a Tiffin farmer and cattle producer who has been vice president of the Johnson County Farm Bureau since 2010, underscored the value of the Farm Bureau for farmers: “As long as you produce food or fiber, we will help you in any way we can.”

The Iowa Farm Bureau has more than 160,000 member families. Of that, 62,600 are actively involved in farming and may hold county or state office. The rest are associates, most of whom become members to buy Farm Bureau insurance.

Of the nearly $686,000 the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation PAC donated to Iowa political candidates from 2010 to January, GOP recipients outnumbered Democrats nearly 5 to 1 and overall got 15 times as much money, a Gazette analysis showed. The top three lawmakers to get Farm Bureau cash were Gov. Terry Branstad with $88,000, Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey with $43,000 and Iowa Sen. Dan Zumbach, R-Ryan, with $29,800, campaign records show.

Nelson, who raises row crops and hogs with several family members and has his own chemical-free vegetable farm, doesn’t side with Farm Bureau politically, but likes the diversity of Farm Bureau members he met serving on the Wright County board from 2013-2015.

He’s also glad the Farm Bureau stands up for rural America, often ignored or ridiculed.

“There are people who would argue they are wielding undue influence,” he said. “But it’s one of the most effective organizations I’ve seen.”\

FINANCIAL SURPLUS

Member dues of $30 to $55 a year make up about 4 percent of the Iowa Farm Bureau’s annual revenue, which was a whopping $88 million in 2015, according to forms the nonprofit is required to file with the IRS and make public. At that time, the organization had $1.36 billion in net assets — which includes 60 percent ownership of the Farm Bureau Life Insurance Company, founded by the federation in 1939.

The Iowa Farm Bureau spent $31.5 million in 2015, with the largest line items listed as employee compensation at $8.2 million, publications at $4.2 million and grants and other assistance at $2.8 million.

That year, the Farm Bureau had 34 people paid $100,000 or more, including two executives — Executive Director Denny Presnall and General Counsel Ed Parker — who each got more than $800,000 in total compensation, the records show.

After expenses, the Farm Bureau had $56.4 million left over in 2015, which Hill said the group put into savings. In fact, from 2013 through 2015, the Farm Bureau banked nearly $170 million in surplus revenue.

“The goal is to create an endowment fund of diversified investments to support our activities,” Hill said.

The Farm Bureau started stockpiling after the 2008 recession walloped the insurance industry.

“Our stock value went down to single digits,” said Hill, referring to Farm Bureau Life, which he serves as chairman. “We were around $2 per share at the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. We nearly lost our investment as a result of that crisis.”

As the economy improved, Farm Bureau Life stock climbed out of the cellar.

“That fear created by the financial crisis gave us a pause to think and rethink about our investments,” Hill said. “We’re trying to put money into more diversified portfolios so we don’t have all our eggs in one basket.”

In September 2013, Farm Bureau Life increased its quarterly dividends, declared a special dividend and sold additional shares of stock, which together generated more than $65 million more for investors, including the Farm Bureau, Hill said.

EXECUTIVE PAY NOT SET BY MEMBERS

Those moves made 2013 a banner year for the federation, which reported $110.4 million in revenue. That year, five Farm Bureau executives each received more than $800,000 in total compensation, with Chief Financial Officer/Controller James Christenson making $2.2 million and Field Services Director Duane Johnson making $1.06 million, records show.

“Our membership probably does not know what those executives are earning,” Hill said.

“It’s no secret it’s a wealthy organization, but I don’t think they (farmers) quite would realize the amount of money being dealt with in the Farm Bureau.”

- Josh Nelson

Farmer

A 100-member voting delegation sets compensation for Hill and other state board members, then the state board decides how much to pay the executives.

Several Iowa farmers said they were surprised by the hefty compensation for a group that represents farmers, who had a 2016 median income of $66,000 nationwide, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

“That’s something that needs to be exposed,” said Chris Petersen, 62, a hog farmer from Clear Lake. He was on the Cerro Gordo County Farm Bureau many years ago but dropped his membership in 2000 over what he saw as the organization’s focus on large producers and agriculture-related companies.

“I’ve heard a lot of complaints about the Farm Bureau being top heavy,” Nelson said. “It’s no secret it’s a wealthy organization, but I don’t think they (farmers) quite would realize the amount of money being dealt with in the Farm Bureau.”

Sacred Water, Part 3

See Sacred Water Part 2 12/15/16

See Sacred Water Part 1 10/13/16

See River-Keeping 12/5/16

See Flowing Wisdom 10/27/16

See A Praise Of Water 9/16/16

If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong. 

Masaru Emoto, The Secret Life of Water

Water does not resist. Water flows. When you plunge your hand into it, all you feel is a caress. Water is not a solid wall, it will not stop you. But water always goes where it wants to go, and nothing in the end can stand against it. Water is patient. Dripping water wears away a stone. Remember that, my child. Remember you are half water. If you can't go through an obstacle, go around it. Water does.”

Margaret Atwood - The Penelopiad

HAIL WATER, full of grace.  Water, wind and light are connection made visible in a very real way.  We don’t pray to these events to bring them into our lives.  We are these events.  We do not praise them in an effort to purify them, but rather to cleanse ourselves by bring our attention to them.

The mountains, rivers, earth, grasses, trees, and forests, are always emanating a subtle, precious light, day and night, always emanating a subtle, precious sound, demonstrating and expounding to all people the unsurpassed ultimate truth.

It is just because you miss it right where you are, or avoid it even as you face it, that you are unable to attain actual use of it.

Yuansou, from “Expedients and Reality,” in Thomas Cleary, Zen Essence

When water is “you” and life itself, everyday actions can transform.  Value changes so that water becomes prioritized rather than being a secondary commodity.  And this “spiritual reality” is practical rather than esoteric.  Respect for water optimizes its economic contributions to daily life.  Not respecting water adds major financial costs to clarify and also increases public health costs.

(After Devon Pena, Aceqia [“A-see-key-ah”], on water democracy):

Spirit is essentially a dissolution of boundaries of things and self into other selves AND

attentiveness to the activity of primal order.  Such a perception is not fantasy or even esoteric reality; it is practical and optimal living.  Water, for example, reaches from ocean to rainfall, to stream to riparian edge and extends seamlessly into human life. 

*****

Landscape is infused with spirit, every tree, stone, and even things that humans make.  And yet, in modern life, such a sense of spirit doesn’t exist.

in the garden of beauty

the intensity of our use introduces a shadow.

Because of this shadow

the commonness of water equates unimportance

do not pass by

listen and see

Water is present throughout the cosmos

yet rare are conditions that permit liquid water

Liquid water is the ground of life

Deep wellsprings of human culture--the sacred forest, the

 tree as a landscape with spirit, and so, too, water and stone--can inform modernity. 

A “modernity” that will soon add a billion people to the Earth and that favors electricity, autos, water, soil, food safety, can decimate human health.  An ecological civilization can optimize human life and is at the pinnacle of human development.  

Inhabitation is “place-based” where “self-care,” when healthy and sustaining, prioritizes the landscape down to the smallest details.  Inhabitation values the smallest details--a particular bird, snail, bee or butterfly as a valuable aspect of self.  This has an optimizing aspect upon water, atmosphere, food sources.  The human community acts as a “keystone species” that melds new forms as an extension of primal forms, giving standing to primal forms and non-human otherness as primal, essential rather than separate and secondary..”

Sustainability is not stewardship.  Sustainability is habitation that follows the primal instructions. Primal” does not reference ancient or archaic or primitive in the sense of being simple and less complex.  Primal is “foundational”  or “core”  and “first.”  The “eternal” is not past, but rather references the “enduring,” and as such is in the present moment.  

How is “sacred Earth” not a reach?  

Increasingly urbanized and spending the majority of time alive inside buildings, it is to be recollected that most of human development has been spent in unbuilt landscapes.  The landscape has a healing capacity--wind, fragrance, wild plants, bird-song, light and colors in water, wind song in high tree branches, sunrises and sunsets, stars, insect chants, and even space itself both sheltering and wide open.  It can be felt as “homeland.”  In The Outermost House, Henry Beston suggests  that, in fact, we “hunger” for the elemental before the senses.  There is a sense of shinrin-yoko or “forest-bathing” as Earth-healing, both from mental calmness and the role of natural materials as medicine for immunity.

Water: Far More Than We Allow Ourselves To Imagine

Lance Kinseth, The Color Of Water 1 & 2, 2017

OUR POSTMODERN, postindustrial, cybernetic sense of water is still primitive.  We are so very limited in our perception.  We are so homocentric, self-entered,where water is sill sensed to be an external, inanimate commodity.  For all our intelligence, we are so ignorant, even self-ignorant.  We base our lives on economics, but we cannot see the deep economy of water, and it is costing us dearly.

EARTH DAY 2017!!!: Iowa Agriculture: A Mining Mentality / High Yield Extraction

[Iowa Water Post Number 10, selections from Your 2 Cents Worth, & Letters To Editor, Des Moines Register]

*****

It was wonderful to read about thousands of acres of farm buffer strips next to creeks and lakes, and how, very soon, all the waterways in the state will be protected. Unfortunately, I was reading about Minnesota, which requires buffer strips. Iowa doesn't.

*****

Iowa farmers are switching form corn to soybeans to search for more profit this year.  Here’s a novel idea.  How about adding a third, fourth or fifth option?  Try planting oats, wheat, sorghum or anything else but row crops.  Plant a crop that actually holds the soil and takes less inputs (fertilizer, chemicals).  Oops, silly me.  You would lose your row crop welfare checks.

*****

I’d like my taxes to help the farmer down the road who raises veggies and uses compost to improve his soil.

Instead, my taxes help the corn farmer next door who sends lots of soil and nitrates into the creek via tillage and tiling.

*****

[letter to editor: Selden Spencer, Water is still polluted]

Despite the recent legal decision against the Des Moines Water Works, Iowa’s water is still polluted and getting worse. How do we fix this problem?  Who is responsible?

Each of us can help. but the bulk of the problem is from industrial agriculture.  It is the owner of an “operation” that must accept final responsibility for the pollution of Iowa waters.  Whether the owners are on the farm, in a condo in Arizona or in some boardroom in Chicago. The owners, through persuasion or legislative rules must be brought to a conservation mentality and practice--a mindset that would value increased biomass as much as increased yield. 

The obsession with maximal yield will never allow for practices that might preserve or even enhance our gift of topsoil.

A mining mentality will continue to tear, destroy, pollute and wash away our topsoil into our waters and thereby foul them.  With carrot or stick we must try to promote and elevate the best practices of soil and water conservation to all landowners if we want to restore our water quality.

Editorial: Pulitzer Winner Took Brave Stand

Editorial: Pulitzer winner took brave stand

The Register's editorial Published 5:16 p.m. CT April 11, 2017 

Art Cullen, 59, editor of the twice-weekly Storm Lake Times, won a Pulitzer Prize on Monday for his editorial writing. Kelly McGowan/The Register

Art Cullen may have lost friends over his powerful editorials, but he’s no “enemy of the people.” So it’s inspiring to see the colorful editor of a small-town, family-owned newspaper honored with the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing.

The editor and co-owner of the Storm Lake Times won for 10 editorials he wrote last year on Iowa’s water quality, including the Des Moines Water Works’ lawsuit against drainage districts in northwest Iowa. His work no doubt offended local officials, farmers and advertisers.

Cullen, however, was fighting for taxpayers in Buena Vista County. He worked with the Iowa Freedom of Information Council to obtain public records disclosing how his home county and two others financed the defense of the lawsuit.

“Regardless of your opinion about the merits of the water works’ lawsuit, the public deserves to know who is paying law firms in Des Moines and Washington, D.C., and under what terms,” he wrote in one of the editorials.

A few excerpts from those winning editorials:

On challenging those lawyers: "To use a barnyard euphemism, every once in awhile even a blind pig finds a nut. We are not so polished, but our snout smells something that is being hidden. We can’t see very well right now. But we can smell it."

On Gov. Terry Branstad’s proposal to redirect schools' sales tax revenue for water quality: “So, the workers at Tyson who buy school supplies for their children would find their sales tax payments going to agland owners who install bioreactors while living in California and paying no sales tax in Iowa. And Storm Lake (schools) could not build the size of facility it needs to accommodate the children of food processors woven into the supply chain that pollutes the Raccoon directly and indirectly.”

On why regulation is needed: “The truth is that we can’t dump a barrel of ink down the drain without impunity. Why should a farmer be allowed to dump a couple tons of phosphorous-laden soil into the Raccoon?”

Congratulations, Art.