Iowans make a big mistake by looking the other way while waterways are silently polluted. The health consequences are devastating. Thanks for the details, Chris...
I don't want to throw gas on the fire, but at least it might gas off some of the Nitrogen. An Iowa DNR report for that year showed that 2022 was the 3rd Water year in a row of 9.0" below average precipitation. The adage they rely on; "the solution to pollution is dilution" fails by a bit more than half. The concentrations of Nitrogen and Phosphorous go up when the water goes down, someone on there side will argue "mass balance", acreage, or evaporation rates and all that too could be applied as fertilizer.
If there are indeed better tools to efficiently apply the materials they need to feed the dirt then why not use them? Too expensive? It was reported by the National Cancer Institute that Iowa had the highest Cancer growth rates from 2015 to 2019.
And had they not run out of time rounding up the Iowa National Guard to send to the Border the Legislature had a bill in the last session that would have removed liability from the producers for any ill effects. Senate File 2412, aka "the cancer gag".
I'm not a farmer, I've lived in Iowa for all but 4 months of my 66 years. We were taught about terracing and no-till practices and 100 other agricultural applications by the 6th grade.
I knew that the soil here was special, so special that Universities around the World have studied it for its fertile properties. I guess what I didn't realize was that there were an equal number of institutions trying to figure out how to get every last ounce of growth from a seed that was possible, then double it.
And did the Governor actually propose that we stop calling it "climate change" and instead call it "climate trends?" Get the Iowa Pork Producers on the phone, gonna need to put a lot of lipstick on a lot of pigs!
It's raining less, the average daytime temps are higher and the wind is blowin....Thank you for your points Chris, we need more voices in the chorus.
Who would have guessed this would be true: “In a sane world, Iowa DNR supports the drinking water utilities they are charged with regulating. But not here in Iowa.”
There is only one river in Missouri not on the polluted waters list. I would be surprised if there are any rivers in Iowa that aren't polluted with something. Iowa legislators treat groundwater like it is a great place to dump unwanted industrial pollutants. Overfertilization of crops in Iowa ensure that all the runoff nitrogen and phosphorous will enter the rivers and groundwater. I wonder what all these politicians drink, cook with, and shower in? Let's go to a meeting of their governmental committees on the environment and offer them a drink of tap water. But first, let's put a drop of river water in it and ask if they will drink it.
Thanks, Chris. You would know that the City of CR is in a multi-year process of renovating, upgrading, and expanding the wastewater treatment plant on the Cedar River. My imperfect memory is that the expected cost is around $350 million (or something like that) and that the upgraded plant is intended partly to reduce N and P discharges very substantially in order to meet new US EPA requirements. Ninety percent of the treatment capacity is for industrial wastewater — not residential. Industry pays for that service, and that is a very significant part of their cost of operations. Cedar Rapids has been very good at supporting local business and attracting new commerce and industry to the city, and adequate water and wastewater capacity is an important part of that sell. The city and Alliant Energy have recently attracted two (I think) massive new data centers to SW Cedar Rapids, with initial construction already happening on the ground. I would guess that those new data centers will need a lot of cooling water. I’m just speculating on imperfect info, but perhaps this is part of the puzzle?
I have no doubt that this is part of the puzzle. These data centers will support AI and also mine for bitcoin. They produce nothing. Bitcoin is a huge Ponzi scheme that will bring down governments and AI will make us humans work harder while the rich become even more unseemly wealthy. My electrical coop keeps raising its maintenance fees and cost for electricity every year. We have no voice and are subsidizing the companies we despise that are harming society and nature.
Thanks, Chris. A thorough discussion of purely policy-sourced pollution. After moving back to Gazette territory several years ago I have learned that CR’s economy is supported by much more dirty industry than DesMoines. Also, the last couple elected mayors have been political friends of the State government. It’s hard for politicians to badmouth their friends and funders. More unexpected is the new found conscience of EPA. CR’s boil is almost guaranteed to burst someday because of the statewide failure to enact any measures to slow the N trend.
A TMDL for the Beeds Lake Watershed was dropped in October of 2013 at 65-70% complete. A part of the Cedar River Watershed. About the time a large pork processor was looking for a new site. They ultimately decided on a site south of Eagle Grove. The processor has been up and running for a few years now. The TMDL for Beeds Lake is still lost in the files of the DNR.
Thank you Chris for pointing this out! After trying to deal with Linn County supervisors and its planning department I'm beginning to think there's something in the water, as they say. No integrity, from the top down. They've got an incredible nonprofit community there. It's all that's saving that city, and that's not a good thing.
Chris - As you know I know exactly which staffer at CR you are referring to. I was there when she ripped you in public. If it’s any consolation she ripped me over the phone too when she learned I had strongly pushed back on DNR’s attempt to withdraw the Cedar River TMDL - a TMDL I am proud my team wrote and is still valid and enforceable. The problem then and now is DNR refuses to enforce it by restricting new NPDES permit discharges into the Cedar basin and EPA has been complicit all these years by ignoring DNR’s violation of this TMDL in spite of the fact that I wrote to Region 7 leadership alerting them to the fact that DNR was issuing discharge permits in direct violation of the TMDL. The only way this flaunting of the law will stop is when the public uses it authority under the CWA to file a citizens lawsuit against EPA/DNR for their failure to comply with the TMDL and the CWA. There is ample public record at this point to support such an action. I entrusted Wally Taylor and the Sierra Club with all my records and documents on this issue and also collaborated with the IEC at the time of DNR’s efforts to withdraw the CR TMDL in order to document and put pressure on EPA to deny Iowa’s attempt to withdraw that TMDL.
Thanks, Chris, as always, for the information (including the graph - worth 1 000, words) and continuing to advocate for our basic rights and call out those responsible for threatening them.
Can anyone please tell me what motivates such decision-makers to treat others' lives so cavalierly?
I'm reading "Challenger" about the space shuttle explosion that killed seven astronauts. Although many, many people warned of the imminent danger of launching under those conditions, "the bosses" did it anyway.
Why? Again, I just don't get why those responsible for our water quality choose to put us in danger.
With the Jordan aquifer under strain from both drought and use, and the drought doesn't seem to be easing especially in the Great Western Iowa Desert, one wonders if the corn miners will soon want to irrigate, and if they follow suit elsewhere in the country, taxpayers will be on the hook for at least part of that cost.
Giving the municipal water folks a pass in these large communities does little for the smaller ones out in the rural areas. When Monticello managed to slip past a population of 4,000 people in a census, suddenly we had to replace our waste water treatment plant because the style of our plant wasn't effective enough. OK, I get that we need improvements, but at minimum, our little city was doing something! Certainly more than the farmers who do nothing, or near nothing as the years old "voluntary program" to reduce nitrate runoff has shown, they have no interest in unless someone else pays for it! Even then, they drag their feet! My conclusion is simply they can pick on us little guys to try and improve the water quality so they can continue doing exactly what ever they like! It is our waste water that needs improving to cover their asses! For a little town this is coming at great expense, and since no one moved on it quickly, the costs are now going through the roof! With state government tightening the screws on taxation growth, and at the same time telling us what we need to do without their help or money to do for ourselves, this is simply a disaster looking for a place to happen! Those farm folks who used to be our partners, now think we as a small city should continue covering them with fire protection and ambulance service, schools and other services without much help from them! When they write bills to add to the taxes to assist, they make sure you have to keep coming back to get money from them, and the money they give can't be used for wages and benefits! Only new equipment and replacement items like tape and bandages are covered by their largess! Better than a kick in the ass, but still a major expense they aren't helping with to make sure they have a fire truck and plenty of fire fighters and ambulance people when they need them! Fairness never seems to be part of the equation! It is time for change before we all become serfs!
So CR and the DNR want the impairments to "go away" from the books--and this could be accomplished by lowering the standards even further and redefining impairment. The city leaders and the DNR are less concerned about doing something to make the impairments actually go away. It's a parallel with the federal EPA in the new administration--managing the environment is an economic, not an ecological activity.
Iowans make a big mistake by looking the other way while waterways are silently polluted. The health consequences are devastating. Thanks for the details, Chris...
https://www.iowadnr.gov/About-DNR/DNR-News-Releases/ArticleID/4736/Water-Summary-Update-2023-Water-Year-end-shows-third-dry-year-in-a-row
I don't want to throw gas on the fire, but at least it might gas off some of the Nitrogen. An Iowa DNR report for that year showed that 2022 was the 3rd Water year in a row of 9.0" below average precipitation. The adage they rely on; "the solution to pollution is dilution" fails by a bit more than half. The concentrations of Nitrogen and Phosphorous go up when the water goes down, someone on there side will argue "mass balance", acreage, or evaporation rates and all that too could be applied as fertilizer.
If there are indeed better tools to efficiently apply the materials they need to feed the dirt then why not use them? Too expensive? It was reported by the National Cancer Institute that Iowa had the highest Cancer growth rates from 2015 to 2019.
https://www.kmaland.com/news/advocates-call-on-iowa-lawmakers-to-defeat-cancer-gag-act/article_67a5ac46-d45d-11ef-a257-3bf44b4f1a87.html
And had they not run out of time rounding up the Iowa National Guard to send to the Border the Legislature had a bill in the last session that would have removed liability from the producers for any ill effects. Senate File 2412, aka "the cancer gag".
I'm not a farmer, I've lived in Iowa for all but 4 months of my 66 years. We were taught about terracing and no-till practices and 100 other agricultural applications by the 6th grade.
I knew that the soil here was special, so special that Universities around the World have studied it for its fertile properties. I guess what I didn't realize was that there were an equal number of institutions trying to figure out how to get every last ounce of growth from a seed that was possible, then double it.
And did the Governor actually propose that we stop calling it "climate change" and instead call it "climate trends?" Get the Iowa Pork Producers on the phone, gonna need to put a lot of lipstick on a lot of pigs!
It's raining less, the average daytime temps are higher and the wind is blowin....Thank you for your points Chris, we need more voices in the chorus.
Who would have guessed this would be true: “In a sane world, Iowa DNR supports the drinking water utilities they are charged with regulating. But not here in Iowa.”
There is only one river in Missouri not on the polluted waters list. I would be surprised if there are any rivers in Iowa that aren't polluted with something. Iowa legislators treat groundwater like it is a great place to dump unwanted industrial pollutants. Overfertilization of crops in Iowa ensure that all the runoff nitrogen and phosphorous will enter the rivers and groundwater. I wonder what all these politicians drink, cook with, and shower in? Let's go to a meeting of their governmental committees on the environment and offer them a drink of tap water. But first, let's put a drop of river water in it and ask if they will drink it.
Thanks, Chris. You would know that the City of CR is in a multi-year process of renovating, upgrading, and expanding the wastewater treatment plant on the Cedar River. My imperfect memory is that the expected cost is around $350 million (or something like that) and that the upgraded plant is intended partly to reduce N and P discharges very substantially in order to meet new US EPA requirements. Ninety percent of the treatment capacity is for industrial wastewater — not residential. Industry pays for that service, and that is a very significant part of their cost of operations. Cedar Rapids has been very good at supporting local business and attracting new commerce and industry to the city, and adequate water and wastewater capacity is an important part of that sell. The city and Alliant Energy have recently attracted two (I think) massive new data centers to SW Cedar Rapids, with initial construction already happening on the ground. I would guess that those new data centers will need a lot of cooling water. I’m just speculating on imperfect info, but perhaps this is part of the puzzle?
I have no doubt that this is part of the puzzle. These data centers will support AI and also mine for bitcoin. They produce nothing. Bitcoin is a huge Ponzi scheme that will bring down governments and AI will make us humans work harder while the rich become even more unseemly wealthy. My electrical coop keeps raising its maintenance fees and cost for electricity every year. We have no voice and are subsidizing the companies we despise that are harming society and nature.
Water water everywhere nor any drop to drink
Thanks, Chris. A thorough discussion of purely policy-sourced pollution. After moving back to Gazette territory several years ago I have learned that CR’s economy is supported by much more dirty industry than DesMoines. Also, the last couple elected mayors have been political friends of the State government. It’s hard for politicians to badmouth their friends and funders. More unexpected is the new found conscience of EPA. CR’s boil is almost guaranteed to burst someday because of the statewide failure to enact any measures to slow the N trend.
A TMDL for the Beeds Lake Watershed was dropped in October of 2013 at 65-70% complete. A part of the Cedar River Watershed. About the time a large pork processor was looking for a new site. They ultimately decided on a site south of Eagle Grove. The processor has been up and running for a few years now. The TMDL for Beeds Lake is still lost in the files of the DNR.
Thank you Chris for pointing this out! After trying to deal with Linn County supervisors and its planning department I'm beginning to think there's something in the water, as they say. No integrity, from the top down. They've got an incredible nonprofit community there. It's all that's saving that city, and that's not a good thing.
Chris - As you know I know exactly which staffer at CR you are referring to. I was there when she ripped you in public. If it’s any consolation she ripped me over the phone too when she learned I had strongly pushed back on DNR’s attempt to withdraw the Cedar River TMDL - a TMDL I am proud my team wrote and is still valid and enforceable. The problem then and now is DNR refuses to enforce it by restricting new NPDES permit discharges into the Cedar basin and EPA has been complicit all these years by ignoring DNR’s violation of this TMDL in spite of the fact that I wrote to Region 7 leadership alerting them to the fact that DNR was issuing discharge permits in direct violation of the TMDL. The only way this flaunting of the law will stop is when the public uses it authority under the CWA to file a citizens lawsuit against EPA/DNR for their failure to comply with the TMDL and the CWA. There is ample public record at this point to support such an action. I entrusted Wally Taylor and the Sierra Club with all my records and documents on this issue and also collaborated with the IEC at the time of DNR’s efforts to withdraw the CR TMDL in order to document and put pressure on EPA to deny Iowa’s attempt to withdraw that TMDL.
and just when we think it can't get any worse, in comes drill baby drill trump and his baaing sheep following stooges...
To my knowledge I am a paid member to Chris Jones blog although it urges me to pay???
Thanks, Chris, as always, for the information (including the graph - worth 1 000, words) and continuing to advocate for our basic rights and call out those responsible for threatening them.
Can anyone please tell me what motivates such decision-makers to treat others' lives so cavalierly?
I'm reading "Challenger" about the space shuttle explosion that killed seven astronauts. Although many, many people warned of the imminent danger of launching under those conditions, "the bosses" did it anyway.
Why? Again, I just don't get why those responsible for our water quality choose to put us in danger.
With the Jordan aquifer under strain from both drought and use, and the drought doesn't seem to be easing especially in the Great Western Iowa Desert, one wonders if the corn miners will soon want to irrigate, and if they follow suit elsewhere in the country, taxpayers will be on the hook for at least part of that cost.
Giving the municipal water folks a pass in these large communities does little for the smaller ones out in the rural areas. When Monticello managed to slip past a population of 4,000 people in a census, suddenly we had to replace our waste water treatment plant because the style of our plant wasn't effective enough. OK, I get that we need improvements, but at minimum, our little city was doing something! Certainly more than the farmers who do nothing, or near nothing as the years old "voluntary program" to reduce nitrate runoff has shown, they have no interest in unless someone else pays for it! Even then, they drag their feet! My conclusion is simply they can pick on us little guys to try and improve the water quality so they can continue doing exactly what ever they like! It is our waste water that needs improving to cover their asses! For a little town this is coming at great expense, and since no one moved on it quickly, the costs are now going through the roof! With state government tightening the screws on taxation growth, and at the same time telling us what we need to do without their help or money to do for ourselves, this is simply a disaster looking for a place to happen! Those farm folks who used to be our partners, now think we as a small city should continue covering them with fire protection and ambulance service, schools and other services without much help from them! When they write bills to add to the taxes to assist, they make sure you have to keep coming back to get money from them, and the money they give can't be used for wages and benefits! Only new equipment and replacement items like tape and bandages are covered by their largess! Better than a kick in the ass, but still a major expense they aren't helping with to make sure they have a fire truck and plenty of fire fighters and ambulance people when they need them! Fairness never seems to be part of the equation! It is time for change before we all become serfs!
So CR and the DNR want the impairments to "go away" from the books--and this could be accomplished by lowering the standards even further and redefining impairment. The city leaders and the DNR are less concerned about doing something to make the impairments actually go away. It's a parallel with the federal EPA in the new administration--managing the environment is an economic, not an ecological activity.