The Co-op Cowboys Ride Again
Why does Agribusiness Hate Clean Water?
It’s been widely reported that the Southwest Iowa New Cooperative facility in Red Oak released an enormous amount of a fertilizer product into the East Nishnabotna River a few days ago, essentially nuking the river down to its confluence with the Missouri River near Watson, MO. If you’re inclined to shed a tear for the Nishnabotna, don’t, because like most western Iowa streams, it was wrecked decades ago by farmers that straightened its course, causing it to cut downward, something known as stream incision. This process has been made worse by the straightening of the Missouri River, which also eroded downward, destabilizing the tributary outlets.
Species native to the Nishnabotna and other similar streams were maladapted to the radical changes in both instream and landscape hydrology, and soil erosion and nutrient pollution have changed the water chemistry such that pollution tolerant species dominate. While it’s well known that carp (Cyprinus carpio) take pride in their ability to endure the worst that Homo sapiens can pour on them, it seems even they have their limits, as they were seen having a quiet float trip down the Nish.
The West Branch of the Nish *might* be in a little better shape than the East Branch but there surely must be some Ag retailer in Harlan or Oakland just waiting to bring ecological equality to the entire Nishnabotna Basin by taking the West down a notch or two.
I don’t make this statement lightly and I mean every word of it: these Ag Retailers that sell the seed, fertilizer, chemicals and god only knows what other poisons, are a menace to Iowa and Iowans.
In 2020, Three Rivers FS Coop in Elkader pumped ammonia-laden stormwater onto its gravel parking lot, whereupon it immediately ran off into Roberts Creek and the Turkey River, causing a fish kill. Of our biggest 50 streams, the Turkey River is a ‘top ten’ stream in terms of its ecological integrity and can support trout. Three Rivers was fined the enormous sum of $6000 by those hanging judges at Iowa DNR, an amount of money you might spend to fertilize 70 acres of corn. About like a mosquito bite on an elephant’s ass. I drive by Three Rivers often and see anhydrous tanks stored in the floodplain all the time. I’m sure somebody at DNR told them it was ok and hey, it probably would cost more than 6 grand just to move them to higher ground. Might as well just pay the fine if lightning strikes twice.
The Southeast Iowa town of Nichols (pop 340) has had its groundwater contaminated with nitrate and other farm chemicals by Nichols Agriservice and AMOCO Cropmate, both of which sit on the west edge of town. One tested well contained nitrate at 42 times the safe drinking water limit. Neither company has been fined and the town is now a superfund site. Nichols Agriservice, which remains in business, has refused to take responsibility. The AMOCO site is now operated by the Colorado firm Nutrien Ag Solutions (put that one in your short-term memory).
The Agribusiness Association of Iowa (AAI) represents firms like these and in fact New Cooperative (Nishnabotna) and Nutrien Ag Solutions (Nichols) have both been AAI members for 30 years. Other AAI members you might recognize: Koch (yes that Koch) Fertilizer LLC, Bayer, BASF, Syngenta, Van Diest Supply (Webster City), Landus LLC (planted corn and soybean plots in DM Water Works Park), Mosaic Crop Nutrition, Heartland Coop (WDM), Cargill, Helena Chemical Company, and many if not most of the 1000 or so small and large ag retailers around Iowa.
The Nishnabotna Ninja, New Cooperative, is one of the largest ag retailers in the United States and has thousands of members in Iowa. Reports had the Red Oak facility releasing 1500 tons (3 million pounds) or 265,000 gallons of nitrogen fertilizer into the river (these are both likely a similar if not the same amount). Liquid nitrogen formulations can run from about 28% to 46% nitrogen, meaning about 800,000 to 1.4 million pounds of nitrogen would have been released. This would be enough to fertilize around 10,000 acres of corn and would have a retail value likely north of $500k. It says something about the amount of money these operations are making when they can just absorb a loss of product like this. That $6k DNR fine hanging over their heads like a Styrofoam anvil can be covered by padding their insurance claim by 1%.
As to that million or so pounds of nitrogen, well, it’s too bad Iowa Ag Secretary Mike Naig can’t gallivant down there with some of those taxpayer-funded saturated buffers to soak it all up. He’d only need about 3000 of them, except if they’re like the ones he paid Linn County farmers a $1000 ‘inconvenience fee’ to install. In that case, he’d need 150,000. At least that would keep his pals in the earth-moving business busy!
The New Cooperative leak was ongoing for two days before it was discovered, meaning more than 5000 gallons were leaking every hour. I can’t know, obviously, what safeguards the facility had in place, but I can tell you that it’s not hard to alarm a system such that a leak of this magnitude could be easily detected within minutes. If I was an engineer or bean counter associated with that facility (which begs the question, do they call money people ‘bean counters’ at an Ag retailer??), I’d probably be polishing my resumé. But who knows with these people. Maybe the attitude is “well, it’s just the Nish, no harm done.” I guess we in the public can rest easy that DNR will surely make an example of New Cooperative such that the penalty’s severity will strike fear into every ag retail executive from Red Oak to Bur Oak and Larchwood to Lone Tree.
Surprise!! They won’t.
What makes this all so maddeningly infuriating is the pull the Agribusiness Association of Iowa (AAI) has on our politics. They donate generously to both Democrats and Republicans and in fact their top two beneficiaries since 1999 have both been Democrats: former Ag Secretary, Lieutenant Governor and US Senate candidate Patty Judge, and former Iowa Senate Leader Mike Gronstal. Other notable Ds on their gift list include Zach Wahls, Pam Jochum, Tom Vilsack, Rob Hogg, and Janet Petersen. Rs on the list include all the usual suspects and former legislator Kraig Paulsen, who is now in the Kim Reynolds administration (Director of Iowa Department of Management). He’s number three overall for some reason.
People like to blame Iowa Farm Bureau Federation for all the evil when it comes to environment, but let me tell you, they got nuthin on the Co-op Cowboys. FB and AAI are 1 and 1a when it comes to slow walking water quality improvement.
This next sentence may seem incredible to you, but it’s true: The Co-op Cowboys have been designated by the Iowa legislature as Official Trackers of progress toward Iowa’s water quality goals outlined by the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, and have been allotted state money to gather farmer survey data from members, this through AAI’s Iowa Nutrient Research and Education Council (INREC). I know, I know, it’s a mind boggler. The same guys dumping fertilizer into the Nish and the Turkey are helping decide how good your water is. Monitoring Schmonitoring, let’s allow the guys selling the pollution tell us about water quality. Remember Nutrien down in Nichols, with the contaminated wells? Hey, they got a guy on the INREC board of directors. You can see the rest of the board and their affiliations in the picture below. As you can tell, diversity is about as important as water quality in the Agribusiness World. Even the ISU Dean of the College of Agriculture has lent his name to this shit show, but in his defense, he does kind of blend in with the crowd.
I have two things left to say here. Iowans: when it comes to agriculture and water quality, your government and your institutions have been corrupted. It’s the only way to describe the situation. And yes, I do mean corrupted in the worst sense of the word. The political and agricultural establishment DO NOT CARE if you have bad water. It’s so self-evident that it hardly bears mentioning.
Secondly, if you’re a farmer who’s stuck with me and is still reading these words, know this: the Ag Titans selling product are only too happy to let you shoulder the burden for the pollution. I know this with a certainty. Look no further than Nichols, where Nichols Agriservice has tried to blame area farmers for the town’s woes. And when a huge operation like Three Rivers Coop gets fined less ($6k) for killing the Turkey River than what a livestock farmer might get fined for a release of manure, you know who’s holding the trump cards.
I’m a member of the Iowa Writers Collaborative. There are some great writers (shown in the list below) and some big names in that group, and I’m lucky they tolerate a guy like me. They’re all posting here because like me, they want Iowa to be a better place to live, and words are our tools.
The draft 2024 303(d) list just came out and the number of impaired waterways was reduced from 751 in 2022 to 721 this year. I had a long talk with the DNR water monitoring supervisor, and a factor in this decrease is due to the drought - there just isn't water to test in some areas.
Yet I can just see the defenders of this broken system spewing nonsensical PR that progress is being made in cleaning up our waterways.
I appreciate this column, Chris. It exposes a whole new level of complicity in our water crisis that I wasn't fully aware of.
This is the beginning of the end. Change will happen when the collapse occurs. Disease and ecosystem collapse are here and people seem to be more concerned whether they have the newest dune buggy, ATV, or pontoon, cruise to nowhere, the fanciest truck, or whether their stocks are doing well so they can retire and partake in the aforementioned list of "We are just having fun". I forgot PICKLEBALL! How could I forget pickleball? When you ask folks whether they grow a garden, they claim it is too much work, but they are involved in 3 pickleball leagues. Reckoning Day is coming soon to a theater near you and the premier will be "We didn't see it coming, how could this happen". I want to have hope but the mindset in this country scares me. Nature will be the savior but humans are killing it at alarming rates. Once the threshold is achieved, the human race will cease to exist or be diminished severely and the great healing of the Earth will begin. I now know what the Native tribes felt like when the European invasion occurred. Watching something you love so dearly being destroyed right in front of your eyes and feeling the rage and disgust that this is happening in your lifetime. Life is a journey, and we are embarked on a difficult journey currently. May we see the light and realize that money is an infection that is killing us all and NO ONE is immune to the consequences.