The End of the (Impair) Affair
Bad People Like Bad Water
I find myself writing about Iowa’s ‘Impair Affair’ for at least the third time, and I am indeed exhausted by this maddening subject and abuse of power. But once again current events and reader demands are forcing a duty call, so here I go again.
This story goes back to late 2022 when Iowa DNR Director Kayla Lyon withdrew the water quality improvement plan (TMDL or Total Maximum Daily Load) for the Cedar River above Cedar Rapids. Under the 1972 Clean Water Act, the river had not been meeting its designated uses, which in this specific case was use as a source of municipal drinking water. DNR had listed the river as impaired going back to 2006. Water quality data generated in the few months leading up to the announcement showed the river still impaired for nitrate—readings as high as 14 mg/L had been recorded by the U.S. Geological Survey. The maximum limit for nitrate in municipal drinking water is 10 mg/L.
What is a TMDL? A Total Maximum Daily Load is the calculation of the maximum amount of a pollutant (in this case nitrate-nitrogen) allowed to enter a waterbody so that the waterbody will meet and continue to meet water quality standards for that particular pollutant. A TMDL also determines a pollutant reduction target and allocates load reductions necessary to the source(s) of the pollutant. Once the TMDL is set, new and expanded dischargers of that pollutant into the watershed are not allowed under the Clean Water Act, unless a decrease in pollutant discharge can be affected elsewhere. TMDLs are created by the states for approval by USEPA.
Katie Greenstein, at that time the DNR staff person charged with communicating their *logic* to the public, went through a wild explanatory walkabout that included low Cedar River nitrate from 2016 to 2020 (yes, two years prior) and that the current TMDL was unworkable because the point source dischargers (mainly treated municipal and industrial wastewater effluents) had been been discharging too much nitrogen on the down low and because of that the TMDL was unworkable. In other words, she told the media that DNR had not been doing its job regulating these discharges. I know, I know, knock me over with a feather. Retired DNR supervisor Alan Bonini was also quoted saying as much: “Staffers knowingly over-allocated the document’s designated nitrogen limit for facilities in the watershed, and with the TMDL in place, they were failing their duty under the Clean Water Act.”
I wrote about this at the time and was especially interested in the fact that the City of Cedar Rapids did not object (and still hasn’t) to these shenanigans, considering the fact that their drinking water supply continues to be imperiled by nitrate. The DNR decision allowed more nitrate to enter the upstream river from point sources and curiously the city decided to whistle by the graveyard.
On the Cedar River, Greenstein said, “This is a very special case.”
DNR later went on to do the same thing with the Raccoon, Des Moines, Iowa and Skunk Rivers.
In November 2024, Biden’s EPA told Iowa DNR Director Kayla Lyon to hold on a minute and EPA put the stream stretches in question back on the impaired list while soliciting comment on the decision. “Iowa DNR has not revised its assessment of these parameters to adequately address them as pollutants with toxic effects or given reasonable consideration of the endpoints and adverse effects being considered.” EPA received 83 comments on the decision; 72 were in support, 8 requested additional information, and 3 were opposed: Iowa Farm Bureau Federation, The Fertilizer Institute, and Iowa DNR. Des Moines and Central Iowa Water Works submitted comments in support of the decision. The Cities of Cedar Rapids and Iowa City did not comment.
In January EPA affirmed the decision. “The agency (EPA) points to Iowa water quality standards that say “all substances toxic or detrimental to humans” or to the water treatment process are to be limited to “nontoxic or nondetrimental concentrations.” EPA said it used this water quality standard to justify listing the additional segments, because water treatment facilities must use “additional treatment” to meet drinking water nitrate standards, per its own code.” Iowa rivers have been impaired for decades under this criterion.
Lyon continued to object on administrative grounds and apparently a new theme being promoted by Farm Bureau that nitrate is environmentally beneficial and not toxic to human beings.
Then last month, in move that now seems predictable, Trump’s EPA rescinded its January decision and allowed DNR and Kayla Lyon to get their way—the affected stream segments are again off the impaired list, this time likely for good. Lyon says that the cities using source water from these rivers are all able to supply drinking water within the safe drinking water standards, so the rivers need not be impaired. By that logic, when Des Moines built its nitrate removal facility in 1992, the Raccoon and Des Moines Rivers forever became unpolluted by nitrate.
Thus this would seem to be an end to this saga, at least until Trump leaves office and a Democrat interested in water quality is elected governor here in Iowa. I’m not holding my breath on that last thing.
What’s being missed in the latest media stories (in my opinion) is that the de-listing, or un-impairing or whatever you want to call it, opens up these rivers to new and expanded point source discharges of nitrate. No TMDL, then no pollution cap, at least for nitrogen and nitrate. There’s no doubt in my mind that Republicans in general and Kim Reynolds specifically have seen these pollution ‘caps’ as an obstacle to economic development, and when Iowa’s economy is 51st-best in the country, that’s seen as a problem, especially for new or expanded meat packing operations.
Pollution from new operations like the Daisy Dairy plant in Boone would be much more difficult to wedge into the permitting scheme if the Des Moines River was impaired for nitrate, as it was a month ago. But not now. This is probably why Cedar Rapids stays mum on the issue—the coast is now clear for any new discharger upstream of their well fields in the Cedar River alluvium and agribusiness-loving city leaders would love nothing better than to remove existing czechs on pollution. I think that’s how they spell it there.
The other thing that’s going on here is a heavy-handed cancelling of the 1972 Clean Water Act, which has been the fever dream of polluters everywhere since Reagan. With the stroke of a pen, the federal government has handed the three headed hydra of Lyon, Farm Bureau, and the Fertilizer Institute a priceless gift—none of our municipal drinking water utilities using surface water are now impaired for nitrate. It’s pretty obvious now that some Ag goon in the establishment has been gaming this out for years. The timing for this latest development is a little inconvenient for them, coming as it does on the heels of the worst water crisis in Des Moines’ history since the 1993 flood and as millions of pounds of nitrate continue to exit the state, destination Dead Zone. It would be great campaign fodder for Democrats, if any of them have the stones to call out this shit. But my sense is the Ag goons don’t lay awake at night worrying about that.
Finally, some words on Lyon. As head of DNR, she is also the head of enforcement of municipal drinking water supply in Iowa. Although I’ve never felt that DNR was a zealous advocate for safe drinking water, as they should be, neither did I ever think the agency was the enemy of municipal water supply or the public health. Until Lyon.
Sure I know Kim Reynolds is the boss and blame it all on her if you must. But Lyon is clearly complicit or lazy at best and evil at worst. If you want cleaner water, Kayla Lyon is your adversary and you would be wise to treat her as such.
I’m gonna end this with some water quality data. The map below outlines the Cedar-Iowa River Basin, as measured at Wapello. Since 1/1/25, 122 million pounds of nitrate-nitrogen has left this watershed and 100 million pounds of that has come since 4/27/25, which is 898,000 lbs/day on average. With about 2/3 of the year gone, about 24 pounds of nitrogen per crop acre in this watershed have been lost to the stream network.
The Raccoon River as measured at Van Meter has averaged 12.0 mg/L of nitrate-nitrogen since April 26 of this year, and has exceeded the drinking water standard (10 mg/L) on 100 of 113 days since then.
And this nightmare is for what? To feed MORE cows, MORE pigs, make corn syrup to add to everything in a package in our grocery stores and to make ethanol. I feel like a lemming for the number of times in my lifetime I have just turned on the tap and assumed I was drinking fresh, clean, safe water.
Chris, you need a Superman cape. Iowa is seeming like a dark place and we need super heroes.
Money, greed, and power have eroded the brains of some so bad that they think, if my investments are doing well, and I can go on three vacations a year( one a cruise,yipee! Big point source of ocean pollution) and my kids are not dead, yet, then nitrate levels in the very thing that keeps us alive are not something we need to be concerned about. It is no wonder they want AI, there is no more intelligence left in strains of Homo Sapien. I believe there are sub species of humans that have evolved with the creation of money that are incapable of reason and logic. The lemmings keep running off the cliff.