It is sad that the finger pointing continues instead of actual solutions. The fact that the average homeowner is responsible for all the water woes is asinine. Thank you for your sincere attention to this problem. Make sure you drink plenty of filtered water for your headache.
"The irony here is that users of the water resource (YOU) are subject to regulation while the pollution itself goes unregulated."
Thank you so much Chris for this important message near our 250th celebration of independence.
What we see here is a clash of liberties -- between liberties taken and liberties forsaken. Between liberties expanded for the perpetrators and liberties restricted for the victims.
A comparable example would be with the huge issue of pesticide drift (in air, rainfall and dust) in the Midwest where industrial, chemical agriculture dominates vast land areas sprinkled with islands of human inhabitants. Where "enforcement" of regulations comes only after victims file complaints to state regulators and "relief" can be a recommendation by inspectors to move impacted vegetable gardens further from the edge of the farm fields, when in practicality there are no safe distances within many miles of the combined loading from volatile pesticides. And where enforcement (often just written warnings) is placed solely upon the pesticide applicators when the real problem lies with the registration of faulty products by the federal and state regulators who have never put in place any system to monitor and measure what happens when these products are applied over millions of acres. And then when so few victims jump through the ridiculous complaint hoop, the regulators use the low numbers of complaints, massively under-reported, as a measure of the safety of pesticides and the "robust" science behind product registration. And then they have the audacity to call this "regulation".
So what did happen to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? For whom?
Thank you! An excellent description of how Iowa's pesticide drift system "works." Of course as one modest way to begin improving the system, there could be research in Iowa, like the University of Illinois did in Illinois, to learn the actual extent and impacts of the pesticide drift problem in Iowa.
You must be referring to the "Bayer Institute for the Study of Bayer' Externalities".
You won't find much difference between UI and ISU in their delving into the environmental/ecological/social costs of big, industrial ag. It just ain't tenure securing.
You might be thinking of the excellent work of drift/tree health monitoring, analysis and reporting by Illinois' Prairie Rivers Network. They have two great reports:
Thank you! As of course your link points out, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was part of that Illinois Natural History Survey research, and the Survey is part of the U of Illinois system. I'm trying to imagine that kind of research being done in Iowa, with the Iowa DNR paying serious attention. But my imagination has limits.
To any interested readers -- you might want to check out the last thirteen pages of the third link, which are a mind-blowing long list of the pesticides in the research. I've never seen that kind of list on display at the Iowa State Fair.
Right on and please write on. I have discovered the same when approaching water utilities near me; all say they have the safest water and very cheap. They do not acknowledge that we now know more about risk levels of drinking compliant levels of nitrate. Our own utility in Cedar Falls told me in writing, there is no immediate threat, no action needed, and that I am misleading the public by bringing up this topic. Thanks Chris.
I've been volunteering and donating to conservation in Iowa for five decades. Have attended several hundred meetings, hearings, and conferences. Have done activism work on a variety of Iowa conservation issues, including water quality. I say that only to make it clear that I do not say the following lightly.
The Hannah Inman op-ed in the REGISTER today carefully avoided even mentioning common-sense badly-needed measures that are being urged by many water-quality experts and organizations, including basics like standards, schedules, and deadlines. The op-ed didn't even mention the issue that was so huge this year, real-time water monitoring!
That op-ed was very carefully and obviously designed to keep the Iowa Farm Bureau happy. The endless relentless determination of so many Iowa leaders to keep the Iowa Farm Bureau happy is one of the big reasons Iowa water quality is so awful.
And that is why the Hannah Inman op-ed made me a little sick to my stomach.
I have been noticing an awful trend in a lot of local papers and new sources doing the same thing- carefully and diligently avoiding real accountability measures. Like Google and NextEra energy as the City Council of Palo - stripped all those measures out of their revised data center ordinance.
Tax drainage tile by the foot, manure pits and lagoons by their storage capacity. Add more taxes to fertilizer. Use proceeds to provide clean water and develop the architecture (haha) for third crops like oats, Kernza…
Couldn’t there be a tax on fertilizer (sorry Mr. Farmer who over applies) to subsidize the water treatment plant upgrades? Let’s “subsidize” our utilities with tax funds from the actual perpetrators.
I think the "low hanging fruit" is enforcing existing laws and rules and telling the truth to the public. The Bloody Run mess in NE Iowa is the worst example of ignoring rules. I have been paddling the North Raccoon. In Sac County I could not believe the hog confinement concentration. Bill Stowe was right to sue Sac, BV and Calhoun Counties for polluting our drinking water. The conspiracy to avoid responsibility for hog manure is sickening. So many of our "trusted public servants" work for those ruining Iowa and making us sick. Sand and Jones might be able to turn this ship of state around.
Thanks Chris for continuing to try to change minds and hearts. Most everyone would be so angry and discouraged they would throw up their hands and give up! I live in a townhome with an association board that I have tried to convince to cease using such toxic chemicals on our grounds. Most people argue it is all agriculture. Of course it is but if we, as homeowners, would do our part and do the right thing, it would help.
Thank you for making this connection with the suburban/urban land-use aesthetic that foments similar strains between neighbors as its rural, toxic industrial counterpart and calls into question the stunting of ethical and moral restraints instilled by the "green" industry.
Hannah Inman and Great Outdoor Foundation deserve much credit for their work developing private philanthropy for Iowa outdoor recreation, especially ICON. It is not their mission to advocate on controversial policies, in fact such advocacy risks conflicting with their mission. I agree with the steps she advocated but as a policy advocate I favor regulating CAFO siting and manure management plan enforcement with penalties. We should be grateful for the Great Outdoors Foundation and wish them even more success.
Thank you. Agreed. I tried to make clear in my comment that I was criticizing only that one particular op-ed (which I was surprised to see, because as you point out, advocating on controversial policies is not their mission). If it wasn't clear that I was only addressing that one specific op-ed, I should have made it clearer.
My favorite part of this good post is the explanation of the difference between (1) drinking water that is below the current nitrate drinking water standard, and (2) drinking water that is safe. I've been wondering why "safe" keeps showing up in local news coverage. Apparently it really is Central Iowa Water Works that is spreading the "safe" message. Wow.
I worked for the big Ag company that became Nutrien about 10 years ago. I always wanted to go full Erin Brockovich on them but couldn’t get a lawyer interested. It was a huge employer locally, and no one wanted to mess with that.
It is sad that the finger pointing continues instead of actual solutions. The fact that the average homeowner is responsible for all the water woes is asinine. Thank you for your sincere attention to this problem. Make sure you drink plenty of filtered water for your headache.
The American dream is being subverted by corporations, and it's time we yanked it back.
Agree and ending Citizens United would have functional benefits at the State level as well
"The irony here is that users of the water resource (YOU) are subject to regulation while the pollution itself goes unregulated."
Thank you so much Chris for this important message near our 250th celebration of independence.
What we see here is a clash of liberties -- between liberties taken and liberties forsaken. Between liberties expanded for the perpetrators and liberties restricted for the victims.
A comparable example would be with the huge issue of pesticide drift (in air, rainfall and dust) in the Midwest where industrial, chemical agriculture dominates vast land areas sprinkled with islands of human inhabitants. Where "enforcement" of regulations comes only after victims file complaints to state regulators and "relief" can be a recommendation by inspectors to move impacted vegetable gardens further from the edge of the farm fields, when in practicality there are no safe distances within many miles of the combined loading from volatile pesticides. And where enforcement (often just written warnings) is placed solely upon the pesticide applicators when the real problem lies with the registration of faulty products by the federal and state regulators who have never put in place any system to monitor and measure what happens when these products are applied over millions of acres. And then when so few victims jump through the ridiculous complaint hoop, the regulators use the low numbers of complaints, massively under-reported, as a measure of the safety of pesticides and the "robust" science behind product registration. And then they have the audacity to call this "regulation".
So what did happen to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"? For whom?
Thank you! An excellent description of how Iowa's pesticide drift system "works." Of course as one modest way to begin improving the system, there could be research in Iowa, like the University of Illinois did in Illinois, to learn the actual extent and impacts of the pesticide drift problem in Iowa.
How about it, Iowa State University? *crickets*
You must be referring to the "Bayer Institute for the Study of Bayer' Externalities".
You won't find much difference between UI and ISU in their delving into the environmental/ecological/social costs of big, industrial ag. It just ain't tenure securing.
You might be thinking of the excellent work of drift/tree health monitoring, analysis and reporting by Illinois' Prairie Rivers Network. They have two great reports:
https://prairierivers.org/hiddeninplainsight-report
https://prairierivers.org/pdips-report
Also, biologists at the Illinois Natural History Survey shared their drift monitoring and reporting here:
https://dnr.illinois.gov/content/dam/soi/en/web/dnr/inpc/documents/INHS%20-%20final%20report_.pdf
Thank you! As of course your link points out, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign was part of that Illinois Natural History Survey research, and the Survey is part of the U of Illinois system. I'm trying to imagine that kind of research being done in Iowa, with the Iowa DNR paying serious attention. But my imagination has limits.
To any interested readers -- you might want to check out the last thirteen pages of the third link, which are a mind-blowing long list of the pesticides in the research. I've never seen that kind of list on display at the Iowa State Fair.
Thank you for running for Secretary of Ag! Iowa needs your clarity and persistence.
Right on and please write on. I have discovered the same when approaching water utilities near me; all say they have the safest water and very cheap. They do not acknowledge that we now know more about risk levels of drinking compliant levels of nitrate. Our own utility in Cedar Falls told me in writing, there is no immediate threat, no action needed, and that I am misleading the public by bringing up this topic. Thanks Chris.
I've been volunteering and donating to conservation in Iowa for five decades. Have attended several hundred meetings, hearings, and conferences. Have done activism work on a variety of Iowa conservation issues, including water quality. I say that only to make it clear that I do not say the following lightly.
The Hannah Inman op-ed in the REGISTER today carefully avoided even mentioning common-sense badly-needed measures that are being urged by many water-quality experts and organizations, including basics like standards, schedules, and deadlines. The op-ed didn't even mention the issue that was so huge this year, real-time water monitoring!
That op-ed was very carefully and obviously designed to keep the Iowa Farm Bureau happy. The endless relentless determination of so many Iowa leaders to keep the Iowa Farm Bureau happy is one of the big reasons Iowa water quality is so awful.
And that is why the Hannah Inman op-ed made me a little sick to my stomach.
What is the Des Moines Register's stake in all of this? It's a Gannett rag, er, USA Today rag.
I have been noticing an awful trend in a lot of local papers and new sources doing the same thing- carefully and diligently avoiding real accountability measures. Like Google and NextEra energy as the City Council of Palo - stripped all those measures out of their revised data center ordinance.
Tax drainage tile by the foot, manure pits and lagoons by their storage capacity. Add more taxes to fertilizer. Use proceeds to provide clean water and develop the architecture (haha) for third crops like oats, Kernza…
Couldn’t there be a tax on fertilizer (sorry Mr. Farmer who over applies) to subsidize the water treatment plant upgrades? Let’s “subsidize” our utilities with tax funds from the actual perpetrators.
I think the "low hanging fruit" is enforcing existing laws and rules and telling the truth to the public. The Bloody Run mess in NE Iowa is the worst example of ignoring rules. I have been paddling the North Raccoon. In Sac County I could not believe the hog confinement concentration. Bill Stowe was right to sue Sac, BV and Calhoun Counties for polluting our drinking water. The conspiracy to avoid responsibility for hog manure is sickening. So many of our "trusted public servants" work for those ruining Iowa and making us sick. Sand and Jones might be able to turn this ship of state around.
Sand needs to be become religiously serious about tackling Iowa's water quality problems.
Well said!
When Reynolds says “farm to faucet,” I wonder exactly where on the farm she is referring to.
Yeah gotta wonder how much thought they gave to that branding
more like 'pig to pipe'
Thanks Chris for continuing to try to change minds and hearts. Most everyone would be so angry and discouraged they would throw up their hands and give up! I live in a townhome with an association board that I have tried to convince to cease using such toxic chemicals on our grounds. Most people argue it is all agriculture. Of course it is but if we, as homeowners, would do our part and do the right thing, it would help.
Thank you for making this connection with the suburban/urban land-use aesthetic that foments similar strains between neighbors as its rural, toxic industrial counterpart and calls into question the stunting of ethical and moral restraints instilled by the "green" industry.
Hannah Inman and Great Outdoor Foundation deserve much credit for their work developing private philanthropy for Iowa outdoor recreation, especially ICON. It is not their mission to advocate on controversial policies, in fact such advocacy risks conflicting with their mission. I agree with the steps she advocated but as a policy advocate I favor regulating CAFO siting and manure management plan enforcement with penalties. We should be grateful for the Great Outdoors Foundation and wish them even more success.
Thank you. Agreed. I tried to make clear in my comment that I was criticizing only that one particular op-ed (which I was surprised to see, because as you point out, advocating on controversial policies is not their mission). If it wasn't clear that I was only addressing that one specific op-ed, I should have made it clearer.
My favorite part of this good post is the explanation of the difference between (1) drinking water that is below the current nitrate drinking water standard, and (2) drinking water that is safe. I've been wondering why "safe" keeps showing up in local news coverage. Apparently it really is Central Iowa Water Works that is spreading the "safe" message. Wow.
"The Beat Goes On"...one of my favorite sayings.
I worked for the big Ag company that became Nutrien about 10 years ago. I always wanted to go full Erin Brockovich on them but couldn’t get a lawyer interested. It was a huge employer locally, and no one wanted to mess with that.