Survey - Iowa’s Long Wait for Better Water Quality

Thanks for taking our survey. Need a quick recap of the arguments FOR and AGAINST? Check beneath the survey.

FOR

Gov. Reynolds and the Republican legislature use the free market, individual property rights and reliance on the expertise of the farmers who know their land best to make decisions about clean water. Gov. Reynolds made a $282 million investment in water quality initiatives and created a water quality infrastructure fund within the state's Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.The fund will be used to support conservation infrastructure on agricultural land, including things like wetlands, bioreactors, saturated buffers, terraces and waterways. The Republican legislature and the Governor have opposed giving local county supervisors the legal authority to regulate CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations).

AGAINST

Many Iowa associations working on conservation, environmental issues and economic development say the Republican legislature abandoned years of land stewardship, risking the loss of healthy and valuable topsoil, and lowering the quality of drinking water, all while rivers and lakes are too polluted to fish and swim (there were 12 closed state park beaches this summer.)

Instead of increasing the cooperative approach between farmers and local governments when the Iowa legislature created the Leopold Center in 1987, they eliminated its funding for research and promotion of agriculture best practices. When Iowa voters took the extraordinary step of passing a constitutional amendment called the Iowa Water and Land Legacy (I-WILL) to fund land protection, the Governor and legislature chose to fund other Iowa priorities.

More rivers and lakes are now labeled too polluted to use, more private wells are not tested for any pathogens, more nitrates are leaching into drinking water supplies and less money is allocated to increase water quality. While reducing the number of state-funded programs for many years, depleting attempts to control flooding, restoring soil health and protecting drinking water from agricultural chemical run-off, Governor Reynolds did spend $100 million from President Biden’s Infrastructure bill to fund clean water programs after calling out federal overreach and declining to use state funds.