by Annika Jane Beamer, Inside Climate NewsSensitive media
This article originally appeared on Inside Climate News (hyperlink to original story), a non-profit, non-partisan news organization covering climate, energy and the environment. Sign up for their newsletter here.
DES MOINES, Iowa—At a press conference in the state capital on Friday, Gov. Kim Reynolds announced a “comprehensive legislative package” that would increase funding for utilities struggling to meet federal drinking water standards and combat high nitrate pollution from agriculture.
The plan calls for the state to spend more than $100 million on water treatment infrastructure over the next decade, including a one-time $25 million investment to expand the Central Iowa Water Works. Nitrate removal facilitywhich serves more than 600,000 residents in the state’s largest metropolitan area
The state-of-the-art removal facility has operated for more than 100 days so far in 2026, as the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers reach near-record levels of nitrates that exceed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s legal limit of 10 milligrams per liter. Studies have linked long-term exposure to nitrates in drinking water, even at low levels, to various cancers and serious health risks for children.
And although nitrate contamination of surface water is not limited to central Iowa, many of the state’s smaller communities lack the infrastructure to remove the contamination.
Since early 2024, public water supplies for at least seven communities have exceeded the EPA’s maximum contaminant levels, according to documents maintained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.
The water package announced by Reynolds, a Republican, allocates $76 million for grant and loan programs to help Iowa’s rural communities upgrade their water treatment facilities.
Investing in water treatment systems “is a very urgent need and shifts money to the most effective programs,” Reynolds said. “Water quality is not a farm issue, it’s not a city issue and it’s not a political issue, but it’s absolutely non-negotiable.”
Critics say Reynolds’ plan does little to address sources of pollution in waterways.
The Central Iowa Source Water Resource Assessment, a two-year scientific study released last summer, attributed 80 percent of the nitrogen in Central Iowa watersheds to agricultural activities.
Large amounts of synthetic fertilizers and hog and poultry manure are applied to Iowa cropland to grow corn and soybeans, and any phosphorus and nitrogen not taken up by the crop can leach into soil and waterways to fuel algae and bacterial blooms or produce dangerously high yields.
Reynolds’ water quality proposal “ignores the root causes of pollution” and is “too little too late,” said Jennifer Breon, a senior organizer in Iowa for Food and Water Action, the political and lobbying arm of the environmental watchdog group Food and Water Watch, in a statement.
Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Mike Nigue announced at Friday’s press conference that the state will increase funding for water conservation efforts on farms in the Des Moines watershed. The Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship will receive an additional $52 million to expand the adoption of cover crops, no-till and strip-till farming and nitrate-reducing wetlands in the region.
But it’s all voluntary.
“Binding regulations are the only way to ensure water quality improvements, and those are extremely popular,” said Breon, referencing. Voting Food and Water Action led in February, which reported that 79 percent of Iowa voters support mandatory requirements for industrial agriculture to reduce pollution.
Advocates also argued that Reynolds’ decision to exclude the Iowa Water Quality Information System from the funding proposal undermines critical water monitoring efforts. D network More than 60 continuous water quality monitors, operated by the University of Iowa, lose state funding in 2023.
Citizens and environmental organizations lobbied the Legislature this year to restore permanent funding for the network, stressing that it plays an important role in providing Iowans with real-time water quality information.
Reynolds’ plan instead allocates an additional $500,000 per year to the State of Natural Resources’ ambient water quality monitoring program. The program conducts sampling once a month at 60 stream sites across the state.
Collin Fowle, director of the Iowa Environmental Council’s water program, told members of the Iowa Farmers Union in March that the DNR program cannot provide minute-to-minute data the way the University of Iowa Sensor Network does.
From 2023, the network relies on grant funding that is set to expire at the end of July. Loss of the network would be a huge blow to a state struggling to provide clean water to its residents, Fowle said.
In a statement released by the Iowa Environmental Council, which described Reynolds’ package as a “small first step,” Fowle also noted that the proposal focuses on funding in central Iowa, while many communities that experience the highest year-round nitrate levels fall outside that region.
“Nitrate pollution is a statewide crisis,” Fowle said. “And a statewide crisis demands a statewide solution.”
This article originally appeared on Sentient https://sentientmedia.org/fertilizer-pollution-on-the-rise-iowa-will-invest-in-water-treatment/.
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This story was originally published by sensitive
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