Wally Taylor is the Legal Chair of the Sierra Club Iowa chapter. He wrote this essay after attending the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ virtual public hearing about the new Chapter 65 regulations on February 19.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources has been revising its regulations for animal feeding operations as dictated by Governor Kim Reynolds’ Executive Order 10, issued in early 2023.

Chapter 65 of the Iowa administrative code has long contained confusing and inadequate rules, which are open to manipulation by livestock producers and the DNR.

The DNR tried to revise the regulations recently to provide more protection for Iowa’s waters in areas of karst terrain. But the governor’s “Administrative Rules Coordinator” Nate Ristow blocked the proposed rule, because it would not reduce the “regulatory burden” on livestock producers.

The purpose of this agency’s administrative rules should be to protect Iowa’s people and the environment, not to reduce the regulatory burden. But livestock producers and the Iowa Farm Bureau complained that increased protection in areas of karst would have “unintended consequences,” without explaining what those consequences might be.

In fact, the unintended consequences of not having adequate protection in areas of karst would be the pollution of our rivers and streams and groundwater.

Aside from allowing insufficient protection from livestock operations in karst terrain, the proposed Chapter 65 rules flout the Iowa Code section that requires manure storage structures be covered to minimize odor. So the rules state that a manure pit under a confinement building is covered by a slatted floor over the pit, even though the odor comes up through the slats and is blown out of the building by big fans.

The rules also allow what is effectively a confinement operation to be considered an open feedlot, with the less rigorous rules granted to an open feedlot. The legislature defined an open feedlot as an operation that is unroofed or partially roofed. The intent was that the cattle would be in a fenced in open area with a structure where they could seek shelter in inclement weather.

But the DNR’s rules allow an operation where the buildings are at least 10 percent unroofed to be an open feedlot. As a result, CAFO operators construct buildings with unroofed feedbunks, constituting 10 percent of the square footage. But the cattle never leave the building.

The Chapter 65 rules also allow construction of a livestock operation in a flood plain in some instances. That would put Iowa’s water resources at risk.

There is more, but you get the point. The governor’s Executive Order 10 makes the rulemaking process a sham. If Reynolds can stop a rule on a whim even before it is presented to the public, what is the sense in having public comment?

And if the governor’s intent is to reduce regulatory burden, the rules will not adequately protect the public. This is just another example of Reynolds’ dictatorial control, aided and abetted by the Iowa legislature.

Is this really what Iowans voted for? If so, why? If not, we need to make our voices heard in November.

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Top photo of Iowa Supreme Beef confinement courtesy of the Sierra Club.