Cami Koons covers agriculture and the environment for Iowa Capital Dispatch, where this article first appeared.

More than 500 individuals gathered in Des Moines on August 4 to hear what comes next following the release of an in-depth water quality report commissioned by Polk County. 

Another 500 watched online, to hear years worth of research on water pollutants and key steps forward at the individual, watershed and state levels. 

One speaker said it was the first step in an effort to keep the report from just “sitting on a shelf.”

“They spent over 4,000 hours on research and compiling data,” former Polk County administrator John Norris said. “Their work now empowers us as citizens and voters to demand action be taken to make our waters safe.” 

Polk County commissioned the Central Iowa Source Water Resource Assessment (CISWRA) report two years ago to create an unbiased and comprehensive study of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, which serve as drinking and recreating water for Iowans in the Des Moines area and beyond. 

The Harkin Institute for Public Policy at Drake University gathered four of the sixteen scientific advisors who authored the 200-page CISWRA report to present the findings of the report to interested members of the public. 

Iowa Public Radio’s John Wanamaker, left, moderates a discussion with researchers on Polk County’s CISWRA report at Drake University on August 4. From left, Wanamaker, Larry Weber, Eliot Anderson, Jerald Schnoor and Claire Hruby. (Photo by Cami Koons/Iowa Capital Dispatch)

Larry Weber, a University of Iowa professor who worked on the report, said water quality issues in Iowa have been going on for a “long long time.” 

But the issue was brought to the attention of many central Iowans this summer when Central Iowa Water Works, which serves 600,000 people in the region, issued its first ever lawn watering ban—not because of a drought, but because the nitrate concentrations in the rivers were too high to meet summer water demands on the system. 

By blocking central Iowans from watering their lawns, Central Iowa Water Works’ facilities were able to keep nitrate concentrations in finished water below the clean drinking water standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. As nitrate levels in the river went down, the utility was able to initiate a phased ending to the ban. 

While challenges to drinking water was part of the report, it also focused on sources of pollution, river flow, recreation, ecological health and suggested solutions. 

SOURCES AND PROBLEMS

The report found that nearly 80 percent of nitrate contamination in the rivers comes from agricultural sources and that the nitrate pollution in Iowa is uniquely high compared to all other states. 

Weber said part of the problem is the continued addition of tile lines to agricultural land in the watershed. These underground pipes help farmers drain their fields of excess moisture, but can also mean water has a more direct route from field to river, without the filtering effects of percolating through the ground. 

Weber said these problems will also only get worse as the effects of climate change are predicted to include heavier big rain events. 

“The issue that really keeps me up at night is just the lack of progress and the lack of pace in the work that we’re doing,” Weber said. “It doesn’t seem that this issue has ever really garnered the attention that it deserves.” 

Another researcher, Eliot Anderson who is also at the University of Iowa, said impaired water quality also impacts ecological diversity of a stream. This means fewer fish and macroinvertebrates in the water that indicate a healthy stream. Manure spills, high concentrations of various nutrients, and chemicals can kill off these beneficial critters, as can eroding stream banks. 

Anderson said the most “surefire” way to improve the ecosystems is to improve the ecology surrounding a river with buffers of natural vegetation. He said this not only improves the habitat, but also helps keep soil in place and can filter out some nutrients before they reach the river. 

Jerald Schnoor, a professor at the University of Iowa, said nitrates are not the only contaminants that worry water utilities. Algal blooms that can create toxic chemicals, pesticides, ammonia and organic carbon, pharmaceuticals and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, are all source water contaminants that water utilities have to deal with. 

Schnoor said “we really don’t know” what the health effects of all of those things together are, and the potential toxicity of PFAS in very low concentrations is something that concerns him most. 

Claire Hruby, a professor at Drake University who also formerly worked with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR), said these problems are why she chooses to use a reverse osmosis filtration system at her home. 

Hruby said the water quality concerns don’t keep her from recreating in the rivers, however. Hruby said the report found that E. coli is “overall” much higher in Iowa streams than it is at beaches, which are regularly monitored, while streams are not.

“We can’t tell where we are unless we have monitoring,” Hruby said. 

While the report analyzed contaminants like E. coli in the rivers, which she said come not only from ag sources but also from human sources as the river enters urban areas, Hruby said this type of monitoring is limited—as is data for contamination in fish that are caught out of the rivers. 

The majority of efforts to combat nutrient run off from agricultural land, like those under the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, are voluntary programs. Iowa Public Radio’s John Wanamaker hosted a discussion portion of the event Monday and asked researchers if the state had “reached a point” where “regulation is necessary?” 

The crowded theater erupted in shouts of “yes” from the panelists and the audience. 

Hruby said the conversation of regulation is nuanced. She said to enforce any regulation, the DNR needs to be funded to do so. She also said she doesn’t think confined animal feeding operations should be banned, but that there “reasonable changes” to be made. 

“This idea that we can’t talk about it at all is silly,” Hruby said. “We need to be able to talk about it, and what regulations might work.” 

For starters, she said it’s time to “raise the base levels” so that everybody does “something” in terms of conservation efforts that she said are proven to make a difference.

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Editor’s note from Laura Belin: Readers can watch the August 4 presentation on the Harkin Institute’s YouTube channel:

Those interested in the topic can learn more from Cami Koons’ July 25 article for Iowa Capital Dispatch: “Data analysis: How do nitrate levels in central Iowa this year compare to last?”