Ric Zarwell, John A. Lundell, and Kevin W. Techau co-authored this column. Zarwell is a lifelong Allamakee County conservationist, birder, and former president of the Allamakee County Protectors, known for advocating for the land and water of the Driftless Area.
Lundell is a former mayor of Coralville (2013 – 2021) and ten-year City Council member. He is a member of the Iowa League of Cities Hall of Fameand a recognized water quality advocate.
Techau is a longtime Iowa conservation advocate who served as executive director and board chair of Keep Iowa Beautiful, served on the Iowa Environmental Council board,and enforced the Clean Water Act as U.S. Attorney for Iowa’s Northern District.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird is failing her most fundamental job: protecting the health, safety, and lives of the people who elected her. Instead of acting as a vigorous steward of our environment, Bird has abandoned the state’s top environmental enforcement duties, shielding corporate polluters while everyday Iowans pay the price.
This is not a matter of routine political theater; it is a profound case of malfeasance.
The stakes of her abandoning these duties are deadly. Iowa is trapped in a cancer crisis, saddled with the second-highest and fastest-growing rate of new cancer diagnoses in the nation. It is a catastrophic public health failure to pretend that our heavily contaminated water and toxic air are disconnected from this disease. Enforcing environmental law isn’t a secondary bureaucratic chore—it is a life-or-death responsibility that cuts across every geographic divide. Whether it is an urban family relying on downstream drinking water or a multi-generational farming family in a rural county breathing unmonitored emissions, we share the same air, the same water, and the same escalating risks.
Nowhere is this failure more evident than in Bird’s hands-off approach to Iowa’s booming factory farm and industrial agricultural industries. Iowa is drowning in animal and chemical waste, yet instead of stepping into the regulatory vacuum to protect Iowans, Bird’s office routinely undercuts real accountability. When industrial operators illegally contaminate our waterways, her office steps in not to punish them aggressively, but to broker weak state settlements that function as “sweetheart deals” for chronic polluters.
Where does Brenna Bird direct her aggressive energy? She has led multi-state efforts asking the U.S. Supreme Court to restrict citizens’ ability to enforce water-pollution permits under the federal Clean Water Act, branding everyday citizens bringing those cases as “woke green activists” who were “weaponizing” the law.
That same effort came home to Iowa through state settlements engineered behind closed doors, dismantling active citizen enforcement.
Consider the case of Agri Star Meat and Poultry in Postville. The facility violated its wastewater discharge limits approximately 60 times over several years, failing to meet compliance schedules, skipping required monitoring, and ultimately causing “acutely toxic” concentrations of ammonia in Hecker Creek. Frustrated local citizens, represented by Driftless Water Defenders, stepped up to file a federal Clean Water Act lawsuit seeking real damages for the destruction of pristine resources like the Yellow River.
Instead of backing the affected Iowans, Bird’s office swooped in without giving the public any notice. Her staff cut a state settlement carrying a minor $50,000 penalty and giving the company until the end of 2026 just to come into compliance. This parallel state consent decree served as the ultimate legal shield. Armed with Bird’s sweetheart deal, Agri Star successfully secured the dismissal of the citizens’ federal lawsuit with prejudice.
Chief U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams noted that the state’s action looked like a “slap on the wrist.” In his official ruling dismissing the case (enclosed in full below), Judge Williams acknowledged the appearance of collusion, writing that the timeline “could certainly raise suspicions in reasonable minds about the IDNR’s sincerity in protecting Iowa’s waterways.”
The judge further validated the community’s outrage by stating that the court “cannot blame plaintiff for thinking defendant and the IDNR worked together to frustrate citizen enforcement.” Yet, because the state holds broad enforcement authority under the Clean Water Act, Bird’s interference legally barred everyday Iowans from continuing their independent pursuit of justice.
As Iowa environmental attorney James Larew noted regarding Bird’s actions, “Iowa’s environment will only be improved if citizens are allowed timely, appropriate notice and an opportunity to be heard before these sweetheart deals are cut.” Larew sharply criticized the state’s secretive tactics, emphasizing that “the public has been locked out of the process.” Bird ensured that minor fines would be treated as a cost of doing business rather than a real deterrent.
Look at the rest of her corporate free-pass record, and the pattern becomes undeniable:
* The Nishnabotna River Devastation: A clogged line at NEW Cooperative in Red Oak leaked 265,000 gallons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer into the East Nishnabotna River. The spill wiped out river life for nearly 50 miles and killed more than 750,000 fish, making it one of the deadliest fish kills in Iowa history. The environmental damage to the fish alone was valued at over $225,000. Bird’s office settled this historic disaster for a pocket-change $50,000 penalty and a matching $50,000 conservation project donation.
* The POET Bioprocessing Public Poisoning: An ethanol plant operated for three years without proper pollution controls, with state regulators concluding it likely harmed public health. Because the DNR’s administrative penalty was capped at $10,000 by statute, Bird was the legal backstop empowered to pursue real justice in court. Instead, she did nothing.
This is not an anti-agriculture argument. The vast majority of independent Iowa farmers play by the rules and understand stewardship. By refusing to penalize lawbreaking corporate conglomerates, Bird punishes honest operators and gives polluters a competitive financial advantage.
With unchecked industrial growth, stripped-away local control, and an exploding cancer rate, all Iowans are exposed. We have no local authority to stop giant polluting operations, and we have an attorney general who refuses to stand up for the communities drinking contaminated water. We have a sacred, collective responsibility to turn over a clean, thriving Iowa to future generations—a duty that bridges urban neighborhoods and rural townships alike. Bird is systematically breaking that promise.
Bird has shown plenty of aggression toward citizens who invoke the Clean Water Act. Iowans are still waiting to see the same aggression directed at the polluters who violate it.
By treating environmental enforcement as optional, Bird has committed a profound failure of public duty—one that puts Iowans at risk. From newborns threatened by nitrate-contaminated drinking water to seniors exposed to harmful emissions near poorly monitored factory farms, the consequences reach every generation. Looking the other way when corporations violate environmental laws will not clean our water, protect our air, or safeguard our families.
Bird has been effectively AWOL on environmental enforcement. By choosing inaction over accountability, she has failed to do her job and has not earned another term.
Footnotes
1. Chief U.S. District Judge C.J. Williams, Order Granting Motion to Dismiss, Driftless Water Defenders v. Agri Star Meat & Poultry LLC, Northern District of Iowa. Judge Williams described the state’s $50,000 financial assessment as looking like a “slap on the wrist” given the severity and frequency of the violations.
[2] Id. Judge Williams noted that the sudden, closed-door timing of the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) and Attorney General’s intervention created reasonable doubt regarding the state’s authentic regulatory intent.
[3] Id. The Court formally noted that citizen plaintiffs were completely justified in concluding that the state and the corporate polluter actively coordinated to undercut the community’s federal lawsuit.
[4] James Larew, Public Statement on behalf of Driftless Water Defenders following the state settlement. Larew highlighted that locking out local stakeholders strips environmental laws of their deterrent power.
[5] Id. Pointing to the lack of public notice or public comment periods before the AG’s office finalized the consent decree in state court, effectively bypassing the pending federal litigation.
Read Chief Judge Williams’ order here.
Top photo of Attorney General Brenna Bird was cropped from a photo originally published on the Facebook page of the Iowa Attorney General’s office on June 29.