Iowa environmental groups file emergency petition with EPA over nitrate levels in drinking water
Groups concerned with Animal Feeding Operations in northeast Iowa
DES MOINES, Iowa (Gray Television Iowa Capitol Bureau) - Environmental groups filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency Tuesday to ask it to step in and take emergency action on the condition of Iowa’s drinking water.
The Iowa Environmental Council says people living in Northeast Iowa are being exposed to high levels of nitrates in the water supply.
Members of the Environmental Protection Commission denied requests to tighten drinking water regulations for Animal Feeding Operations, commonly known as CAFOs, at a meeting Tuesday.
Cherie Mortice with Iowa CCI Action said, “How can we expect to elevate the reputation of our state when we seem to embrace the this race to the bottom and refuse to mitigate the damage to our waterways by continuing to treat them like cesspools?”
Michael Schmidt with the Iowa Environmental Council says they’re concerned about CAFOs in northeast Iowa in particular, because of the karst landscape. That’s mainly found in the Driftless Area where porous limestone underground allows surface water and pollutants to easily seep in. “It has lots of springs, sinkholes, caves, so it’s very common in Northeast Iowa near the surface which means that it’s easy for anything on the surface like manure to get into the groundwater,” Schmidt said.
Since the Environmental Protection Commission declined the IEC’s request for tougher CAFO regulations, they’ve filed an emergency petition with the EPA.
Schmidt says they want the agency to force the state’s hand to make improvements. “They could do that by requiring more monitoring, requiring alternative sources of drinking water, and controlling sources of pollution that have plagued Iowa’s drinking water sources for decades,” Schmidt said.
Activists in Minnesota filed a similar petition last year and it was granted. Schmidt says southern Minnesota has the same geology and similar nitrate levels as northeast Iowa. “The Minnesota petition addressed karst on the Minnesota side of the state line. We are just looking at the other side of that political boundary because it’s the same water quality problems as in Minnesota,” Schmidt said.
There’s no mandated timeline for the EPA to reply, but the IEC expects a response in three to six months.
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Conner Hendricks covers state government and politics for Gray Television-owned stations in Iowa. Email him at conner.hendricks@gray.tv; and follow him on Facebook at Conner Hendricks TV or on X/Twitter @ConnerReports.
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