DMWW Lawsuit Facts and Myths
Doesn’t the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) lawsuit against the three counties in northwestern Iowa turn farmers off from participating in the voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy?
Voluntary enforcement of laws doesn’t work. Other pollution producing industries are held to the federally mandated Clean Water Act (CWA), industrial agriculture isn’t. Farmers who are currently participating in the nutrient reduction strategy by planting cover crops during the off-season, maintaining buffer zones near waterways, and other environmental practices are not going to stop behaving responsibly as a result of this litigation.
The DMWW put the nitrates they remove from the water back into the river anyway, don’t they?
It would not be necessary for a public water utility to do so if they didn’t have to remove such a high level of nitrates to begin with. It’s unacceptable that the water sampled in Buena Vista, Sac, and Calhoun Counties have shown nitrate levels as high as 39.2 mg/L in groundwater discharged by drainage districts. This is nearly 4 times the federally required Safe Drinking Water regulatory limit of 10 mg/L. The DMWW isn’t creating new pollution, they’re just temporarily removing it from the drinking water; the nitrate levels below their facility is not higher than above it. The DMWW is following the law as regulated by their NPDES (CWA) permit.
What’s the purpose of this lawsuit, are they trying to win money?
The primary point of the lawsuit is calling for tile-lined, drainage districts to be named as point source polluters that require a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Since these districts drain their nitrates and other pollutants directly into the Raccoon River, you can easily point to them as a source of pollution. NPDES, or Clean Water Act, permits have been successful nationwide in controlling pollution caused by industrial waste and sanitary sewer discharge, and are needed to regulate corporate ag. Officials acknowledge that these drainage districts were built when farms had pastures and ponds helping to naturally filter the water running off from fields. Corporate agriculture has changed the pace of farming and regulations need to follow suit.
They say that the DMWW’s nitrate removal system costs thousands of dollars a day to operate, but with how many people they serve it’s only a few extra cents for each ratepayer.
The nitrate pollution entering Iowa’s waters is coming from a privately owned industry that profits from operating unregulated. The public shouldn’t have to pay a dime to clean up after those making millions while destroying our water quality and threatening public health. That’s not to mention the capital investment of $76-$183 million for new de-nitrification technology to remove the pollutant and continue to provide safe drinking water. Some rural Iowa water utilities can’t afford nitrate removal technology which means their finished drinking water can easily contain unsafe levels of the toxin.
Are they serving this lawsuit against farmers in Buena Vista, Sac, and Calhoun Counties?
The suit is being filed against the Boards of Supervisors in these counties in their role as governing authority for 10 drainage districts that are point sources discharging pollutants into the Raccoon River. It’s directed at the local governing authorities of drainage districts, not individual farmers. Boards of Supervisors, who manage the drainage districts, have failed to take any meaningful action to protect downstream water users from unsafe levels of nitrate introduced into the Raccoon River.
Instead of suing, couldn’t the agricultural industry and the DMWW cooperate to find a solution?
Those working for a clean water Iowa have been trying to find solutions in cooperation with Iowa DNR, The Farm Bureau, and other commodity groups for years. Since the launch of the Voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy, DMWW has experienced two unprecedented nitrate episodes and associated costs for the treatment of the pollutant. In December of 2014, the utility began operating the nitrate removal facility continuously for 97 days – unprecedented in the winter months. The Nutrient Reduction Strategy is a failure. Voluntary doesn't work!