DNR must build transparent, online factory farm CAFO database
DNR Must Create Transparent, User-Friendly, Online Clean Water Act Database
Easily accessible reports on factory farm inspections and manure spills necessary to ensure DNR is complying with Clean Water Act mandate
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members say they have been gathering evidence for months that shows the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) is short-changing the implementation of the federal Clean Water Act, but that CCI’s efforts to audit the DNR and hold them accountable are being seriously hampered by a lack of transparent information on factory farm inspections and manure spills.
The DNR still maintains most of its records on paper, in six field offices scattered across the state, and their online databases are obsolete, opaque, full of incorrect and inconsistent information, and not easily accessible.
“DNR Director Chuck Gipp’s position, that Iowans should just drive out to a field office and start randomly digging through 8,500 files looking for this vital information, is not credible and does not serve the public interest,” said Vern Tigges, a CCI member from Adel who farmed most of his life outside of Carroll before moving to town last year to escape the smell of 30,000 corporate hogs surrounding his family farm.
The DNR’s 90-day status report last December to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) stated that at least 117 inspections have been completed, without giving any information on which factory farms were inspected, when they were inspected, or where the investigation reports were and what they discovered.
In addition, manure spill records are widely inconsistent, with some databases showing 76 manure spills alone in 2013, and others showing an also high but different number of 51, and it is unclear if the information is inconsistent or tracked using different counting methodologies.
“This is basic information that the people of Iowa absolutely must have, and right now, we don’t. That’s a real problem, and we demand the DNR modernize their record-keeping and information sharing systems immediately,” Tigges continued. “We demand transparency.”
Tigges was one of three CCI members who delivered a demand letter to Director Gipp’s offices February 27. The group spoke with DNR Deputy Director Bruce Trautmann and environmental chief Bill Ehm.
The letter states “the DNR is a public agency charged with protecting our environment and working for the everyday Iowan. The lack of accuracy, transparency, and consistency in the DNR databases do not align with those goals.”
The letter continues: “Iowa CCI members request the DNR create a comprehensive database that combines all the information from field office files, current databases and records from the DNR records center…”Governor Branstad’s office is sitting on a draft Clean Water Act rule waiting to be officially released for public comment by the DNR’s Environmental Protection Commission. The governor has to give the go-ahead to the DNR first, but is holding up the proposal because of a flawed jobs impact statement that used Iowa Farm Bureau figures to claim the proposed rule may have a negative job impact.
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