Gov Branstad Must Approve Draft Clean Water Rules
Branstad Must Approve Draft Clean Water Act Rule So Critical New Factory Farm Enforcement Process Can Continue Moving Forward
The governor’s office is sitting on a draft clean water rule after a flawed economic analysis using figures obtained by the Iowa Farm Bureau claimed the proposal could have a negative job impact
Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members demand Governor Branstad stop sitting on a proposed Clean Water Act permitting rule for factory farm polluters and give the go-ahead signal to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to formally open up the rule for public comment at the March 18 Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) meeting.
The DNR sent a badly flawed and corporate ag influenced fiscal and jobs impact statement to Branstad’s office on February 19 and requested an up or down decision by the governor by February 26. The jobs impact statement was compiled by the DNR with the help of the Iowa Farm Bureau and the governor could use the flawed report as an excuse to reject the proposal and ask the DNR to go back and water down or weaken the rule even more than it already is.
An approval by the governor’s office and a formal promulgation of the rule by the EPC on March 18 would then kick off a weeks long public comment process with in-person public hearings in at least six different locations across Iowa.
“Governor Branstad must stop interfering with Clean Water Act enforcement and approve the new factory farm permitting rule so this process can move forward to the public comment period,” said Lori Nelson, the CCI board president from Bayard who is surrounded by more than 5,000 corporate hogs within a half-mile of her rural homestead.
The new permitting rule is a critical piece of Clean Water Act enforcement that has been held up for years, ever since 2011 when a new EPC commission packed with industry insiders by Governor Branstad threw out a previous version of the rule. But a workplan agreement signed between the DNR and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency last September set out clear benchmarks for a new version of the rule to be completed.
There have been more than 600 documented manure spills since 2003 and Iowa currently has at least 630 polluted waterways. Some researchers have found that manure from factory farm lagoons is leaking at more than twice the rate allowed by law, and it’s anyone’s guess how many times rainwater, floods, or melting snow have run freshly spread liquid manure off of farmland and into rivers, lakes, and streams.
Factory farm expansion is also up, with more than 900 of the state’s 8,500 factory farms being built since January 1, 2012. A conservative estimate finds that Iowa’s 21 million hogs produce more than 5 billion gallons of toxic manure every year.
Iowa CCI is a statewide, grassroots people’s action group that uses community organizing to win public policy that puts communities before corporations and people before profits, politics, and polluters.
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