IOWA’S POLLUTED WATERS LIST JUMPS TO 725 IN 2014
CCI Members Say Iowa Is Not Doing Enough To Crack Down On Polluters
Des Moines, IA. The Iowa Department of Natural ResouRces (DNR) released its new polluted waterways list this week, and cited a new record of polluted waterways in Iowa – 725 impairments in Iowa waterways. This is a 15% increase in polluted waters from the 630 polluted waters in 2012. CCI members say this is a clear sign that Iowa’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy and Clean Water Act (CWA) Implementation for factory farms are a colossal failure.
“When are Governor Branstad, Secretary Northey, DNR Director Gipp and the Iowa Legislature going to accept that voluntary measures and the lack of any will to enforce the weak laws we already have on the books isn’t working?” Said Larry Ginter, family farmer and CCI member from Rhodes, Iowa. “Branstad has said in earlier comments that our water is getting cleaner, that’s just not true. Shame on any of Iowa’s leadership that continues to mislead the public about the crisis state of our waters.”
The report listed the top three causes of impairments in rivers and streams as ‘indicator bacteria’ (E. coli – caused by fecal contamination), ‘biological’ and ‘fish kill’. The number one cause of fish kills is animal waste. The fact that two of the leading causes of polluted waters come from toxic liquid manure leads CCI members to believe that manure pollution is a much bigger problem than the Iowa DNR says it is.
The top three causes of impairments of lakes are algae, turbidity and indicator bacteria (E. coli). Turbidity refers to the clarity of the water and algae blooms occur when there are large concentrations of Nitrates and Phosphorous. Factory farm manure and commercial fertilizer are both large sources of Nitrogen and Phosphorus.
Water activists across the state have been working with multiple strategies to crack down on factory farm and corporate ag polluters. Iowa CCI and the Environmental Integrity Project have been working on a 7 year campaign to bring the DNR into compliance with the Federal Clean Water Act for factory farms in Iowa. Des Moines Water Works filed a lawsuit against three Iowa Counties for Nitrate pollution coming from field drainage districts.
Secretary Northey and other state officials have said that the DMWW lawsuit is the wrong approach to hold polluters accountable. However, in Iowa’s new 303d/305b integrated report DNR said, “Many impairments (for example, those due to bacteria and many biological impairments) are related to nonpoint sources of pollution. Unless a state has authority and the means to reduce levels of nonpoint sources pollution, the NPS-related impairments will likely continue to reside on the state’s list of impaired waters.”
“This is exactly why our polluted waters list continues to grow!” said Ginter. “Over and over again DNR and IDALS fail to implement their own recommendations for cleaning up our water.”
Of the 30 impairments DNR is proposing to remove from the list, most are from improvements in Ph levels and clarity in lakes. Only one impaired waterway was removed from Nitrate levels which reinforces that Nitrate levels continue to sky rocket at the expense of our waters and DNR and IDALS plans aren’t working to remove Nitrates from waterways. Other notable parts of the report say that 358 additional bodies of water need further investigation to determine if they are impaired and that urban runoff only accounts for one case of causing a fish kill.
DNR will be holding a public comment period on the draft impaired waterways list from May 19 – July 2. The new report will remain a draft until the Environmental Protection Agency reviews, edits and approves the report. CCI members will utilize the public comment period to mobilize Iowans across the state to push Iowa DNR to toughen its enforcement of the Federal CWA for factory farms by issuing CWA permits to polluters.
Iowa DNR began implementing the Federal CWA for factory farms in September 2013 and has yet to issue a single CWA permit to a hog factory farm. CCI members say CWA permits will help start to clean up Iowa’s waterways because it would make polluting factory farms play by tougher standards or be shut down. CWA permits are tougher than current Manure Management Plans for a number of reasons:
Broader coverage of enforcement:
CWA permits must prevent discharges from the production area as well as land application areas. Iowa’s Manure Management Plans (MMPs) only address land application areas.
More transparency:
When permits are proposed the public must be given notice of the proposed permit and an opportunity to comment on it. NPDES permits, and all associated reports, must be publicly accessible.
Fixed terms:
Unlike Iowa’s MMPs, CWA permits have fixed five-year terms. That way, they are subject to being reviewed, updated, or terminated on a regular basis. DNR admitted in an Ag Appropriations Sub-Committee this year that DNR does not review MMPs because they do not have the capacity to do so.
Operation & maintenance requirements:
CWA permits have operation and maintenance requirements so that factory farm operators prevent problems before they happen. Currently, factory farm owners may have to fix a problem after a discharge, but aren’t required to use basic practices that would prevent many discharges in the first place.
Higher penalties for violations:
State law caps penalties at $5,000 per day per violation and the state cannot collect more than $10,000 per violation. Under the CWA, penalties are up to $37,500 per day per violation, which would include penalties for discharges or other violations of a permit. Higher penalties mean greater deterrence from pollution. When facilities have NPDES permits, permit violations are also CWA violations that can warrant these heightened penalties, even if the violation does not cause a discharge to a surface water.
Iowa’s more than 20 million hogs confined in thousands of factory farms produce nearly ten billion gallons of toxic manure every year. There have been more than 758 manure spills since 1996 and Iowa currently has 725 polluted waterways.