Water so dirty, fish can't stand it

It's no secret we've got a clean water problem in Iowa. In fact, we've got 628 polluted waterways.

As autumn arrives, it's important we keep in mind - each year, like clockwork, Iowa's water gets chock-full of manure. It's become a normal yearly cycle to create a newly-deepened water crisis in Iowa.In the fall, manure from factory farms is applied to fields - not always because the fields need it, but because the factories have nowhere else to put the hog manure that's been collected from thousands of hogs throughout the season. Because the manure is too much for the land to handle, it gets in our water. Sometimes, the manure spills from machinery, too.Come spring each year, when the snow and ice melt, the manure and other farm chemicals run off into our waterways - this causes the toxic levels of nitrogen and ammonia.

Because of manure application last fall, this spring & summer, the Des Moines River saw record-breaking nitrate levels. As fall fertilizer application begins, our water's getting worse. In September alone, Iowa suffered four documented mass fish kills due to pollutants... and that ain't right.

We've won victories this summer that lessen the blow, like:

• stopped the construction of factory farms,

• forced Iowa to comply with the Clean Water Act,

• and pushed the state to issue violations and fines to factory farm polluters.