[Updated] Watered down factory farm enforcement?

Imagine a factory farm operator a mile from your local community spills 10,000 gallons of toxic manure into a tile line that runs into a nearby river, lake, or stream, resulting in hundreds of fish kills.

Now imagine instead of investigating the spill and levying the toughest fines and penalties allowed by law, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources has an "informal meeting" with the operator, and sends a "letter of noncompliance" asking them not to do it again.  Does that sound like a good deterrent to you?    

The sad thing is, the DNR already does this in too many cases.  But a new rule being pushed by corporate ag interest group, the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI) would formalize this bad policy in writing, making it more difficult for everyday people to ensure strong and effective public oversight of factory farm polluters in the future, even if priorities shift in two years with a new governor and a new DNR director.

If passed, ABI's proposed new rule would signal to the industry that the DNR is going to take a "hands-off" approach to enforcement, which could lead to more manure spills and more

Iowa CCI members aren't ones to sit by and just let things happen.

• April 23 - More than 20 CCI members gave testimony for more than an hour at the Iowa DNR's public hearing on this proposed de-regulation attempt.

• April 23 - We dropped by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry's Des Moines office to tell top official Mike Ralston to drop this rule.

• March 20 - (photo above) 15 CCI members attended the Environmental Protection Commission meeting to fight back against an attempt by the Iowa Association of Business and Industry (ABI), to weaken the DNR's ability to crack down on factory farm polluters who violate our clean water laws.