My first question would be, who is ” the Environmental Working Group”? Is this two guys sitting in their basement looking for $$$? If they’re tied to the EPA, then I for one don’t trust them as far as I could throw them. However, I’m sure the first public execution of a farmer and his family, who didn’t cooperate with the EPA, would get other farmers moving in a nice orderly fashion.

Depends on what you mean by “protect”.
When Marquette and Joliet discovered the Missouri river, Marquette gave it a french name meaning “muddy water”. Early settlers crossing the prairie joked that the Missouri was too muddy to drink but too thin to plow.
The IDNR tells us that 70% of phosphorus loading in streams is due to stream bank and stream bed erosion.
Nitrate loading occurs naturally as well as man-made. 1946-47 were two of the worst years in the 20th century at Cedar Rapids. That was before the widespread use of commercial fertilizer.
The DNR has turned several water bodies into sparkling gems by ridding them of rough fish that constantly stir the sediment on the bottom. Venturi Marsh which lies adjacent to Clear Lake went from chocolate brown to sparkling blue in three days when 18 tons of carp were removed.

So, the first thing to consider with the Gazette’s question is what you expect to get if agricultural pollution becomes a non-factor and assuming that you are willing to “protect” the natural pollutants.

The biggest problem with voluntary changes is that the people who will participate are already the ones practicing good conservation. Those people have already contributed significantly to the progress agriculture has made in the last quarter century.
That leaves us with two major problems – the “bad apples” who thumb their noses at conservation practices and the misconceptions that impede good conservation.
Dealing with the “bad apples” will be difficult. Blanket regulations ignore the fact that we have thousands of very different circumstances such as different soils, different tillage practices, and differect cropping systems even in a single watershed. Who will determine which farmer is at fault and how will they regulate? Its not like we can go to a factory’s effluence and quantitatively measure pollution. And will we use regulators with enough agricultural knowledge to enforce appropriate regulations?
Its this last question that worries me as a farmer. We’ve seen the EPA advocate controlling combine dust – impossible. Environmentalists oppose drainage tile which university studies (and common sense) show to be a tool for reducing surface run-off and enhancing no-till. Even the Natural Resource and Conservation Service (NRCS) has mistakenly advocated buffers when they should be pushing grass waterways as a means to control the runoff sediment and nutrients entering streams.

As a farmer who has earned both state and national conservation awards, I am disturbed by both the “bad apple” farmers and the threat of blanket regulations from regulatory agencies that will do more harm to Iowa’s economy than what they will do to help conservation.

P.S. In this day and age of spin, you should also be aware of “the rest of the story” in regard to Gulf hypoxia.
Despite a 1928 Congressional law that at least 30% of the flow of the Mississippi River through Louisiana must flow through the filtering coastal wetlands of that state, today, none does. The river has been channeled and now dumps its sediment and nutrients near the continental shelf where Gulf currents spread it for miles.
A million acres of coastal wetlands have died as a result of this diversion. The city of New Orleans has become unprotected from storm surges. Shellfish such as crabs and oysters suffer because they need brackish water to reproduce. Besides the filtering that wetlands accomplish, water flowing out of those wetlands would enter shallow coastal seas and not be spread as badly. Unfortunately, development now prevents the flow of the Mississippi into those coastal wetlands – and Iowa farmers must shoulder the blame!!

How ironic! Today, in the Gazette we read an article about the dramatic increase in the value of farm land over the last several years. Here, we read that some of these same farmers are not doing an adequate job of protecting our waterways from runoff from their farms.

I dislike the idea of mandated regulations unless nothing else works. I would strongly encourage all farmers to use some of their new found wealth to do the right thing for Iowa’s waterways.

For the record, I think most farmers are conscientious about this, but there are some bad apples.

I believe things can and will get better if we enforce good law that has solid science behind it. Allowing things to go based on some illogical feeling farmers are the best stewarts of the land, only will make things worse, especially if you allow an insurance company to decide the fate of farm programing (Farm Bureau) and what is right for conservation. Certainly the amount of farm chemicals and nutrient ammendments to the soil can and should be controled in the application process, be it manure or anhydrous ammonia. Making requirements for green belts and waterways certainly doesn’t sound over the top. Attempting to fix the blame on nature and channeling of the Mississippi and Missouri River isn’t going to solve the nutrient problem. Only reducing the amount of run off of these chemicals and nutrients is going to help that. Let us not forget, you don’t have to go all the way to the Mississippi River to see the problem, try Des Moines where they already have in place equipment to pull the excessive nitrates out of the drinking water in order to make the water usable for consumption. Nitrate levels have doubled over the past decade in Iowa surface water, and that is not a natural event, something causes it and for increases like that we know where it is most likely coming from. Setting down rules and enforcing regulations will make the worst offenders take notice and do what they should. The rest who have been doing their best will find it comforting those who haven’t will have to pony up and protect the valuable resources we have for the future. Voluntary “controls” are the best way to allow the worst of the worst to keep operating.

The question is not really valid. Iowa’s waters are well beyond needing ‘protection’, they badly need restoration then protection. Voluntary practices will likely never work. Those practices that would have universal, or nearly universal, application should be passed as law and vigorously enforced. The tough part I’d think would be practices tailored to specific situations. Education and perhaps some compensation is the best approach to needed farming and land stewardship changes not covered by the general guidelines. Huge ‘factory’ operations require vigorous regulation with aggressive policing.

A good first step would be to make the general population aware of how really terrible Iowa’s waters actually are. However… good luck with that.

Paul, I was really with you until the last paragraph. All of Iowa’s trout streams now have naturally reproducing trout. My neighboring river, the Wapsipinicon, has become renown for small mouth bass and walleye.
Our streams are threatened, however by many things besides agriculture that seldom see print. Invasive species such as zebra mussels and asian carp stand to completely wipe out game fish species. And while you wonder about swimming in a river with nitrates, the nitrates are insignificant to your health in comparison to the human fecal coliform bacteria from septic tanks.

We have made a lot of progress since the Clean Water Act was passed in 1972. We have ended the wide spread practice of releasing untreated waste from our cities and factories into our lakes, rivers and streams. These bodies of water, and we, are much better for it. It is a testament to what regulation can do.

In order to gain suppor for the Clean Water Act t from states like Iowa, agricultural run off was exempted from the bill. Considering the success of the Clean Water Act, it is time we consider regulating agricultural run off and storm water run off from our communities. The voluntary efforts of farmers and communities have us going in the right direction. But we need to have a consistent application of these practices and it seems regulation is the only way to accomplish this.