Iowa can dig deeper into manure management

Iowa has a population of more than 3 million people and 23 million hogs, which produce 110 billion pounds of manure annually.

Iowa is the nation’s No. 1 pork-producing state, and most hogs are raised in confinement operations that collect and store manure. It’s applied to fields as a fertilizer to grow corn and soybeans.

Hog confinements holding 1,250 or more animals must submit a manure management plan every four years to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, detailing how the waste will be handled and the cropland to which it will be applied.

Gene Tinker, a northeast Iowa hog farmer, previously worked in a DNR office that issued permits for livestock confinement facilities and evaluated manure management plans. Tinker now contends state rules are inadequate to protect the environment. Nitrates from manure that’s not absorbed by crops can end up in Iowa’s waterways.

Tinker said that although the DNR requires manure management plans, it does not collect records of where and how much of the manure is actually spread. Hauling companies keep those records, but the state has deemed the information confidential.

“There’s no verification that manure application actually occurred the way it claimed it was. There’s no verification that there haven’t been multiple production sites putting manure on the same fields. There’s no verification of any of that,” Tinker told Inside Climate News reporter Jane Beamer and Nina Elkadi, a journalist with Sentient. Their report was published in The Gazette Dec. 14.

Beamer and Elkadi found that reviews of manure plans for confinements done by six DNR regional offices are a “box-ticking exercise,” according to a DNR environmental specialist. State approval hinges on the plan's completeness, not on whether its manure-handling strategy makes sense.

There are technical reviews in which DNR staff inspect manure application rates and application records to ensure fields are not overloaded with manure. But the reviews are random. Just 617 have been completed across the state through November, the journalists reported, representing roughly 7% of the active management plans.

Tinker said the calculations used to determine crop nitrogen demand are outdated. He tried to convince the DNR to use more recent calculations from Iowa State University. But he faced opposition from agricultural groups.

“They could modernize. It could all be shared so everybody could look at it. But they don’t want that,” Tinker told Beamer and Elkadi. “It’s, ‘Trust me. Just trust me.’ Well, it should be, ‘Trust, but verify.’”

This isn’t about bashing farmers. Livestock and grain farmers who follow the rules and do the right thing should support providing more information to the public. Farmers who break the rules should not be able to hide behind a lack of disclosure and enforcement.

Iowans deserve access to data that directly affects the quality of our waterways, including drinking water sources. Nitrate pollution carries health risks, so keeping Iowans in the dark is irresponsible.

This would not take a massive regulatory change. It would just help regulators connect the dots and identify problems. The status quo fouling our waters is no longer acceptable.

(319) 398-8262; editorial@thegazette.com