June 19, 2018
The five-year anniversary of the state nutrient pollution reduction “strategy” was marked with little fanfare aside from a farm tour by Gov. Kim Reynolds. Meanwhile, sponsors and promoters of the plan struggle to show how the disconnected “demonstration projects” it has spawned are the salvation of clean water in Iowa.
University of Iowa research shows that Iowa continues to be a major source of fertilizer-related pollution in the Mississippi and Missouri rivers, despite good-faith nutrient management efforts by most Iowa farmers. In some years it exceeds the losses of all other states draining to the Gulf of Mexico combined.
According to the study: Iowa’s 4.5 percent of the land area in the Mississippi basin delivers 5.9 percent of the water to the Gulf of Mexico and carries 29 percent of the nitrate-nitrogen pollution. Iowa’s part appears to be increasing faster than “non-Iowa portions” of the watershed, despite Iowa’s cropped acres growing more slowly than other states.
