Clean Water Day of Action: CCI members take their clean water demands where it counts
A statewide clean water day of action brought two dozen people from eight counties to two events in Des Moines, IA on June 18th.
Two dozen members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) from eight different counties staged a direct action street protest inside the main office of the Iowa Pork Producers Association on June 18, just hours before the pork producers convened their quarterly board meeting. Demonstrators chanted “put people first” and demanded the Iowa Pork Producers Association start standing up for clean air and water and stop lobbying to deregulate strong and effective public oversight of factory farms.
The day started at the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC) meeting where CCI members from Guthrie and Tama counties demanded the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) deny construction permits for new factory farms proposed in their area. A CCI staffer from Huxley, Iowa also read a letter from a Linn County CCI member fighting a factory farm near Center Point.
Some Des Moines-area CCI members also joined the statewide mobilization and spoke out about the unprecedented level of nitrates flowing down the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, forcing Des Moines Water Works to turn on a $3.6 million nitrate-removal system that costs ratepayers $7,000 per day. The system has been on for more than a month.
“Look at what we’re seeing out here,” said Larry Ginter, a CCI member and independent family farmer from Rhodes, Iowa. “It’s been nearly a year since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proved the DNR wasn’t doing its job and what has changed? Hundreds of new factory farms are being built every year, water pollution has never been worse, floods and unpredictable weather events are proving just how unsustainable the factory farm model really is, and our state regulators are fiddling while Rome burns.”Iowa CCI members demanded the DNR and EPC:
Stand with county governments and local-area residents that don’t want factory farm construction in their communities;
Deny factory farm construction permits for flawed plans in Guthrie and Tama counties;
Sign the workplan with the EPA to inspect and permit all 8,000 factory farms across Iowa.
Iowa has more than 628 polluted waterways and 800 documented manure spills, according to DNR records. Check out press on CCI's Clean Water Day of Action -