Iowa CCI Members Praise Des Moines Water Works for Groundbreaking Lawsuit
DMWW Lawsuit Goes After Drainage Districts as Point Source Polluters
Today Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members thanked Bill Stowe and the Des Moines Water Works (DMWW) for finalizing a decision to file a lawsuit against 3 Iowa counties that manage heavily polluting drainage districts.
By pursuing this lawsuit, DMWW is forcing the hand of the state and Iowa DNR to act to protect our waterways, rather than siding with corporate factory farm interests.
“We’re in this situation today because Farm Bureau and other commodity groups, many of our legislators, our Governor and the Iowa DNR fight back against any attempt to enforce the Clean Water Act for factory farm polluters," said Larry Ginter, retired family farmer from Rhodes, Iowa. “Bravo to Bill Stowe and the Des Moines Water Works for taking this powerful step forward to begin cleaning up our water.”
The lawsuit seeks to identify drainage districts as point source polluters, a classification currently used only in reference to industries such as wastewater treatment and heavy production. This would allow for further regulation of what runs off into our water from the corporate agricultural industry.
“As a Des Moines Water Works ratepayer I’m very happy they have made the decision to make polluters pay to clean up their own mess," said Cherie Mortice, Iowa CCI Board President, retired teacher and Des Moines resident. “The people of Des Moines and surrounding areas should not have to pay increased water bills for factory farm pollution upstream. As the corporate ag industry continues to tout a “cooperative approach” to clean up Iowa’s water, CCI Action members point to this legislative session to show that corporate ag isn’t willing to cooperate at all.
“We’ve been working hard to pass a bill that would strengthen manure application laws to keep factory farm manure out of our water but corporate ag fought back to make sure this bill didn’t survive the first funnel," said Mortice.
“At the same time corporate ag pushed dirty-water, de-regulation bills that would lessen manure application training from 3 hours a year to 2 hours a year, a bill to weaken DNR factory farm inspections and manure management plan paperwork, and require manure applicators to post less information about their business on their certification stickers. This isn’t cooperation, this is the industry doing the same thing they’ve always done – push for profit first policies instead of people and planet first policies.”'
Iowa had 630 polluted waterways in 2012 – the highest number of recorded polluted waterways since Iowa began keeping track in 1998. This number has increased from a baseline of just 159 waterways in 1998, and has nearly doubled since 2006 alone. These numbers make it clear that Iowa’s voluntary nutrient reduction strategy isn’t working for Iowa.
CCI members say one of the leading causes of Iowa’s water pollution is Iowa’s 21.6 million hogs that produce an estimated ten billion gallons of toxic manure every year. The toxic manure is spread untreated on Iowa farmland. From there it can run off into tile lines and drainage ditches, feeding directly into waterways across the state.
By targeting specific counties that are contributors to this problem in the Raccoon River Watershed, DMWW is not only fighting for ratepayers but fighting to protect water quality all across Iowa. Iowa CCI is a statewide, grassroots people’s action group that uses community organizing to win public policy that puts communities before corporations and people before profits, politics, and polluters.