LTE: 'Voluntary' water quality measures are not working

CCI member Mark Edwards of Boone wrote a great letter to the editor that was published in today's Des Moines Register. Mark is totally correct that voluntary compliance is simply not working - that's why CCI members from across the state will be converging on the capitol next Tuesday to fight for clean air, clean water, and an Iowa that puts people first! Check out Mark's letter below, and find more information about the Kickoff at the Capitol here. 

'Voluntary' water quality measures are not working

 I waded through the voluntary Iowa Water Quality Nutrient Reduction Strategy offered by the Iowa Department of Agriculture, Department of Natural Resources, Iowa State University and the Iowa Farm Bureau.I have file cabinets full of Iowa’s water quality issues dating back for decades. I retired from the Iowa DNR after 30 years of service with a window office facing the Capitol in Des Moines and have inside knowledge of the budget-deprived, politically-dominated department and the crippled mission of “conserving and enhancing our natural resources.”I have lived by the Des Moines River for 40 years and could describe the continuing loss of wildlife and water quality. Last year, it was dangerous to wade in due to the slippery “green slim” produced by deadly doses of nitrogen.I could cry out about the continuing crash of the fish, clams, frogs, birds and plants. I could detail the people-plagued atrocities in costs to our finances, minds and bodies, such as drinking water chemicals, recreational opportunities, health, livelihoods, morals, property values and offenses to our senses.These voluntary strategies will do little to slow the expanding debt of pollution. They will leave us with lifetimes of still trying to clean up the mess from Iowa to the Gulf of Mexico. I question the lack of real education, wisdom or concern we have for our homeland.Two-thirds of Iowa’s 36 million acres are drowned in chemicals for just two annual plants — corn and soybeans — with diversity dwindling all around us. Presently Iowa imports 86 percent of what we do eat, and this food travels an average of 1,500 miles to get here.Yet, 93 percent of Iowa has been permanently altered for agricultural purposes and 5 percent is developed in cities and roads. We could talk of “sustainability,” which is a joke as we have lost about half of our topsoil over the last 50 years with all our conservation practices in place and have the worse water quality ever.I feel poisoned, angry and dying to escape this shallow, short-term thinking. The deadly decision of voluntary compliance as floated by the water quality strategy is killing our world.Must we rely on the federal government and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force our faithless Iowa government to finally enforce the 40-year-old federal Clean Water Act? Can’t we as the people of Iowa believe in clean water?— Mark S. Edwards, Boonehttp://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20130111/OPINION04/301110039/Letter-to-the-editor-Voluntary-water-quality-measures-are-not-working?Opinion