“We demand clean water!”
That was the mantra for the nearly 100 people who braved the evening cold in Decorah on January 6 just for the privilege of signing on to a lawsuit to require the Iowa DNR to obey state laws meant to protect Iowa’s water from overuse and pollution.
The event, hosted by the nonprofit Driftless Water Defenders (DWD), gathered enough petitioners to enable DWD attorney James Larew to file a complaint insisting that the DNR comply with a judge’s order to reexamine a water use permit issued to a huge cattle facility in Clayton County.
The complaint alleged that the DNR “failed to apply mandatory provisions of Iowa statute which require the DNR to consider whether a permit applicant’s use of water would harm public health and safety, whether the use would unreasonably impair the long-term availability of water from a surface or groundwater source in terms of quantity and quality, and whether that use would be in the best interest and welfare of the people of Iowa.”
The complaint, filed Thursday, said the water use permit for Supreme Beef LLC, in the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek near Monona, “should be immediately cancelled.” The six large barns on the site, which began construction in 2017, are designed to hold up to 11,600 animals. Supreme Beef has been operating for about three years, albeit with slightly fewer cattle.
The DNR routinely issued a water use permit for the operation in 2017, but in 2022 several of us clean water advocates, with Larew as our attorney, challenged the agency’s renewal of the permit. Eventually, Administrative Law Judge Toby Gordon agreed with our assertions that Iowa Code requires consideration of water use impacts on the environment and the health and welfare
DWD president Chris Jones sees this as a small victory in what has been a years-long effort to protect the watershed of Bloody Run Creek – a state-designated Outstanding Iowa Water - and other northeast Iowa streams from manure runoff. You CAN fight Shitty Hall
Likewise, Larew voiced cautious optimism that Supreme Beef and other industrial-scale livestock facilities can be made to comply with Iowa laws and administrative rules designed to prevent pollution.
Larew, who last year founded Driftless Water Defenders, DWD believes the state is on the cusp of a new civil rights movement recognizing people’s basic rights to clean water, air, and land. “That is the citizens’ fundamental right to access clean water for their homes, businesses and recreational needs.” He has championed the idea of an Iowa constitutional amendment to guarantee those rights.
The group’s mission remains to advocate, educate, and litigate on behalf of clean water and the environment. In addition to the Supreme Beef water permit issue, DWD has notified a Postville meat processor that the group intends to file a federal lawsuit over alleged wastewater violations.
DWD also is opposing a proposed methane digester using manure from two dairies near Ridgeway. The operation would lead to increased livestock numbers and more manure being applied to lands in both the Turkey River and Upper Iowa River watersheds. Some of the area is underlain with karst, with fractured limestone topography making groundwater vulnerable to pollution from manure spread on fields.
“Citizens will have to demand that this stops,” said DWD president Chris Jones, who is a retired University of Iowa water quality research engineer. It’s not realistic to expect farmers to voluntarily change their ways, he said. There must be enforceable standards – “regulations,” perish the thought! – to curtail pollution from agriculture.
Iowans generally support farmers, Jones said – but we resent the large-scale, industrial agriculture operations that degrade the state’s environment and quality of life. And the lack of action by state and federal entities to curtail pollution “has given people permission to be outraged,” he said. “I’m telling you now, we CAN change this.”
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And continued kudos for Chris Jones' book, "The Swine Republic: Struggles with the Truth About Agriculture and Water Quality," which has helped Iowans start to focus on the issue.
https://icecubepress.com/2024/06/01/the-swine-republic-2/
Thanks Larry, Chris, and James and the 100 petition signees for your efforts in this so important endeavor. We support you wholeheartedly.