Quoting from Sherrie Taha, Democratic candidate for secretary of agriculture:
“If you eat ... If you drink water ... If you breathe air in Iowa ... Then ... You have a personal stake in how the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship works!”
We also have a personal stake in who the governor is. Who the secretary of agriculture is. Who our state representative is. Who the state senator is. Who the United State senator is. Who the United States representative is.
In May 2010, approximately 500,000 central Iowa customers received a letter in their water bill from the Des Moines Water Works stating:
“Recent spring melting caused significant water quality concerns for Des Moines Water Works. In particular, high ammonia levels have been present in our rivers from livestock runoff and other upstream land uses. Many customers may have noticed chlorine taste and smell in their drinking water during the early spring months. Weeks of disinfection treatment was necessary to reduce runoff impacts, however, disinfection has its own risks.”
From Shel Silverstein’s book, “Where the Sidewalk Ends,” and his poem, “Lazy Jane,” with a few changes by me:
“Clueless, clueless, clueless, clueless, clueless, clueless Average Joe and Jane, they want a drink of water so they wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for it to rain.”
The water alert from Des Moines Water Works should be a wake-up call to all Iowans and a call to action to advocate for cleaner source waters and to question whether voluntary water protection measures work.
The Branstad administration has been very obstructive when it comes to protecting our waterways. The administration has also refused to grant local control to our elected county officials.
The Adair County Supervisors three times turned down the building and expansion of hog confinements in Adair County.
Now, the Branstad Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has overturned the local county decision and the only recourse left to the neighbors around the confinements is to go to the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC), which is a nine-member board stack with five members appointed by Gov. Terry Branstad. Those five members have a financial interest in owning or building confinements in the state of Iowa.
How unfair is the Branstad administration? Is this how Iowans should treat fellow Iowans?