Central Iowa is under mandatory water conservation orders because of high nitrate levels in the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers, the primary drinking water sources for Des Moines and its suburbs. A report long in the making hit at the same time as the orders, outlining how ag drainage is the main culprit. We have been down this road before. None of it is news.
Protestors from Food and Water Watch showed up at the Italian American cultural center, where Gov. Reynolds appeared for a dedication. That prompted the governor to declare that regulation is seldom the answer — nothing changes — to what is a Midwestern water pollution problem driven by fertilizer that is not improving.
Iowa has the most polluted surface water in America.
Reynolds called regulation “a killer in most instances — it takes out innovation.”
“The blame game is unproductive,” Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig said.
There you have the Republican Party line. Pretty much the Democratic Party, too. Polk County Supervisors Chairman Matt McCoy, a Democrat, said he would not dare disparage. Gubernatorial candidate Rob Sand, the state auditor, appears to fall in the same row with Naig.
There will be no regulation of agriculture in Iowa.
The political status quo is united, owned shoulder, loin and butt by agribusiness.
Water is our lurking issue. Few in power want to address it, because it would mean altering the way we make money and who makes the money. Congress will produce a farm bill that will reinforce the status quo.
The courts have ruled that agribusiness cannot be sued for water pollution. They say it is up to the legislature to regulate water quality, not the courts. The legislature and regulatory authority, the Department of Natural Resources, will not regulate. This has been going on for many years and does not change. The entire process has been captured by the agrochemical complex — the courts, the county supervisors, the legislature, the leaders of both political parties. Billions of dollars are at stake.
The governor directed $1 million to cancer research. The Trump Administration is demolishing the National Institutes of Health, which funds cancer research at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
Iowa has the worst cancer rates and the worst water pollution in the USA.
Our political class is swimming in money and does nothing about it while we poison ourselves. We allow it to happen when we swallow the cropaganda whole without blinking, and then vote. The result is water restriction in Des Moines. In Storm Lake, the wells are drying up for the sake of agribusiness, at a $100 million cost borne by people who cannot afford it.
We know how to fix the problems in a way that farmers can prosper, but the conglomerates own the system and want nothing of the sort.
Iowa’s economic performance has been trailing neighboring states for many years under the guidance of Governors Terry Branstad and Kim Reynolds, both Republicans. Our state now ranks worst for economic performance and 48th for personal income growth. State gross domestic product actually contracted last year.
Consider that our urban centers have performed fairly well. That suggests that rural Iowa is doing even worse compared to the rest of the country.
We are continually reminded that consolidation and scale are necessary for efficient economic performance. In Iowa, the reverse has been true. Rural Iowa is draining out and falling down. We just closed the school at Early. Can’t afford it anymore. We used to afford a school at Nemaha. Early used to have an active little business district. They just tore down the main downtown block in Pomeroy, and they are not sure what to do with a massive empty school building. That’s what we call progress.
State government harasses higher education, which in the form of small colleges like Buena Vista keep rural towns alive. Our air often is putrid — we can’t forget the small of hog manure at a Whittemore graveside or on the shores of West Okoboji. Our water is polluted (see above). We wonder why people don’t want to invest in rural Iowa, so we just put these places in a sort of hospice.
We are scaring off medical professionals with legislators like Matt Windschitl (trained as a gunsmith) prescribing how they shall treat patients. We invest huge amounts of resources in business corridors and starve places like Early. Property taxes are rising so fast in Storm Lake, along with rents, it becomes almost unaffordable. Our schools are not performing as well as they did just a few years ago relative to the rest of the country as we disinvest in public education. Who wants to breathe in clouds of toxic chemicals and swim in places that could give you a skin disease?
We need a change of leadership in Iowa. We are falling in every category. We rank alongside Mississippi for economic performance. Thank goodness Reynolds will not run for re-election. We cannot elect more of the same if we want Iowa to be a hospitable place to live.
State Sen. Lynn Evans, R-Aurelia, will not run for Congress after all. The apparent nominee is Rep. Matt Windschitl, R-Missouri Valley, the Iowa House majority leader. Too bad. We liked the idea of a congressman from Cherokee County. Evans lost a primary before to his right flank and chose not to do the same next June. He is not as conservative as Windschitl, who led efforts to make Iowa stupid again. Evans was just a minor player in setting back Iowa a generation.
Fortunate for us that a local woman, Ashley WolfTornabane of Storm Lake, is running as a Democrat. She probably can’t win but it gives us a reason for enthusiasm. It could go the other way. We always believe that.
It could go without saying but we will say it anyhow: Thanks to all the volunteers who make all these summer celebrations happen. The Star Spangled Spectacular, the Buena Vista County Fair, Schaller Popcorn Days. It takes a lot of help in the form of volunteers. It’s fun for those who chip in and get to know neighbors by working on community betterment.
The community events go on all year, of course, organized and executed mainly among volunteers. It reminds us that most of us are dedicated to the common good, and are willing to devote time and treasure to strengthening the ties that bind us. Good show, neighbors!
The county is spending millions of dollars helping build roads and other infrastructure around the soybean crush plant just west of Storm Lake. Hwy. 110 just got a facelift of asphalt. Our city streets are in terrible shape, almost all of them. It’s like that wasteful Biden infrastructure spending never trickled down to city hall.
Or the city might have lost track of the money. The county drained several million dollars in tax increment financing revenue away from the city that could have been used along East Lakeshore Drive. Some of those millions might have gone to improving roads around the soybean crush plant, who could know? The county is less than forthcoming, the city is clueless.
We do see many construction projects going on in other places, thanks to Biden, while Storm Lake puts up with streets that jar your joints out of socket. We have hundreds of thousands of dollars for lawyers to sue the county but not nearly enough for streets. We can say that the crush plant work is economic development but our own arterial routes are sclerotic and we just shrug it off.
We live to serve industry, not the other way around. You would think that all this economic development would be shared with the motoring public and not just the trucks hauling soy. It’s progress for the few, not the many.
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