Feds remove pollution protections from Iowa waterways
The Environmental Protection Agency has removed several rivers and streams from the Iowa Natural Resources Department's list of impaired waterways , despite being contaminated with dangerous levels of nitrates. An environmental coalition sued the EPA over the move but the agency has doubled down on its decision. Citing high nitrate levels caused largely by farm runoff, the advocacy group Food and Water Watch and the Iowa Environmental Council took the EPA to court over its failure to protect segments of the Cedar, Des Moines, Iowa and South Skunk rivers, meaning they will not be prioritized for developing cleanup plans. Dani Replogle, staff attorney for Food and Water Watch, said the EPA offered a weak rationale for keeping these rivers off the list. "For example, by saying that we only have 362 days of data, and if we had 365 – a full year's worth of data – then maybe the percentage of exceedance days would be under the limit," Replogle pointed out. The Iowa Department of Natural Resources sends nitrate level information to the EPA, which the agency uses to decide whether to include waterways on the impaired list. Despite historical and repeated incidents of dangerous nitrate levels, the agency
