The Environmental Protection Agency has overturned a 2024 ruling that sought to protect some of Iowa’s largest waterways that provide drinking water for half a million people. Nitrate levels in many of Iowa’s rivers, lakes and streams are already above federally accepted standards. Based on the E-P-A’s standards, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources added seven of Iowa’s major urban drinking water supplies to a list of impaired waterways for exceeding safe nitrate concentrations. The E-P-A has taken those waterways off the list. Food and Water Watch Legal Director Tarah Heinzen told Public News Service the decision threatens Iowans’ health.
“This does not bode well for clean drinking water at all, both in Iowa and elsewhere. We do not expect pro regulatory action by this Environmental Protection Agency and I think its a really dangerous sign.”
Heinzen says nitrates routinely seep into Iowa’s ground and surface water from nearby large animal feeding operations. The Trump administration has loosened regulatory standards on toxins in U-S waterways, including P-FAS, also known as forever chemicals. The Trump administration has eliminated a host of offices and positions responsible for the oversight of environmental regulations in recent months, including an entire water monitoring division, which Heinzen says will have a direct effect on Iowans’ drinking water.
“EPA has been working on a yearslong process called a nitrate assessment to evaluate whether current drinking water standards are even protective enough of public health. And so, the elimination of that entire science office is almost certainly halting that division’s work on the nitrate assessment that could have led to more stringent drinking water limits.”
Recent research by Polk County shows that at least 80-percent of nitrate contamination in the state’s waterways is the result of runoff from large, commercial agriculture operations.
This story, audio, and photo courtesy of Public News Service. Full story can be found here: https://app.publicnewsservice.org/downloadStory/epa-rescinds-protections-for-iowa-drinking-water/941ce11a-0935-4959-aff0-e0b47033706a?format=file&uid=f1a9ed5e-cdad-4dbf-bf5b-c75c2340a175&objDl=1&objType=broadcastscript&objId=941ce11a-0935-4959-aff0-e0b47033706a
