Iowa taxpayers are paying thousands to clean manure out of their water

Iowa residents are accusing factory farms of failing to keep their manure spreads out of Iowa’s streams, including the Des Moines River, which provides drinking water for over half a million Iowans. While the Clean Water Act makes states responsible for regulating factory farms — or concentrated animal feeding operations — that discharge pollutants, Iowa has “never fully enforced the legislation,” Anika Jane Beamer writes for Inside Climate News. Just 4% of Iowa’s federally-recognized CAFOs have permits. 

In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency found that Iowa was failing to enforce the Clean Water Act on polluting factory farms. In the aftermath, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources investigated thousands of facilities, including those who had documented waste discharges, and cited several for water pollution. But, “rather than requiring NPDES permits and the additional oversight they’d require, state regulators have continued giving facilities that pollute Iowa’s waterways second, and even third, chances,” Inside Climate News reports. Facilities with permits are often banned from discharging animal waste into waterways, and are required to conduct detailed monitoring of animal waste storage.

Manure spills and runoff from CAFOs can funnel excess bacteria into the state's waterways. Across Iowa, municipal water utilities have spent thousands of dollars on treatment systems to make up for the manure polluting the water.