Kathie Obradovich

kobradov@dmreg.com

UPDATE: Late Wednesday, Republicans offered an amendment that would restore $1.2 million in funding to the Iowa Flood Center. It still needs to be approved by both chambers.

Apparently, we haven’t been giving the Iowa Legislature enough credit. While we’ve all been focused on legislation that solves non-existent problems in Iowa, lawmakers must have been quietly solving some major problems that have plagued the state for decades.

At least, that’s the conclusion Republican lawmakers must be intending to send with their budget proposal. They must want Iowans to think they have magically saved Iowa from future flooding and agriculture-related water pollution without even lifting a finger.

“We can just declare victory and go home,” dead-panned Mark Rasmussen, director of the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. “I’m looking for my special flight jacket that says ‘Mission Accomplished.’”

The Republican budget unveiled this week will make the research center’s 30th anniversary at Iowa State University its last. It strips about $400,000 in state funding and diverts an additional $1.5 million to $2 million that comes from a fee on the use of nitrogen fertilizer. The center also averages about $3 million a year in ongoing research grants.

The bill also zeroes out state funding of about $1.5 million for the Iowa Flood Center at the University of Iowa. This state money has also leveraged about $136 million of federal money over the years, said Larry Weber, director of the center at the University of Iowa.

Most recently, the flood center was instrumental in helping the state secure more than $96 million from U.S. Housing and Urban Development. The five-year project includes spending about $30 million on conservation practices designed to hold water back in the landscape, Weber said. In other words, it’s aimed at preventing destruction to homes, businesses and infrastructure.

Cedar Rapids officials credited the use of the center’s Iowa Flood Information System with helping them successfully prepare for last fall’s 21.9-foot crest of the Cedar River, according to the Cedar Rapids Gazette. And even when the skies are clear, the flood center helps city planners and others across the state avoid the construction of new developments that would be wiped out with the next high water.

The Iowa Flood Center’s work saves untold millions of dollars in helping to prevent the damage, loss of economic activity and even potential loss of life that comes with Iowa’s most common natural disasters. It could become the hub for a national flood center that could bring more resources and jobs to the state.

Meanwhile, the Legislature wants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for voter identification so that we can stop the rampant plague of zero cases of voter-personification fraud in Iowa. They’re also solving the problem of not enough guns in the streets, although Tuesday night’s shooting in my Beaverdale neighborhood outside a popular, family-oriented sports bar suggests we have our quota here.

Legislators in general aren’t known for thinking ahead, but this is stunningly short-sighted even for them. Even if they somehow can’t tally up the economic benefit of the flood center, they should be able to do the political math. The next time there’s a damaging flood in Iowa — and there will be one — every lawmaker who voted to foolishly eliminate an effective resource for early warning and prevention will be held accountable.

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While drying up the Iowa Flood Center seems merely ignorant, the attack on the Leopold Center almost certainly germinated from partisan motivations.

“Working in the sustainability area is kind of a tricky business, because you’re asking questions of business interests that make them uncomfortable,” Rasmussen of the Leopold Center said.

The center’s research includes organic crop production, water quality, cover crops, nutrient management and many other topics aimed at soil and water preservation.

Rasmussen noted it is written in the legislation that originally created the center in 1987 that its mission is to identify negative aspects of agriculture. Hmm, I wonder who might want to put a halt to that sort of thing?

And yet, there has been something close to bipartisan agreement in the Legislature for over a year that water quality is a problem in this state and that more needs to be done to prevent agricultural runoff. Lawmakers and the governor have been looking for more resources to put into voluntary farm projects that the Leopold Center helped develop.

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Rep. Cecil Dolecheck, R-Mount Ayr, chairman of the House budget panel on education, said it appeared the Leopold Center had achieved its mission, according to the Register, because farmers are now well-versed in the use of cover crops and other sustainable practices.

That’s ridiculous. Taxpayers are spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the state to take nitrate and other farm and lawn chemicals out of the water. And we don’t need any more research on how to do that better, smarter and cheaper?

Apparently, it’s time for the spring flood of denial. It’s not just a river in Egypt, it’s right here in the state Capitol and some lawmakers are in over their heads.

Kathie Obradovich is the political columnist for the Register. Contact: kobradov@registermedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @KObradovich or at Facebook.com/KObradovich