Donnelle Eller

deller@dmreg.com

A task force designated to find solutions to Iowa's water quality problems says the state should offer low-interest loans or grants for farm improvements tied to conservation efforts that could help clean up waterways.

The recommendation is one of several to be released Friday by the task force of business, farm and environmental leaders that will "put us in the needed direction" for improving water quality, said Ralph Rosenberg, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council. "It provides a sense of urgency that's been missing."

Other key recommendations from the Greater Des Moines Partnership water quality task force call for creating:

Watershed management authorities that would develop plans across the state for improving Iowa's water and soil. Members could include farmers, landowners, drainage districts, cities, counties and other groups.

A deadline of 2030 to meet the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, a plan designed to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus levels that contribute to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. The plan, criticized for failing to have a deadline, would mirror the national deadline for improvement. Iowa's plan seeks to reduce nutrients by 45 percent from rural and urban sources.

The recommendations come on the heels of Gov. Terry Branstad's proposal to pump as much as $4.7 billion by 2049 into water quality efforts. Branstad would find the money by extending for another 20 years a 1-cent sales tax that currently funds infrastructure for K-12 public schools and diverting some of the revenue to water quality.

Schools would be guaranteed the money they currently receive from the tax, plus a $10 million annual increase in funding. Any revenue growth exceeding that $10 million would go to water quality projects.

The task force says the recommendations will add “a culture of measurement” and accountability to the state's proposals to improve water quality. Iowa's drinking water has been bedeviled by nitrate runoff that has exceeded federal safety standards.

Des Moines Water Works is suing drainage districts in three north Iowa counties, saying field tiles are funneling high levels of nitrates into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 metro area residents.

RELATED: Water lawsuit fate may rest with Iowa Supreme Court

MORE:Des Moines Water Works coverage

The utility seeks to require drainage districts, and indirectly farmers, to abide by the same federal water quality regulations that business, industries and municipalities must meet on water entering the state's rivers and streams.

Water Works CEO Bill Stowe said the task force's recommendations fall significantly short of the changes needed to make real gains in water quality.

"It fails to assign any accountability to producers for their responsibility to protect the natural resources of the state," Stowe said Thursday. "It throws public money at a private problem … without dealing with the root causes."

But leaders at the Iowa Farm Bureau Federation and the Iowa Soybean Association say recommendations hold promise.

"We've got a plan," said Craig Hill, the Iowa Farm Bureau president. "Now is the time to execute it. But you've seen the enormity of the costs. … It's going to take great investment, beyond what we're doing today."

Several proposals have emerged to fund the strategies outlined in the state's Nutrient Reduction Strategy, which would reduce nitrogen and phosphorous levels in Iowa's waters by 45 percent, at an estimated to cost $1.2 billion annually over five decades.

In addition to Branstad's sales tax plan, several environmental groups support establishing a three-eighths of a cent sales tax that would support the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund.

Sixty-three percent of Iowa voters agreed to set up the fund in 2010; lawmakers, however, have failed to take action that would provide about $120 million for conservation, recreation and other outdoor initiatives.

Hill said Farm Bureau members haven't decided whether to endorse a funding plan — or the task force recommendations.

"We've got to ramp things up. We need something in place that gives us a predictable stream of money … to achieve these goals," he said.

The partnership task force supports providing a "sufficient, permanent and dedicated funding source." It lists Branstad's plan, the recreation sales tax, a proposal calling for a tax credit to landowners who make improvements, among other proposals.

Larry James, a Des Moines real estate attorney and a task force leader, said it's important to ensure that any money created for the Nutrient Reduction Strategy is targeted where it's most needed to improve water quality.

That needs to happen at the "watershed level," he said, with authorities working with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa Department of Agriculture.

"They need to identify and measure what the issues are, where this money would be best deployed," said James, who leads the task force with Steve Bruere, president of Peoples Co., a Clive farm management and brokerage business.

"It gets away from a scatter-shot approach to conservation," he said, adding that it's also where the best water quality measuring and monitoring will occur.

Bruere and James said enabling farmers — or drainage districts — to tap a revolving loan fund to make improvements such as replacing tiles or building terraces provides incentives to also build in conservation practices such as wetlands, bioreactors or saturated buffers.

"Landowners will continue to tile their land. … But rather than do it on their own, we want to tie it into these nutrient-reduction strategies," he said.

The task force report also said the improvements could create jobs and boost capital investments across the state. The group compared the work similar to building the state's road infrastructure.

Rosenberg of the Iowa Environmental Council said benefits from conservation improvements would have to be greater than the environmental impact of increased losses of nitrates and phosphorus from improved drainage.

Stowe, the Des Moines Water Works CEO, said he sees providing low-cost money for drainage improvements only worsening nitrogen and phosphorus losses — and potentially flooding. And there's no guarantee how long the conservation improvements would be in place.

He said farmers have pulled out of conservation programs when commodity prices improve.

"A producer needs to be accountable for the content of what they’re discharging into the waters of the state," Stowe said. "I'm concerned about what's coming out of the pipe. … Our need for water downstream is forever."

Read the report

The Greater Des Moines Partnership's Iowa Soil and Water Task Force report will be shared with Iowa lawmakers.