Key achievement or drop in bucket? What $282 million water quality bill means for Iowans

The $282 million water quality bill passed by the Legislature this week represents a clear win for Gov. Kim Reynolds, who promised quick action on water quality this session.

For farmers, it means about $150 million in new funding for cover crops, bioreactors and saturated buffers as they seek to curb the high levels of nitrates and phosphorous entering Iowa's waterways.

But for others, like Des Moines Water Works CEO Bill Stowe and many environmental groups, the bill is a drop-in-the-bucket distraction.

Here's a closer look at the legislation and what it means for stakeholders across the state:

Iowa farmers

It sounds like a lot of money: $156 million over 12 years to add cover crops, bioreactors, saturated buffers and other practices experts say will keep excess nitrogen and phosphorus from polluting Iowa’s lakes and streams.

But the money will trickle in slowly over the first few years.

Another $126 million over a dozen years will be made available for cities and towns to improve drinking and wastewater facilities.

“Funding ramps up over time, so there are not a lot of extra dollars over the first couple of years,” said Bill Northey, who leads the Iowa Department of Agriculture, which has nearly sole discretion in implementing the bill.

The bill calls for a $2 million increase for farm improvements by fiscal year 2019, building to $15 million annually two years later.

The state seeks about $10.6 million for water quality efforts next fiscal year.

Still, the money is a small piece of the $4 billion investment experts estimate is needed to meet the state’s goal to reduce by 45 percent the nitrogen and phosphorus levels leaving Iowa and contributing to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone.

So where will the money go? How will it be used?

Northey said the bulk of Iowa’s water quality money has gone into watershed work — building plans, encouraging farmers to try new practices, like cover crops, working through technical challenges that come with taking practices from paper to fields, and monitoring to see if the work is effective.

So far, 16 projects are underway in nine priority watersheds, including the headwaters of the Raccoon River, one of two sources of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents.

“A big part of addressing water quality is going to be focusing those dollars in areas where we can get stuff done,” Northey said.

Northey imagines the new money will be used to build wetlands, bioreactors, saturated buffers and other costly infrastructure that can have a big impact on reducing the loss of nutrients from thousands of acres.

But Northey said making money available through a program that all Iowa farmers can participate in is important, too.

Last year, the state provided $4.8 million for cover crops and other practices that farmers matched with $8.7 million.

“We need both if we’re going to fix large areas,” Northey said.

For example, Iowa farmers planted cover crops on close to 625,000 acres last year, but the state needs at least 13 million acres in cover crops to meet its nutrient reduction goals.

Kirk Leeds sees the added state money bringing more conservation practices to Iowa’s farmland, but he adds that it’s a “small step.”

Leeds, CEO of the Iowa Soybean Association, has lobbied for larger investment. The association is one of the few Iowa farm groups that supports stronger water quality measuring and setting benchmarks and timelines to meet the goals.

The state measures water quality in individual projects, but across the state, it counts conservation practices, the amount of investment and efforts to build farmer participation to gauge progress.

Iowa needs more money, more comprehensive planning, more technical support and more conversation between urban and rural residents to solve the state’s water quality challenges, Leeds said.

“We don’t have the expertise needed … to really lead those kinds of long-term conversations,” he said.

And that's the only way the state can begin to discuss real timelines and goals, he said.

“Part of those honest conversations is a recognition that this is a long-term endeavor and that we’re going to see year-to-year variations" in water quality changes, Leeds said.

Plans need to be "based on an intellectually honest conversation of what is doable.”

The Register's Editorial: On water quality, Gov. Reynolds should keep asking

Cities and utilities

The legislation passed this week would also create a Water Quality Financial Assistance Fund through the state treasurer's office. Part of an existing tax on metered drinking water that currently goes into the state's general fund and to school infrastructure would be diverted into the new financial assistance fund.

That fund is specifically targeted to support cities' and water utilities' projects.

According to estimates from the nonpartisan Legislative Services Agency, about $2 million would flow into the fund in its first year. The fund is expected to receive about $4 million in its second year, about $12 million in its third and about $13 million each year thereafter, through 2030.

Forty percent of the money will be distributed to the Iowa Finance Authority for a Wastewater and Drinking Water Financial Assistance Program that will support drinking water and source water protection projects. Priority will be given to "disadvantaged" communities for the installation or upgrade of wastewater treatment facilities, as well as those that use technology to address the latest version of the Nutrient Reduction Strategy.

Rep. John Wills, R-Spirit Lake and the bill's floor manager, said this program has existed in state government previously but has not been funded.

He recalled a community in his district, Harris, which has about 200 residents but recently needed several million dollars to upgrade its sanitary sewer system.

"They had several options, and one of them was to disband as a community and then everyone go to a septic tank," Wills said. "So it really put them in a bind. ... Just in my district, three communities in the last five years have gone through that same process: Superior, Ocheyeden and then, now, Harris. So they would all, I think, be qualified, as disadvantaged communities, and they could have all benefited from this."

Another 45 percent of the money will go to the IFA for a new Water Quality Financing Program — a loan program that will fund groundwater and surface water improvement projects.

The remaining 15 percent will go the Division of Soil Conservation and Water Quality in the Iowa Department of Agriculture for a Water Quality Urban Infrastructure Program to fund demonstration projects that decrease erosion and stormwater discharge on a cost-share basis. It can also support some data collection and public information sharing.

Those programs are all designed to help cities, communities and utilities address water issues.

But Des Moines Water Works CEO Bill Stowe said he does not expect Des Moines to benefit.

"I think it’s a diversion away from the core issue of addressing water quality meaningfully," he said. "It’s taking public money and sprinkling it across the state without any real requirements for results. So, no, we see nothing favorable in the legislation. Nothing at all."

Des Moines Water Works has been on the front lines of Iowa's water quality debate after filing a lawsuit in 2015 against three rural Iowa counties it claimed were funneling high levels of nitrates into the Raccoon River.

Federal Judge Leonard Strand dismissed all of Water Works' claims, determining that water quality should be addressed by the Legislature. Des Moines Water Works has said it won't appeal.

Stowe said the legislation should have prioritized critical watersheds and focused its money on those while also requiring public reporting of results.

"They sprinkle money for conservation practices but have no requirement on an actual, demonstrated result with measurable requirements and goals and objectives," Stowe said. "It’s, again, sprinkling money seemingly for public relations effects, not for scientific results."

Environmental groups

Much of what’s wrong with the water quality bill comes down to accountability, environmentalists say.

“This isn’t a water quality bill. It’s a ‘throw millions of dollars at the Iowa Department of Agriculture with no strings attached' bill,” said Jennifer Terry, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council.

Taxpayers need to know if the money is being spent in the right place, that it’s having the greatest possible impact, and that Iowa is driving toward established goals, she said.

None of that was outlined in the bill, say Terry and Josh Mandelbaum, an attorney at the Environmental Law & Policy Center and member of the Des Moines City Council. And the money is a fraction of what's estimated as needed to meet the state’s nutrient reduction goals.

“To understand if we’re actually making progress, we need to monitor water quality,” Mandelbaum said.

“Once you have that baseline, then you need specific goals,” he said. “You need timelines associated with those goals. And you need benchmarks to see if you’re meeting those goals.

“If you don’t have any of those pieces, how can you say you’re serious about improving water quality,” Mandelbaum said.

Leaders said the state monitors some individual projects, but the primary yardstick is the adoption of conservation practices, the amount of investment, and outreach to farmers.

Terry said farmers need information on what’s working as much as their urban neighbors.

“Farmers want to know if the extra investment of time and resources is working,” she said. “It’s not enough to count acres of cover crops.”

And the state’s Nutrient Reduction Strategy doesn’t address bacteria, the leading cause for Iowa’s water impairments, environmentalists noted. Bacteria come from livestock facilities, manure-applied fields and wastewater treatment facilities.

“We know what needs to be done,” Terry said. “We just need the political will and money to get it done.”

Her group and others support raising the sales tax by three-eighths of a cent for a dedicated $187.5 million annually to clean water, improve parks and trails and tackle other natural resources projects.

Mandelbaum said the bill going to the governor doesn't solve Iowa's water problems, even though it creates an expectation that it will. "It's the wrong combination."

Politicians

The Legislature handed Reynolds the first legislative victory of her administration when it passed Senate File 512.

Reynolds had publicly called on the Legislature to address water quality, saying she hoped it would be the first bill she could sign as governor.

It also allowed Republicans and Democrats alike to make good on campaign-trail promises and repeated public pronouncements that they would address water quality this legislative session.

But Reynolds also made it clear she expects continued action on water quality, putting continued pressure on legislators to take action.

"Passing this long-awaited legislation does not mean the water quality discussion is over,” she said in a statement issued following passage of the bill. "It should ignite a continuing conversation as we begin to implement and scale best practices that will continue to make an impact on water quality in Iowa.”

On the floor of the House, Rep. Todd Prichard, D-Charles City, asked Wills for his word that the Legislature would continue working to improve water quality in the state after passage of the bill.

"Yes, and I’ll even save a lot of time and I’ll say to all 99 other representatives, you have my word," Wills said. "We will continue the water quality conversation and continue this effort."

House Speaker Linda Upmeyer, R-Clear Lake, said she expects to see new bills focused on water quality yet this session.

"I predict that we’ll do another bill this year," she said. "I don’t know what it’ll be yet, but I predict that we’ll have some things ready yet this year to do."