Cityview:  An Earth Day Portrait

“The market is ready, but the utilities
are hesitant,” Kenyon-Brown says. “So,
because we are a state that regulates its utilities,
it's up to legislators to decide how much renewable
energy is produced. And they have not stepped
up.”
…



They literally watched as the s__t ran out
of the building, down the slope and right into
the tile intake.

When Environmental Protection Agency inspectors
visited with members of Iowa Citizens for Community
Improvement last month, Kari Carney escorted
the federal regulators on a tour of some local
factory farms. She showed them firsthand the
streams of manure that had been flowing so consistently
out of one site that they had created obvious
grooves in the landscape. They watched as animal
waste drained out of another cracked lagoon
and streamed into the ditch on the side of the
road. They saw sites that, despite blindingly
obvious evidence and repeated complaints, had
received no attention from the Department of
Natural Resources.

In Iowa, many environmentalists have come
to find that, while hog producers get the royal
treatment, local citizens and the environment
are treated like swine. The hog invasion has
been on the march since landmark legislation
in 1995 opened the flood gates, Carney says,
and, thanks to the continuing trend of favorable
laws, Iowa has become the No.1 hog producing
state in the nation.
…

It's time to stop gulping back the truth: Iowa's
water is foul. And it's not a matter of a handful
of renegade corporations surreptitiously discharging
chemicals or urban areas overburdening their
watershed – although both of those do occur
in Iowa. It's the kind of systemic breakdown
in which an Ames trailer park discharges sewage
into College Creek, visible feces float right
through the middle of the ISU campus and, the
DNR is up s__t creek without a regulatory paddle
because the stream didn't have any defined protection
standards. What's wrong with the state's water
isn't an easily pinpointed disease cured with
one heavy dose of financial medication; it's
a chronic condition that requires a regulatory
lifestyle change.



…



But even more galling is that Iowa continues
to miss the boat on the most basic provisions
of water quality protection. Argue all you want
about how George W. Bush has attempted to undermine
the Clean Water Act; Iowans would be thrilled
if the state would follow that federal act in
the first place. According to the CWA, every
body of water must be protected for aquatic
life and recreational uses. But, of nearly 72,000
miles of rivers and streams, Iowa protects only
3 percent of those miles for swimming and 17
percent for aquatic life. States are also required
to keep waters from further degradation by showing
economic or social need for any increases in
pollution. But DNR doesn't do that environmentalists
say. The CWA mandates that states set aside
their highest quality waters and restrict any
additional pollution, no exceptions. But Iowa
hasn't bestowed that designation on a single
drop of water. In fact, Iowa is so far off base
when it comes to the CWA, the EPA has been sending
notices of violation for the past seven years
and, if the agency doesn't get with the national
program in the very near future, environmental
groups say they will take the state to court
to get the feds to take over the job local regulators
are not doing.

…


Flashback to 1937 when the national parks
system was just getting off the ground, and
Iowa was leading the pack in setting aside land
for conservation, Edwards says. But return to
reality, he continues, and Iowa has plummeted
to nearly dead last in the amount of land under
public protection. In fact, even if you combine
all the state, county and federal lands, you
come up with barely 600,000 acres or a measely
1.7 percent of Iowa's total land area.

“That's smaller than Polk County,”
Edwards says gravely