Like
millions of Americans we celebrated the last weekend of summer with a road trip
on Labor Day weekend. Our recent tradition has been a getaway with my
sisters and our families for what we call “cousins vacation.” This year
our trip was to the water park capital of the world - Wisconsin Dells. We
had a great weekend of family, food, pools and water slides. The pools
were crowded with families
all enjoying what was probably that last hot weekend of 2015.
As I
floated the lazy river and wave pools for hours, there were a few things I
began to notice about the pools. First, it was obvious the park
works hard to keep everything spic and span, clean and safe. Probably the most
telling sign was the eye reddening, skin irritating doses of chlorine in the
water. That smell of bleach water that assures us the water is safe and
clean. But there were also some mixed signals. There
was the glob of hair clinging around a drain, the chewing gum I stepped in
wading into the wave pool, the kid in the inner tube next to me hacking up
water back into the pool, and of course there’s always the youngsters like my
nephew in water soaked swim diapers in the pool. And I should not forget
there were thousands of barefoot people walking hallways, hotel rooms, parking
lots, pool lounges, and rest rooms and then walking right into
pools. Did I still feel safe in the water? – Yes, just like the
thousands of others around me.
Being
surrounded by this “clean” water it made me think of the Des Moines Water Works
lawsuit against the three county drainage districts. We all want and need
safe, clean water, however, the rhetoric needs to be put in perspective.
The waterworks needs to bring the nitrates in their drinking water to the EPA’s
10 ppm (parts per million) standard established in 1992.
That’s a high standard when dealing with surface water from rivers, rather than
sourcing drinking water from groundwater. Accusations have been thrown
around on who is responsible and what must be done to make it safer.
Most
people do not go to a pool or water park expecting clean, fresh water without
the additional chlorine treatment. Reasonable people understand that even
though the water is pulled from common sources, extra treatment is needed to
keep it safe because the amount of traffic and various contaminates that may
make it unsafe. A similar and realistic expectation needs to be made for
the nitrates in the water flowing into the Des Moines Water Works. There
will always be a need for treatment of drinking water. It may be adding
chlorine, adjusting the alkalinity, changing fluoride concentrations, improving
the hardness, or removing excess nitrates. Even if no agriculture
fertilizer was applied, there would still be a need for a nitrate removal system
because of Iowa’s natural soil fertility and Midwest weather patterns.
Thousands
of people bring their families to Wisconsin Dells every summer to enjoy the
water parks and pay absolutely no attention to the little things that add up
to water quality. They are reassured by that ever present chlorine
smell. Meanwhile, Iowa has thousands of farmers who are paying close attention to the little
things they do every day and do their part to improve and preserve water quality
in our rivers and streams. Farmers are working hard following the plans
outlined in the Nutrient Reduction Strategy to responsibly apply crop nutrients
and control run off to improve Iowa’s streams and rivers. Improvements on
water quality are coming, but the ultimate results won’t happen immediately. It will come over time as the efforts are multiplied across farms throughout
Iowa and the most practical solutions are identified and shared. Farmers
need to share the successful stories to reassure Iowans of their water’s
quality and safety.
It’s
hard for many people to get past the rhetoric and scare tactics being used by
the Des Moines Water Works, but my weekend at Wisconsin Dells showed me that most
people are reasonable when it comes to their expectations of water. Let’s
move forward using that common sense. Iowa's Nutrient Reduction Strategy is
a good place to start.
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