Iowa faces a reckoning over water quality and cancer rates in midterm campaigns

Iowa is grappling with water quality and cancer rates, bringing these issues to the forefront of state politics

Iowa faces a reckoning over water quality and cancer rates in midterm campaigns

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Iowa is facing a budget deficit, high costs and economic strain from trade disputes that have squeezed farmers.

The issue has historically been politically taboo to avoid pointing fingers at the powerful agricultural industry in Iowa, one of the country’s top producers of corn, soybeans and hogs. Chemical fertilizers and animal waste contain nitrates and phosphorus that can get washed with rain or snowmelt into the state’s web of rivers.

The problem has long caused tension between Iowa’s more liberal urban centers, which rely on rivers and lakes for drinking water, and mostly conservative stewards of its rich farmland. Farmers are increasingly participating in practices to prevent runoff, although critics say the lack of regulation forces downstream Iowans to pay for the pollution.

New state-funded research at the University of Iowa shows most — but not all — of Iowa’s above-normal rates for five cancers can be explained by demographic and behavioral factors, such as smoking and binge drinking. Researchers next assess environmental factors, including nitrate levels.

Some studies have found a link between nitrates in drinking water and certain diseases, but it remains an area of debate. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency does not currently classify nitrates as a cancer risk. The agency initiated a plan to review that assessment in 2017, but it's been stalled, revived and stalled again under different White House administrations.

“We all know that we have some challenges here in Iowa," she said. “I don't think water quality is a partisan issue."

It’s been more than a decade since the Des Moines area’s water utility, fed up with paying roughly $16,000 per day to remove nitrates from water, sued counties further upstream to get them to help cover the cost. The complaint was ultimately dismissed, and Iowa’s Republican leaders celebrated the ruling.

In May, though, Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds and lawmakers committed an additional $320 million for water infrastructure, conservation initiative incentives and other projects, including millions to Central Iowa Water Works to update equipment.

Still, criticism of slow progress has continued, including from candidates running to replace Reynolds.