Environment

Central Iowa’s drinking water caught between climate change and farming

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Until the drought, water engineers at the Des Moines Water Works had to make a difficult choice every morning between two rivers that supply the 600,000 people in Iowa’s capital city with clean drinking water. Would it be the Raccoon River, flowing from the northwest and often laced with levels of nitrates in excess of federal safety standards, or the Des Moines River, flowing from the north and often carrying dangerous concentrations of cyano-bacteria in burgeoning populations of algae? It’s a no-win choice: Extended exposure to nitrates in drinking water has been linked to a range of cancers, the consumption of algae to kidney and liver damage and an array of acute symptoms.

But there’s been a twist to this unappealing choice, some version of which is playing out in cities across the Midwest that lie astride major rivers. For much of the fall, the drought in Iowa made the decision easy for Ted Corrigan, a water engineer and CEO of the Des Moines Water Works. Less rain meant less nitrogen seeping from the fertilizer applied across the state’s millions of acres of farmland and running off the tiles that undergird many fields into the Raccoon.

Crisis in our Wells

Building A Database For Iowa’s Wells

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Testing on private wells through the Iowa’s Grants to Counties program is recorded in a Private Well Tracking System database maintained by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. The database, in use since 2003, also includes information about things like well depth, age, location and construction, when it is known.

Iowa Environment

Crisis In Our Wells: Iowa’s Private Well Water Often Goes Untested, Presenting Unknown Health Risks

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Many Iowans may not know what is in their water because their wells’ water quality is unregulated. Moreover, many well owners IowaWatch spoke with during an investigation this past year in counties across southwest Iowa said they largely were unconcerned about their wells, even though tests revealed high levels of nitrates and bacteria in some of their wells.

Potential Contaminants In Your Iowa Well Water

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A consumer information booklet produced by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources lists potential contaminants that include nitrate, bacteria, sulfur, fluoride, arsenic, lead and radionuclides, which are carcinogenic radioactive elements that occur as uranium and thorium isotopes decay.