Will Water Works' dismissed lawsuit lift pressure on Iowa farmers? No, officials say

Farmer Mark Schleisman firmly believes that Des Moines Water Works' decision to sue over high nitrate levels in the Raccoon River was the wrong way to get more farmers to embrace conservation practices across Iowa's 26 million corn and soybean acres.

But Schleisman hopes the dismissal of the utility's lawsuit two weeks ago doesn't lessen the pressure that farmers — or Iowa lawmakers — feel to implement more cover crops, grass waterways, wetlands and other practices to help prevent soil erosion and nitrogen and phosphorus losses.

"I'm glad the lawsuit is nearly behind us. But at the same time, I hope people don't lose focus on the need to do better at what we do," said Schleisman, 52, whose family farm runs along about a mile of the North Raccoon River in Calhoun County. It's one of three counties the Des Moines utility targeted in its lawsuit, seeking federal oversight of underground drainage districts and, indirectly, farmers like Schleisman.

After the lawsuit's dismissal, people on all sides of the issue are asking the same question: What's next?

Des Moines Water Works has yet to decide whether to appeal the federal judge's dismissal of the lawsuit, which has brought intense state and national debate over farming's responsibility for Iowa's declining water quality.

Bill Stowe, CEO of Des Moines Water Works, said he wants to believe state leaders and farmers will "walk the talk" and drive Iowa's voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy, a plan that needs broad conservation adoption to be successful.

But what Stowe expects is that farmers will "backslide into habits and mantras" that degrade Iowa's water, such as growers using low commodity prices as an excuse to plow up filter strips so they can farm to a waterway's edge.

"I expect there will be no principled, structured movement forward," Stowe said.

Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines, agrees. He sees leverage disappearing for a big state financial investment package to help farmers ramp up conservation practices.

Experts estimate it could cost up to $1.2 billion annually for decades to cut by 45 percent the nitrogen and phosphorus levels leaving Iowa.

"The lawsuit was the 800-pound gorilla driving" lawmakers to talk about funding options, mostly in the hope of convincing Des Moines Water Works to drop the action, McCoy said. "We lost that sense of urgency. … I anticipate any gains will be marginal."

Lawsuit dismissal 'doesn't dismiss … the need for accountability'

Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey and Ralph Rosenberg, executive director of the Iowa Environmental Council, come to the same conclusion for different reasons: Work to clean Iowa's rivers, streams and lakes will continue, regardless of the lawsuit.

"Dismissal of the lawsuit didn’t dismiss the need for sustainable funding. It doesn't dismiss the pollution or the need for accountability," Rosenberg said.

The utility claimed in its lawsuit that underground ag drainage tiles in Calhoun, Sac and Buena Vista counties funneled high levels of nitrates into the Raccoon River, a source of drinking water for 500,000 central Iowa residents.

High nitrate levels in drinking water can cause blue baby syndrome, a condition that can be fatal to infants 6 months and younger if not treated. But some studies also have linked even moderate nitrate levels to health concerns that include birth defects, cancers and thyroid problems.

Rosenberg's group has pushed for a three-eighths of 1-cent sales tax hike to fill the state's Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Fund. Much of it would go to improving Iowa's water, but also trails, wildlife habitat and other outdoor initiatives.

Sixty-three percent of Iowans voted for a constitutional amendment that created the fund in 2010. But Gov. Terry Branstad and other Republican lawmakers don't agree it means Iowans also support a sales tax increase that environmental, farm and other groups backed along with the amendment.

MORE:

• With Water Works' lawsuit dismissed, water quality is the legislature's problem
• Bill reorganizing Des Moines Water Works stalls in Iowa House
• Des Moines council supports bill dismantling water utilities
• W.D.M. switches support on water works bill

Earlier this month, about a dozen Republican lawmakers backed a revenue-neutral bill that would phase in the sales tax increase over three years, while at the same time offset the increase with equal income tax reduction of about $60 million annually. After both measures were phased in, the bill would generate about $180 million annually for conservation.

"Our elected officials, all the way up to our governor, know changes need to be made," Rosenberg said.

"There are too many Iowans who believe there are health threats with our current direction … too many Iowans who won’t let it go," he said.

Northey said the Des Moines Water Works lawsuit might have gotten the credit, but work building rural and urban conservation practices began before the utility filed its lawsuit in 2015.

In 2013,  the state adopted the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, a blueprint for cutting high nutrient levels that contribute to the Gulf of Mexico dead zone that's the size of Connecticut each summer. It outlines a buffet of practices — cover crops, wetlands, buffers — that can reduce loss of naturally occurring and man-made nutrients.

"Folks were doing those things because they had the tools and interest," said Northey, a Spirit Lake farmer. "We saw an increase in cover crop acres before the lawsuit. And we'll keep adding acres."

Northey said state funding has climbed from $4.4 million in 2013 to about $9.5 million this year to help farmers try cover crops and no-till planting, along with developing watershed demonstration projects.

Meeting with farmers in 12 counties earlier this month, Northey said he could focus on water quality issues — for example, does aerial seeding of cover crops work better than "drilling" them — instead of answering "what if" questions about the lawsuit.

"I never heard anybody say, 'Well, we don't have to do that anymore,' " Northey said.

Budget shortfalls leave funding in unknown spot

Carol Balvanz, policy director at the Iowa Soybean Association, said state budget shortfalls — $249 million this fiscal year, with $131 million covered by reserves — make significant water-quality funding this year tough.

"It's more to do with the state's overall financial condition than the lawsuit," Balvanz said. "I've not heard anyone talk about the lawsuit as a factor one way or the other."

McCoy, the Des Moines lawmaker, said the state's financial challenges will provide the "perfect foil" for taking no action.

Lawmakers "can legitimately say, look, we'd like to throw $50, $75, $100 million toward this problem, but we're starting with a structural deficit" in fiscal year 2018.

A downturn in the farm economy is a big reason for the pullback in the state's estimated revenues.

"I'm already hearing it from lawmakers," McCoy said. "In the past, they'd talk about the three-eighths of a cent sales tax … but now they're balking."

Iowa Senate Majority Leader Bill Dix, R-Shell Rock, however, said lawmakers are working on water quality solutions.

"I would expect those to continue to move through the process," he said. “At this point, I have the expectation that there will be a water quality bill.”

What would that funding go toward?

Balvanz said lawmakers are concerned about how sustained conservation funding would be spent. She's often asked: "How would you determine where the money goes?"

One answer, she said, is a bill Rep. Chip Baltimore is managing that encourages watershed groups to organize, providing the foundation for clean water work.

It would shift money now spent on infrastructure projects and sales tax dollars Iowans pay on their water bills to conservation spending. It also would create a revolving loan fund that would provide loans and grants to organized watershed groups.

"It creates collaboration between urban and rural areas, working in watersheds to strategically look at the places where water quality efforts would most make sense," Balvanz said.

"You don't have people scatter-shot practices everywhere, but where they make the most sense for water quality and financially," she said.

The financing could come later, Balvanz said. "I think three-eighths of a cent will eventually fund it," she said. "But if we get the ball rolling … there will be a will to put more money toward it."

Pilot programs being pitched around the state

City leaders in Des Moines, Charles City and Eagle Grove are weighing pilots that would have them working with area farmers to reduce upstream nitrogen and phosphorus losses.

The cities, partnering with the soybean association, hope to tap a program that provides grants to communities receiving low-interest loans for wastewater treatment plant improvements. Typically, cities and towns use the money for projects such as adding permeable pavers, bioswales and retention basins that slow stormwater that can overwhelm pipes and flood streets and basements.

Eagle Grove and Charles City, both investing about $16 million in wastewater treatment upgrades, propose investing about $1.6 million each — Des Moines is proposing $500,000, tied to a $15 million sewer separation project — in mostly upstream small watershed projects, said Adam Kiel, a soybean association environmental program manager.

Kiel said he expects the work, similar to Cedar Rapids' upstream efforts in eastern Iowa, can be replicated in other watersheds to push implementation of the nutrient reduction strategy. While the watershed plans seek to cut nutrient levels by 45 percent, so far there's not been enough funding to add the practices that can reach it, he said.

Schleisman, the Lake City farmer, said state cost-share funding has helped his family experiment with new conservation practices — in particular cover crops that he still uses on several hundred acres without funding assistance. And he's testing a bioreactor and saturated buffer on land his father and uncles own that runs along the North Raccoon.

Schleisman, who sees conservation slowly taking root in northwest Iowa, is working to determine his savings from grazing his cattle on cover crops. Good financial information, along with soil health data, will help sell conservation to other farmers.

"You spend $8-, $10-, $12,000 an acre for a piece of ground, you don't want to see it wash away — either the nutrients or the topsoil," said Schleisman, whose family grows primarily popcorn seed, along with corn and soybeans, and raises cattle and pigs.

Schleisman may not agree with Stowe, the Des Moines Water Works CEO, about the lawsuit, but both say it's driven discussion about the health of Iowa's lakes, streams and rivers.

Stowe has no regrets about filing the lawsuit, even with a legislative effort mounted to dismantle Des Moines, West Des Moines and Urbandale's independent water operations. He claims the bill, filed by a rural Iowa lawmaker, is in retaliation for the lawsuit.

The bill, which stalled last week in the House, proposes shifting the utilities under their city councils' governance. The utilities are fighting the measure.

"If we had to do it again, we’d take the same path," said Stowe, whose utility last year outlined about $80 million in improvements to remove nitrates to meet federal drinking water standards. It spent $1.5 million in 2015 to run its nitrate removal equipment a record number of days to ensure safe drinking water.

"The intensity of the discussion about water quality, the level of information we have now" has climbed to new heights, Stowe said.

Schleisman said he finds farmers, and city and town residents, more knowledgeable about conservation — and its costs — since the lawsuit was filed.

People like to stop by his farm to snap pictures of his cows and calves grazing on cover crops. They understand "it's something more than just what cows eat, but something to protect the soil and keep the nutrients there," he said.

Register reporter William Petroski contributed to this story.