By DOUG SCHMITZ
Iowa Correspondent

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa — According to newly released Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-required community water system reports, Des Moines has the nation’s cleanest drinking water, with Iowa farmers playing a pivotal role in the capitol city’s recent designation.

“This is welcome news for consumers and our tap water,” said Rick Robinson, Iowa Farm Bureau Federation (IFBF) environmental policy advisor, of the April 22 report, recently published in Forbes magazine and awarding Des Moines the number-one spot in its own study of water quality in major metropolitan cities.

“Iowa farmers have made a lot of progress over the years,” he added. “Water in our streams and lakes are as clean as they’ve been since the 1970s. By using a variety of voluntary conservation practices every day all year long, farmers help keep source waters clean.”

In its list of “Best Cities for Clean Drinking Water,” Forbes’ study covered 77 metropolitan areas and their EPA-guideline rankings based on a variety of measurements.

“Iowa’s capital city ranked best on our list of U.S. cities with the cleanest drinking water,” Forbes’ April 14 article read. “The insurance industry center and home of the Iowa Caucus had the second lowest level of bacteria in its drinking water and ranked in the top 15 for lowest levels of lead, turbidity and haloacetic acid.”
Additionally, a Nov. 9, 2007, report by Iowa State University’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD) indicated Iowa farmers had invested an estimated $435 million annually in a variety of measures to protect the source water for much of the water used as tap water in our largest metropolitan areas.

According to CARD, seven major conservation practices used on Iowa farms are estimated to remove 11-38 percent of the total nitrogen, 6-28 percent of the nitrate and 25-58 percent of the phosphorus that otherwise would be present in 13 large-scale watersheds which cover most of the state.

The CARD report said the $435 million included average statewide costs of about $37 million for selected Iowa conservation structures (terraces and grassed waterways), annual payments of about $175 million to farmers for acres set aside as part of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) and contour farming, contour strip cropping, no-till and mulch-till conservation practices in farming operations.

The data sets used in the analysis represent conservation practices and their costs in place in 1997, except for conservation tillage, which is based on 2004 coverage and costs, the report added.
Other indicators of progress include conservation tillage on nearly 10 million acres of cropland (60 percent of acreage) in 2006, up 3 percent from 2004, the last time the survey was conducted. Also, since 2004 there has been an increase of 660,000 acres of no-till.
Moreover, Robinson said Iowa farmers have more than 1.8 million acres enrolled in the CRP, the sixth-largest state enrollment in the country; more than 542,000 acres enrolled in the continuous CRP signup; and more than any other state, or more than 13 percent of the total acres enrolled nationwide, according to Farm Service Agency statistics.

Robinson added more than 849,000 acres are enrolled in the Conservation Security Program in the state and Iowa farmers have enrolled more than 126,000 acres in the Wetland Reserve Program since 1992.

“Farmers realize we all live in a watershed, and they are always looking to improve practices that make them good stewards and good neighbors,” he said. “Everyone contributes to their local water quality and everyone can play a part in water protection efforts.”
But Robinson pointed out Iowa farmers clearly embrace these challenges, one of which is sediment in streams and lakes.

“The challenge for everyone in that watershed is to understand and recognize the progress that has been made, know what the remaining challenges are, how to best address them, how much it is going to cost and what is a reasonable timeframe for seeing additional results,” he said. “Farmers are a part of this all, just like their city cousins.”

On April 2, Iowa Secretary of Agriculture Bill Northey announced the Watershed Improvement Review Board had approved seven applications totaling $2.1 million in grants to support projects that will improve water quality in the state, which already completed watershed assessments that identified critical water resource areas.
Northey said the seven grant recipients will provide $1.7 million to match, meaning a total of $3.8 million will be invested in water quality improvement projects, with individual awards ranging from $64,260-$500,000.

Shannon Ramsay, founding president and CEO of Trees Forever, said through her Marion-based group’s statewide effort called “Working Watersheds: Buffers & Beyond,” Iowa farmers have installed and showcased more than 200 buffers, planting more than 720,000 trees and shrubs to improve water quality.