Ag's Draining Water Fight - 1 Des Moines Water Works Clashes With Iowa Farmers; Lawsuit Creates Conflict on Clean Water

Installing drain tile. A well-tiled river valley in Iowa is the focus of a lawsuit filed by the Des Moines Water Works that seeks to regulate nutrient runoff from farms. (DTN file photo)

 ROCKWELL CITY, Iowa (DTN) -- Iowa farmers and ag groups would much rather work things out with leaders at Des Moines Water Works over a beer and lock details in with a handshake.

Instead, the water utility's legal action, which seeks to regulate nutrient runoff from farms, likely will take years to resolve and has more farmers willing to dust off their boxing gloves.

The utility's board of directors moved in March to file a federal lawsuit against 10 drainage districts in Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac counties, all of which are northwest of Des Moines and part of the Raccoon River watershed. The lawsuit also names county supervisors.

If successful, the legal action could lead to regulating agriculture as a pollution point source in Iowa and perhaps across the country if legal fever spreads. It could require farmers to pay for expensive permits for normal farm practices, as well as restrict the use of fertilizer or other farm chemicals.

At the center of the issue is the extensive subsurface tile drainage that helped turn the Raccoon River watershed northwest of Des Moines into one of the most productive cropping and livestock areas in the country. The tiling also allowed farm nutrients to move down stream. The lawsuit specifically declares tile drainage pipes and ditches operated by the drainage districts as "point sources which transport high concentration of nitrates contained in groundwater."

The Raccoon River drains 3,625 square miles, including some 2.3 million acres in west-central Iowa. Portions of 17 counties supply the river. Row crops including primarily corn and soybeans account for about 85% of the land area in the North Raccoon River, according to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. Some 77% of that land is tiled-drained above Sac City. In the South Raccoon River area some 61% of the land is row crops with about 42% of it tile-drained north of Redfield.

The rich soil in the region is part of the water-quality challenge. Soil mineralization and nitrogen fertilizer contribute to at least half of the total nitrates ending up in the water. Livestock in the watershed account for anywhere from 13% to 17% of the nitrates. 

Des Moines Water Works wants tighter regulations to limit runoff. Iowa's voluntary nutrient reduction strategy lacks any timeframe for reducing nutrient runoff and declines to set any standards or require certain conservation practices. 

The litigation leaves farmers concerned about the regulatory risks they may face. Calhoun County Farmer Randy Souder wants to install a bioreactor in one of three counties where drainage districts and county supervisors have been sued. The bioreactor is a large pit filled with wood chips or similar material that filters tile drain waters before they enter a stream, reducing nitrate levels in the process. It is promising technology that could help solve the state's nutrients runoff problem. Now Souder questions the investment.

"Right now I'm going to put it on hold until we know a little more about what is going on," Souder said. "If we're going to go through a bunch of regulations and stuff do I want to dump 30, 40 grand into something?"

An Iowa State University study from 2012 found farmers in the Raccoon watershed region could reduce nitrate loads by 45% to 55% using the combination of nitrogen rate management and wetland restoration. Nitrogen management alone could reduce loads by 18%, according to the study.