Success of Deal Will Ultimately Be Measured In The Number of New Operating Permits Actually Issued to Factory Farm Polluters

Iowa CCI members caution that Governor Branstad and the Iowa DNR cannot be trusted to implement work plan deal on their own

As all sides position themselves to claim credit for a far-reaching Clean Water Act work plan deal that, in reality, the state of Iowa had to be dragged kicking and screaming into signing, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) members caution that the best deal on paper won’t mean much if the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) doesn’t properly implement the factory farm pollution accord over the next five years.

The deal reached between the Iowa DNR and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency yesterday requires DNR field staff to perform comprehensive reviews of the 8,000 largest factory farms in Iowa – including on-site, boots-on-the-ground inspections for thousands of facilities.

“The deal is good on paper but if the DNR thinks they can just walk into these inspections with their blindfolds on, then we’re headed for a pretty bumpy ride,” said Barb Kalbach, a fourth-generation family farmer and CCI member from Dexter, Iowa.

“At the end of the day, the success of this deal will be judged solely by the number of Clean Water Act operating permits actually issued to factory farm polluters.”

The thousands of inspections and assessments DNR must conduct under the new agreement are intended to identify discharging facilities that require Clean Water Act permits.  DNR must complete 20 percent of the total inspections each year.  The work plan agreement also requires DNR to submit a status report in 90 days, 210 days, and annually thereafter.  DNR will file annual reports on its work plan progress, and EPA will continue to assess whether the state is moving towards compliance with the Clean Water Act.

Iowa CCI members say one loophole the DNR worked into the final agreement is a provision governing inspections that states the DNR may not have to perform on-site reviews of some large factory farms if an equivalent inspection has been completed since November 1 of 2011.

CCI members say it isn’t possible that any inspections since 2011 could possibly be adequate because a July 2012 report by EPA specifically found the DNR’s inspection program wasn’t up to par, and because the new inspection procedures were just finalized yesterday so the DNR has never been trained to conduct an inspection using the new criteria before.

“Any DNR Director under Governor Branstad’s leadership will continue to try and get out of as many of their obligations as they can unless the public continues to hold them accountable to the strongest possible interpretation of the law,” Kalbach said.

A second questionable provision in the work plan is language stating that medium-sized factory farms that have “had a significant release within the last 5 years, and the release presented a substantial threat of discharging pollutants to a water of the U.S.” will be bumped up in priority from a desktop assessment to an on-site inspection.  The problem, according to CCI members, is that there is no clear definition about what a “significant release” presenting a “substantial threat” to a waterway actually is.

“We have numerous examples of manure spills and other violations that posed extremely dangerous threats to our water quality which the DNR refused to take seriously based on their lack of enforcement,” Kalbach said.

Iowa CCI members also say they will continue to fight for more inspections and stronger permits – including a “three strikes and you’re out” policy – during an upcoming rulemaking process mandated by the final work plan agreement as well as during the 2014 legislative session beginning in January.

Iowa’s water quality has never been worse than now, with 628 polluted bodies of water, and manure and other fertilizer runoff so high that Des Moines Water Works ran the world’s most expensive nitrate removal system for nearly 90 days this spring and summer, costing 500,000 ratepayers in Central Iowa nearly $900,000.

There have been more than 800 documented manure spill since 1995, according to DNR records.