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Bad Water, Worse Policies Iowa’s dirty waterways are the result of short-sighted approaches to agriculture, set to pollute some of the state’s last untouched streams. BY PAUL BRENNAN
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or five years, Sarah Prineas has been getting up before dawn and heading to the Beckwith Boathouse at the University of Iowa to meet other members of Hawkeye Community Rowing for practice. The rowing team practices four to five times a week on the Iowa River. “It’s always beautiful in the morning,” Prineas said. “The river is calm, and the sun is coming up. On the banks of the river we see deer, all kinds of waterfowl and eagles. It’s really very peaceful and beautiful.” But there is a problem: the water. “Currently, it is foul,” Prineas said. “We notice when we go down to the dock in the morning these blobs of brownish foam that are coming down the river. And the river is murky and brown.” After practice, the rowers have to use detergent to clean the slimy residue off the boats and oars. It’s not a new practice, but as drought conditions in Iowa lower the water level in rivers and slow their flow, the underlying pollution problems are aggravated and become more obvious. “We have always washed the boats, but it’s just gotten really disgusting this year,” Prineas said. Up until 2015, it would have been fairly easy to compare the quality of water in the Iowa River as it passes through Iowa City with that of other rivers and streams in eastern Iowa by checking the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ (DNR) Water Quality Index. DNR had published the index since 2000, but discontinued after deciding it was no longer reliable because the state cut funding for monitoring pesticides in rivers and streams. In 2016, DNR contracted with Chris Jones to create a new index. Jones, a research engineer at UI’s IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering lab and a leading expert on water quality in Iowa, worked with Rick Langel of the Iowa Geological Survey to devise an index that measures the quality of streams and rivers according to levels of dissolved oxygen, E. coli, total nitrogen, total phosphorus and water clarity. “We actually do a fairly good job of monitoring water quality here in Iowa,” Jones told Little Village. In addition to the DNR’s ambient water monitoring program, UI collects its own water quality data. DNR hasn’t started utilizing the new index yet, but Jones used it to create a list of the state’s 45 best stream sites in terms of water quality, which
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he published on his website. The Iowa River makes the list, which used data from 2016 to 2020, three times—at Wapello (No. 22), downstream of Marshalltown (No. 26) and at Lone Tree (No. 31)—but the Iowa City segment didn’t crack the top 45.
“IT IS FOUL. WE NOTICE WHEN WE GO DOWN TO THE DOCK IN THE MORNING THESE BLOBS OF BROWNISH FOAM THAT ARE COMING DOWN THE RIVER. AND THE RIVER IS MURKY AND BROWN.” —SARAH PRINEAS
Twenty Cleanestish Iowa Waterways These Iowa stream sites are considered to have the best water quality in the state. That’s not saying a hell of a lot. 1. Wapsipinicon River at Independence 2. Bloody Run Creek at Marquette 3. Cedar River at Charles City 4. Shellrock River at Shellrick 5. W. Fork Cedar River at Finchford 6. Cedar River at Janesville 7. Boone River at Stratford 8. Yellow River at Ion 9. Upper Iowa River at Dorchester 10. Blackhawk Creek at Waterloo 11. Turkey River at Garber 12. Cedar River downstream of Cedar Rapids 13. Des Moines River at Keosaqua 14. Wapsipinicon River at DeWitt 15. North River at Norwalk 16. Cedar River at Conesville 17. Wolf Creek at LaPorte City 18. Beaver Creek at Grimes 19. Volga River at Elkport 20. Thompson River at Davis City
Dennis Keitel up to his elbows in Iowa River
From ‘Iowa Rivers 1 to 45: The Fair, the
scum from the bottom of a boat. Ute Brandenburg
Marginal & the Ugly,’ May 27, 2021
