Lawmakers agree water quality is an issue in Iowa

Republican and Democratic legislators agreed last week that water quality is a pressing issue in the state along with property taxes and public health – all of which will be necessary to balance as the Legislature returns in January.

Water quality, cancer and conservation efforts in Iowa were a key topic on day two of the Iowa Nature Summit at Drake University as a panel of Iowa lawmakers discussed potential 2026 policies.

Sen. Sarah Trone Garriott, D-West Des Moines, said water quality, especially after a lawn watering ban was issued in central Iowa over the summer due to elevated nitrate levels in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, is an issue she now hears about all the time.

“There’s more folks who are paying attention,” she said. “For the people who have been doing this for a very long time, it’s an opportunity to engage those new people and those new voices in advocacy, because we can’t address big challenges unless we’re working together across broad coalitions of folks.”

Funding the trust

The Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund was established in the state constitution in 2010, with more than 60% approval from Iowa voters, to fund parks, trails, water resources, conservation efforts and natural areas in the state.

Despite its 15 years on the books, the trust has not accumulated any funds because the Legislature has not levied the necessary increase on sales taxes, of which the fund would receive three-eighths of a percent.

Nature and environmental groups have urged the Legislature to fund the trust in past years.

Rep. David Jacoby, D-Coralville, said it “may happen” in 2026

“I think it’s time we initiate,” Jacoby said. “… but we have to be mindful that that three-eighths was supposed to supplement what we’re doing, not replace what we’re doing.”

Trone Garriott said constituents have asked lawmakers to do something about water quality issues in the state and funding the trust is the “number one opportunity.”

At the same time, however, Trone Garriott said property taxes will be the “biggest issue” at the Statehouse this year.

“Within our municipalities, our counties, there are water quality efforts that happen, and those are funded through property tax revenues,” Trone Garriott said. “Any changes to our property tax structure needs to keep in mind that there’s some really important efforts that are happening on a more local level that could be damaged if we make restrictive changes.”

She said many local municipalities and counties are also facing the end of life of their wastewater treatment plants. There are expensive infrastructure projects that can lead to increased contaminants, like E.coli, in waterways if they fail.

Some of these issues, such as funding the trust and creating funding for the water quality monitoring networks, can be done at the state level, but Trone Garriott said water quality work is also going to take federal-level funding via an updated Farm Bill.

Rep. Devon Wood, R-New Market, the newly appointed chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, said it will take “overwhelming feedback” from constituents in favor of the tax in order for it to pass.

Water quality and cancer

Jacoby said cancer is the “biggest issue” coming up for the legislative session.

He raised, and read aloud, a sign with large black text that read, “It’s the water.”

Reports list Iowa as the state with the second-highest rate of new cancer incidents and one of just two states in the nation with increasing rates of new cancers.

“We need an honest overview of what’s causing the cancer rates,” Jacoby said.

He advocated to fund the trust, water quality monitoring, watershed work and cancer research.

Public health professionals and cancer researchers said at the Iowa Nature Summit on Nov. 19 that while there are many factors contributing to Iowa’s cancer rates, there is enough evidence linking water quality and agricultural chemicals to cancers for lawmakers to craft policies that address those issues.

Sen. Ken Rozenboom, R-Pella, said he can’t “get out of his living room” without talking about cancer because it has touched the lives of so many Iowans.

He said it’s a “deep concern” in the Legislature, but not one he has personally dealt with at a committee level. He said if the “finger is pointed” at agricultural pollution, it doesn’t make sense why states like Illinois are not similarly saddled with high cancer rates.

“Once we have apparent solutions or answers, then we can start changing policy or making policy,” Rozenboom said. “But I think most of us more have more questions than answers yet.”

He said while most Iowans know their state leads the nation in corn, pork, eggs and biofuels production, the state also leads in “water quality weapons” like bioreactors, buffers strips, grass waterways, pollinator habitat, conservation tillage and terraces.

“That’s part of dealing with the tension between the environment and agricultural production,” Rozenboom said.

He said he has “always acknowledged” that more work needs to be done to improve water quality in the state.

Wood, who raises cattle and farms with her family, said there are lots of ways the Legislature can work to “modernize” conservation efforts in budgets that already exist.

“It’s not flashy to say that we need to keep doing what we’re doing,” Wood said. “We need to do new things too, but we need to make sure that we advocate … in those boring budget line items about infrastructure, because Iowa has previously and continues to recognize water quality as an infrastructure investment.”