Water and air quality are important to our future

To the Editor, 

Coming back to Jones County, Iowa this past week, I could tell when we were near home. It breaks my heart to see every tree being ripped up along creek beds. It breaks my heart to see no buffer strips next to streams. It is sheer stupidity to plant a row of anything so close to a creek that your field is falling into the creek. The extra 10 to 20 rows of anything isn’t going to save your bottom line. But the Gulf of Mexico is still dead. The amount of nitrates that were supposed to have been reduced by 2015 has grown steadily. There is little or no cover left for any wildlife to live. To say that this is our way of life is bogus. That is not what farming used to be. 

When I attended Iowa State University I double majored in microbiology and animal science. The department buildings on campus were separated by the old veterinary quad. On one hand they were just developing hog slats to do hog confinement. Everything we were taught was to be for the convenience of the farmer. On the other hand in the micro department, they were already warning about antibiotic resistance and plasmid transfer and all the associated illnesses that come with feeding antibiotics to animals just for weight gain. If you work around those animals, your microbiome is apt to get changed and you are going to find yourself with resistance issues. 

Politically we find ourselves distracted by things that are not going to affect the vast majority of us such as abortion or LGBT rights. The things that are going to affect everyone of us are water quality and air quality. Wake up people!

Derith Vogt

Center Junction, Iowa