We should be outraged over nitrate levels

To the Editor:

     Where is the outrage?

     Some of the Express readers recall my letters over the lead time the city
took to finally get a wastewater treatment plant into motion. I pointed out, time, is in fact, money, which was proven. Even before we had a bid on our treatment plant, our city manager negotiated a deal with an operation to clean out livestock trucks adding to our wastewater, that has proven to be a problem.

     Currently Iowa has a major nitrate problem in our surface water. Don’t count on the DNR (the people in charge of our water) openly admitting something needs to be done! No longer are we talking about the pollution in the Gulf, but right here, right now!

     The EPA standard for nitrate in drinking water at a maximum of 10 milligrams per liter of water as “safe,” however, we now know there are a whole host of cancers, birth defects and other maladies with nitrate levels as low as 3mg/L.

     Currently water in the
Cedar River is running around 9mg/L; closer to home, Manchester’s city water is 10mg/L. The only affluent being monitored is water coming into our rivers from pipes, anything else is “non-point source pollution” which isn’t monitored effectively and includes thousands of miles of tile lines pouring fertilizer and chemicals into our rivers along with nitrogen-rich manure.

     All the while the DNR Director, Kayla Lyon, has worked feverishly to  reverse the EPA’s decisions on calling the polluted Des Moines, Raccoon, Cedar, Iowa and Skunk rivers “impaired” suggesting the EPA’s decision to call them impaired was “illegal?”

     How long can the human population of Iowa continue to be ignored, while the interests of hogs, cattle, turkeys and chickens along with the packing plants, fertilizer companies and other chemical and seed companies are given privileges that will eventually destroy our water supply?

Steve Hanken

Monticello