Iowans deserve transparent water quality information!
R7-WaterDivision@epa.gov
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has told the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that seven impaired water segments should be added to the 2024 Iowa Impaired Waters list due to high nitrate levels that are toxic to human health. But the DNR is refusing to comply.
If impaired water segments can be left off the list, it creates misleading data that can be harmful to people and the environment. We need the Iowa DNR to be held to high standards and strong regulations.
The EPA is accepting public comment from November 13, 2024 to December 13, 2024.
Will you add your name to show support for enforcing high standards on the Iowa DNR by adding all seven impaired segments to the 2024 Impaired Waters list?
Sponsored by
To:
R7-WaterDivision@epa.gov
From:
[Your Name]
Dear Environmental Protection Agency,
David Pratt, EPA R7 Water Quality Section Supervisor
Chelsea Paxson, EPA R7 TMDL and IR Coordinator
Amy Shields, EPA R7 Standards and Water Quality Branch Supervisor
and all others it may concern,
Re: Concerning the decision to add seven water quality-limited segments to Iowa’s 2024 303(d) list.
As the people of Iowa, many of us have grown up playing in our water ways and continue to enjoy them to this day. The Cedar, Des Moines, Iowa, Racoon, and South Skunk Rivers are places of importance to us.
Any water in Iowa that is impaired should be recognized as such, especially for nitrate pollution and contamination. Nitrates in our water pose a very serious problem in Iowa, with consequences to our health. We should have the right to clear and transparent water quality reporting data if there is any hope to improve. That means that the DNR must hold themselves to the highest standard and adapt their methodology on ethics and worst-case impact to human health and drinking water supplies.
We want our water quality in Iowa to improve. It will not if we continue to allow for lax regulations and loopholes.
Please enforce the addition of these seven water quality-limited segments to Iowa's 2024 303(d) list so that it may reflect 712 WALSs for 581 water bodies listed.
Based on ethics and the security of our health and environment, we support the EPA's request for the Iowa DNR to revise assessment of class "C" waters, remove the non-defensible use of the 10% rule in relation to nitrate and any other pollutants with toxic effects treated as conventional pollutants, and to assess pollutants with toxic effects with reasonable consideration of the individual pollutant and potential adverse effects.
Without strong enforcement, our waters and communities bear the burden of unacknowledged risk and a false sense of improvement.
We want the best for Iowa, our environment, water and people - and upholding the Iowa DNR to high standards is an important step to moving towards a healthier Iowa.
Thank you for standing up for our water,
Members and supporters of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement.