House File 2530, currently being considered in the Iowa legislature, would make it much harder for the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) to identify polluted rivers, lakes, and beaches. The bill would prohibit the DNR from listing waters as impaired by E. coli bacteria unless the agency first conducts costly testing to determine exactly which animal species produced the contamination.

E. coli is widely used across the United States as a simple and reliable indicator of fecal pollution in water. If levels exceed EPA safety thresholds, it signals the potential presence of disease-causing pathogens such as Salmonella, Campylobacter, and Cryptosporidium, which collectively cause millions of illnesses each year.

Standard E. coli monitoring costs about $20 per sample, while the species-tracking tests required by HF 2530 can cost ten times more, making routine monitoring far more difficult.

Because roughly half of Iowa’s impaired waterways involve bacteria contamination, this bill would effectively prevent many polluted waters from being officially recognized. Without those designations, pollution prevention plans cannot be implemented and the public is left without clear warnings about unsafe water conditions.

Iowans deserve water policy based on science and public health—not political games with the data. Sign the petition to your Iowa legislators today and urge them to vote NO on HF 2530 to protect honest water monitoring and safe rivers and lakes across our state.