Iowa’s midterm elections remind us that all politics is local as clean water and cancer emerge as prevailing issues, unique from other battleground states.
Sure, stupid, it’s the economy. Diesel is over five bucks. You have to mortgage the farm to buy a steak. Data centers loom. You could be talking about Texas or Ohio.
In the Tall Corn State, people are actually paying attention to the secretary of agriculture race. Chris Jones is making a splash by paddling the polluted Des Moines River from Emmetsburg on down and cussing the brown foam. The Democrat is in a dead heat with incumbent Republican Mike Naig — and Jones has done it by assailing corn ethanol.
Republican gubernatorial candidate Zach Lahn built his campaign around clean water and healthier food. He says he wants to go after Big Ag and Big Pharma. He makes a connection between pollution and cancer. “I would just say that any discussion about cancer rates that doesn’t include water isn’t a genuine discussion. It is not,” Lahn told an American Cancer Society forum.
Lahn’s Democratic opponent, Rob Sand, also has elevated cancer and water quality in his campaign as polls reveal they are as important to voters as core economic issues. Nitrate has become part of the civic lexicon.
We’ve been covering pollution of the Raccoon River since 1990. Back then, industrial ag was blaming golf courses and sewer plants. A study by the state’s leading scientists shows that 80% of the pollution comes from agriculture — manure and commercial fertilizer.
The conversation got louder when the Des Moines Water Works sued Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac counties for nitrate pollution of the Raccoon in 2015. At the time, a strong majority of Iowans said in polls that they agreed with the water works position — agriculture should not dump its excesses into the river.
The lawsuit was dismissed. A decade later we are still litigating it, this time in the political arena where it belongs. A few years ago it was considered sacrilege to question agriculture in any manner. Farm Bureau would not tolerate it. The nation’s chemical companies rose up to defame Water Works CEO Bill Stowe for having the audacity, and to defend their right to pollute no matter the cost.
Now Lahn, who used to work for the Koch fertilizer empire, is openly criticizing the agri-chemical complex.
Jones burst through the doorway that Stowe kicked open. Iowa media — The Des Moines Register, the Cedar Rapids Gazette, Iowa Public Radio and the Storm Lake Times Pilot most prominently — helped to keep the issue alive as scientists continued to learn more about agriculture’s impact on the environment and human health. Jones draws connections between water pollution and rural consolidation. Rural Iowans sense those same connections: Manure loads from a 5-million-hen egg complex are not the same as those generated by grandma’s henhouse.
It’s enough to make you sick.
Fifteen years ago voters amended the state constitution to dedicate a permanent stream of funding to clean air and water. Sand is arguing to finally implement it with a fractional increase in the sales tax. Politics is catching up to the people.
It really caught on just over a year ago when those scientists issued their report on surface water pollution. At the same time, lawn watering was banned in the Des Moines metro area to ease the burden on the nitrate-removal system. A report came out stating that Iowa had among the highest cancer rates, which are rising. A meeting was held at Drake University where over 1,000 people showed up.
We produced a documentary video called “What’s Eating Iowa?” that features water quality and Chris Jones as one of the experts. He is a retired water research scientist. Shortly after it was posted on YouTube, Jones surprised us by announcing that he was running for agriculture secretary. “Are you crazy?” I asked him.
Then Lahn beat Rep. Randy Feenstra and others in the Republican governor’s primary. Sand started talking more about water and cancer. Jones ran a poll finding water quality is the top issue in his race.
The power of money is evident in holding progress in abeyance all these years. The polls told us time and again that Iowans rank clean air and water as urgent priorities. They voted by more than 60% to tax themselves for it. The legislature ignored them while the politicians gorged at the chemical money trough. It makes you wonder how many deaths occurred as a result.
Lahn and Sand talk a good game but a lot of it nibbles at the margins. Putting more money into cover crop cost-shares has not cleaned up the Gulf of Mexico or the Raccoon River. Jones talks about making systemic changes — easing off ethanol and putting more cattle on more pasture, for starters, plus regulating fertilizer application. The fact that politicians are even talking about these things is a wonder in Iowa.
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