Iowa governor stacks environmental commission with agribusiness advocates

[marmar]

from La Vida Locavore:





Iowa governor stacks environmental commission with agribusiness advocates

by: desmoinesdem
Fri Mar 04, 2011 at 06:00:00 AM PST


Iowa has notoriously poor water quality. Not only are there more than 400 "impaired waters" in the state, the Des Moines Water Works has the largest nitrate removal system in the world, because "the Raccoon River has the highest average nitrate concentration of any of the 42 largest tributaries in the Mississippi River Basin." Even so, the Water Works sometimes struggles to handle high levels of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) in the Raccoon River, forcing the water treatment facility to draw from a secondary source. Iowa watersheds are also a major contributor to the "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, and the nutrients from "Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from commercial fertilizers and animal manure from farmland were the biggest contributing sources" of the excess nutrients that cause the dead zone.

Despite those facts, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (R) made clear throughout last year's campaign that he believes the state Department of Natural Resources takes too tough a stand in enforcing pollution rules. His appointee to run the DNR is a former head of the Iowa Association for Business and Industry and a partner in a law firm that has represented the Iowa Farm Bureau as well as corporations like Monsanto. Branstad is now considering moving all water quality and monitoring programs, as well as Clean Water Act compliance, from the DNR to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship. I discussed that idea at more length here.

On March 2 Branstad announced more than 200 appointments to state boards and commissions, including four members of the state Environmental Protection Commission: Dolores Mertz, Brent Rastetter, Eugene Ver Steeg, and Mary Boote. All four have close ties to agribusiness interests.

Mertz retired last year after more than two decades in the Iowa House. She was the most conservative House Democrat and chaired the Agriculture Committee for four years. She was a reliable vote against any attempt to limit pollution from factory farms and regularly assigned such bills to subcommittees that would bury them. Her sons own large hog farms and have been cited for several environmental violations. She also earns income from renting farmland to those operations. On the policy side, last year Mertz fast-tracked a bill that would have undermined new rules on spreading manure over frozen and snow-covered ground. She pushed (unsuccessfully) for a bill that would have given landowners until 2020 to comply with regulations passed in 1997 to prevent water contamination from agricultural drainage wells. Mertz has spoken of her "passion" to advocate for agriculture. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://lavidalocavore.org/diary/4561/iowa-governor-stacks-environmental-commission-with-agribusiness-advocates

[fascisthunter]

1. fascism... big business runs our government

and the republican voters are too stupid to realize it or just fucked up idiots who hate democracy.