Action Alert: Please email your Representative TODAY! 

42 Iowa watersheds on short list of ‘Dead Zone’ PollutersTake Action!
Iowa Legislature Must Stop Ignoring Impacts of Poor Manure Management
 
This week the U.S. Geological Survey identified the top 150 polluting
watersheds in the Mississippi River Basin that cause the annual 8,000
square-mile "Dead Zone" in the Gulf of Mexico and found that 42 of those
watersheds are in Iowa.

Marine dead zones can be caused by too many nutrients (nitrogen and
phosphorus) in the water. Excess nutrients cause excess algae growth
which, in turn, causes oxygen levels to drop too low to support marine
life.

This is not the first time that Iowa nutrient problems in Iowa waters
have been linked to problems downstream. In January of 2008, USGS
identified 9 states, including Iowa, as the source of over 70 percent of
the Gulf Dead Zone pollution. Nitrogen and phosphorus pollution from
commercial fertilizers and animal manure from farmland were the biggest
contributing sources in these states.

 "It is ironic that our legislature is currently considering a bill that
would weaken new rules proposed by the Iowa DNR to reduce runoff of
manure applied to frozen or snow covered cropland during the winter,"
said Marian Riggs Gelb, executive director for the Iowa Environmental
Council.

Riggs Gelb is asking legislators to vote no on Senate File 432 (Manure on
Frozen Ground bill) and to let the Iowa Department of Natural Resources
do their job to establish strong rules to protect water quality in our
rivers and streams by limiting winter applications of both liquid and
solid manure.

send a message to your Iowa Representative, asking him or her to VOTE NO
on Senate File 432.
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