Here are my notes from today's meeting.

Peggy Murdock

TMDL Watershed Cleanup January 14, 2002

Bill Ehm opened the meeting with a general presentation, beginning with the DNR mission statement, emphasizing the importance of cooperation in the process of working toward cleaner water.

Iowa has two important resources: soils and water.

In Iowa 90% of the land is involved in some sort of agricultural production. One percent is water.  That means there is a 90 to one ratio of land to water.

There are 90,000 acres of lakes and only 40,000 have been assigned a designated use.  Only 12,000 acres of Iowa’s rivers and streams have been assigned a designated use.

Paul Johnson would say there are two clean water acts in Iowa: the 1972 Clean Water Act and the
1935 Soil Conservation Act. This emphasizes the extent to which Iowa’s water is impacted by land use.

He then reviewed the classifications for water.  Class A waters are designated for contact recreation, which means the water should be free enough of bacteria and chemicals so that swimmers don’t have to worry about swallowing it; Class B is designed to protect aquatic life - trout in coldwater streams, catfish and other sportfish in warm water environments; and, finally, Class C where water, after conventional treatment, will be suitable for drinking. A waterbody may have one or more designations.

Next he talked about water quality standards.  First, there are narrative criteria which consist of 8 “free froms” such as freedom from toxic substances, esthetically objectionable odors and colors.  More information may be found on Iowa’s “free froms”  at http://www.city.ames.ia.us/waterweb/CollegeCreek/college_creek_d.htm

There are also Numeric Criteria involved in the TMDL program which places value limits such as the maximum allowable amount of Atrazine in drinking water.  Even where there are no established TMDLS water quality is protected by the antidegradtion policy  which will not allow the water quality of a stream to deteriorate even when it is well within the maximum allowable amounts of pollutants.

He then told something of the history behind the Point Source rules, pointing out that there has been improvement since these limits were set.  Once the odor of the Cedar River pervaded the city of Cedar Rapids and a river in Ohio burned, which led to the setting of minimum standards.

These standards are technology based, using the best practicable control, and water quality based where the technology based standards are not adequate.

The DNR may require a point source to exceed the minimum standard because of the quality of the water in the receiving river.

Every 2 years  the DNR assembles a report that includes every one of the designated waters to determine whether they are fully supporting their designated uses. If they do not they are added to the impaired water listing, called the 303(d) list.  The EPA allowed Iowa to skip this listing in 2000.  A list will be made this year. At present  two thirds of Iowa’s designated lakes are not meeting their standards.

TMDLs are calculated using the maximum amount of pollutant a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards.by using the sum of the wasteload allocations plus the sum of all the load allocations from non point sources plus a margin of safety.

The process begins with gathering data from which the 303 (d) list is compiled.  Public input is received and the TMDL is written.  The last stage is implementation.

The three components of implementation are: identification of the problem, what,  where, how; deciding what to do about the problem and allocating the load between the point and non-point sources.


Iowa’s biggest problem is muddy water.  Nutrients are second.   Three fourths of the problems could be solved if we could keep the soil on the land where it belongs because the soil carries all of the other pollutants with it..

For an example he talked about the Rock Creek TMDL.  Rock Creek is a small stream in Clinton County where there have been fishkills.  They found the water was high in nitrogen and ammonia, identified that the problem started below a particular bridge and found that there was an abandoned anhydrous ammonia plant.   Ammonia was coming up from the ground and running into the stream.  The TMDL for Rock Creek was designed around ammonia.

The owners of the anhydrous ammonia plant had bought into the business and operated it for only eighteen months before closing it down, and were very cooperative. Ammonia was coming up from ground and going into the stream.  The owners constructed a wetland downstream from the area and planted trees.  Riffles were put in place on the stream.  Molasses was injected into the contaminated groundwater to help solve the problem, and most of the ammonia was converted to nitrate before it hit the wetland.

They are now doing a lot of upstream and downstream monitoring.  The ultimate goal is to protect and conserve in a spirit of cooperation.  The focus is clean water in a thriving Iowa.

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There was a question about nitrogen in city sewage.  The answer was that they are discussing how they could determine how much is coming out.  At present the only time they look at nitrogen in city sewage is with ammonia. Standards for total nitrogen and phosphorus have to be developed by the end of 2004.

A man asked if things have to be so bad that you can see problems before something is done.  The answer was that every lake in the state is impaired for phosphorus.

A question was asked about compliance.  The questioner had just finished reviewing a report and said it suggested that it would be nice if buffer strips and wetlands were put in.  He asked if there was money allocated for this and if there would be steps to ensure the recommendations were implemented.  The answer was that the DNR does not have the authority to go to a nonpoint source and require buffer strips and wetlands, or prohibit livestock in streams.  In order to encourage compliance the DNR works with partners, NRCS, local soil and water conservation districts.  They try to define a water quality project to work on with willing landowners.

In limited cases they do have authority.  Where there is silt in lakes they can file  a soil loss complaint for damage to the lake. When they do this cost share money has to be available to landowner to help with implementation.

If farm chemicals damage a site the Department of Agriculture has rules to cover that.  The Department of Health has rules about fecal coliform.

The DNR can tell a city to reduce ammonia to a certain level, but they have no authority in non-point situations.

What is the status of the proposed  TMDL regulations?  Answer, - the EPA rules came out in 80s.  Last summer there were new rules which have been delayed by the new administration.  The Clean Water Act does not give authority to regulate nonpoint sources.

Listing sessions have been concluded  now and the EPA has eight months to finish.  By summer they should be floating some new rule.

Who does the monitoring?  The DNR has no staff for this purpose and they contract with the University of Iowa Hygenic Lab.

The rest of the session was spent talking about specific lakes.  Detailed information can be found at <http://www.state.ia.us/epd/wtresrce/303dnotc.htm>  .

The impairments listed were Siltation, nutrients, algal blooms and Atrazine.  There are about as many styles of management as there are people doing this. some want to rid lakes of all aquatic plants.  For example, some want to introduce vegetation to lakes, some want to eradicate vegetation.  Some use chemicals for eradication, others introduce carp.

Siltation problems are sometimes associated with wind and wave action, and with colloidal clays that remain suspended for long periods of time.

Q. Some problems are not land based but lake management issues how do you handle that?
A this is the purpose of the meetings.  It is really important to know what the problems is.

Q Can the department’s money be used for lake management?
A Not until the legislature gives the authority to do that.  These funds are now limited to waste water treatment plants and septic systems. 319 funds can be used for a wide variety of purposes but there are some restrictions.  There are limited agricultural department funds.  319 funds can be used for overland work rather than within the waterbody.  Other types of funding are being used as well.

Q Is there a single impaired waterbody that doesn’t have a watershed application in terms of land application?
A. Probably not.

Q Where will the money come from to deal with soil issues?
A. The money is lacking by two orders of magnitude.  The money comes first from the land owner’s pocket because these are cost share programs  They have to rely on federal funds to get this done and on producers to raise local stewardship on their own.

Q Are REAP funds available? 
A. There are water protection and infrastructure monies as well as watershed protection money.