For those who are interested, Black Hawk County received a D- for water quality from the Black Hawk County Green party. Read the following: **************************************** 2004 Black Hawk County Environmental Report Card GRADES FOR: Black Hawk County Air Quality: B (up from B- last year) Water Quality: D- (down from D last year) Energy & Conservation B+ (same as last year) Recycling B (up from B- last year) Greens Release 4th annual Black Hawk County Environmental Report Card Water Quality Worsens; Air Quality, Recycling Improve In honor of Earth Day, the Black Hawk County Green Party (BHCGP) has released its fourth annual Environmental Report Card for Black Hawk County. According to Jim O’Loughlin, BHCGP Treasurer, “It’s been wonderful to see attention drawn toward many issues we’ve outlined in past reports. But we know there’s a lot of work that still needs to be done.” The report card (a copy of which follows this release) details the state of the environment in the county, breaking down concerns into four main areas: air quality, water quality, energy conservation, and recycling. The grades range from a B+ for energy and conservation to a D- for water quality. A special section focuses on the issue of Interagency Cooperation. The report card was tabulated by members of the Black Hawk County Green Party, and is designed to draw attention to environmental issues that don’t always generate headlines. O’Loughlin notes that a recurring theme this year is the good, as well as the limitations, of governmentally set standards. “Iowa has always had wind, and the technology to harness it has long been available. But it took a concerted governmental effort to provide the incentives to develop “home-blown” wind power. But as the Bush administration waters down or refuses to enforce existing environmental standards, there is less incentive for future improvements.” On a more disturbing note, Iowa continues to rank among the lowest states in the nation in terms of water quality. While this problem is widely recognized, efforts to combat it have not yet proven adequate to the task. While agricultural runoff remains the main threat to water quality, sewage treatment plants and consumer habits also play a role. The Black Hawk County Green Party holds quarterly membership meetings open to all interesting persons. You can learn more about the Black Hawk County Green Party at http://pages.cfu.net/bhcgreens/. # # # 2004 Black Hawk County Environmental Report Card GRADES FOR: Black Hawk County Air Quality: B (up from B- last year) Water Quality: D- (down from D last year) Energy & Conservation B+ (same as last year) Recycling B (up from B- last year) ATTENTION NEEDED: Interagency Cooperation Air Quality: B (up from B- last year) There’s good and bad news to report on this front. Recently released figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rate Iowa as one of 19 states that meet national protective air standards. Iowans do not face the problems with smog that many Americans in congested parts of the countries do (though some of our coal-produced energy contributes to smog in Eastern states). We can be glad to be among the fortunate 19, though there are limitations in relying solely on these EPA standards as a measure of air quality. These standards do not take into account all forms of air pollution, such as particulate and toxin emissions. Iowa remains one of only a handful of states not to regulate the emission of air toxins, and asthma rates in the state remain above the national average. In addition, recent reports of national environmental regulations having been rewritten by the energy industry point to the danger of simply relying upon the EPA, by itself, to protect the environment [1]. In light of these revelations about the limitations of the EPA, it is particularly distressing that the Republican-controlled Iowa state legislature pushed forward an “air quality” bill (HF 2552) that would have forbidden the state to develop regulations that went beyond federal air quality standards (fortunately, the bill was vetoed by Governor Vilsack). We know that without reasonable regulations, factory hog farms can erode the quality of rural life and release dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia into the air (and, under current law, counties are unable to develop their own hog lot regulations). Had such a bill passed, it could have been devastating to rural Iowans. As it stands, regulations recommended by the Department of Natural Resources remain unimplemented, not because they were shown to be wrong on the science, but because the powers-that-be feared the difficulty of implementing rules that would truly protect the health of rural Iowans. This remains a sad commentary on the place of individual health within the concerns of the state legislature. The cities of Waterloo and Cedar Falls continued to support local leaf burning bans, the most practical and immediate steps toward preserving local air quality. About 5,000 Waterloo homes are reported to be participating in the “blue bin” recycling effort. In Cedar Falls, over 3,000 households use yard waste containers to help dispose of leaves. Many other citizens use alternative to leaf burning such as mulching or bringing their yard waste directly to disposal sites. Water Quality: D- (down from D last year) We know that chemically intensive farming can threaten water quality. But if you thought that this was just problem for primarily rural counties, think again. Testing done at public wells in Cedar Falls in the past year have found nitrate levels that barely meet EPA “acceptable levels.” We need to encourage less chemically dependent methods of farming and better administer ongoing efforts to encourage environmentally-sensitive farming techniques, such as terraces, grass waterways, and buffer strips. Last year Black Hawk County’s Environmental Quality Incentives program used less than half its $145,000 allotment despite significant soil erosion and water quality problems in the county. Nor is agricultural runoff the only problem. A recent report by the Iowa Public Interest Research Group argued that Iowa’s awful ranking among states for water quality (9th from the bottom) is also due to lax enforcement of regulation of industrial and sewage treatment plants. More than 71% of Iowa’s facilities were in violation of the Clean Water Act at least once for 2002-mid 2003 (11% above the national average) [2]. Other water problems are more local in nature. - Though the vast majority of nitrogen released into Iowa’s waters comes from agriculture, urban residents add to the problem through the use of lawn chemicals that can be washed into our water supply. - There are hundreds of failed septic systems in Black Hawk County. The county Health Department is charged with monitoring them, but it has little funding to enforce the regulations governing septics. - Testing in Iowa City has found measurable signs of prescription drugs in local waterways. Proper disposal of prescription drugs needs to become a part of our “common sense.” - Over the past 15 years, volunteers for the Cedar River Festival have cleaned more than 80 tons of debris from the Cedar River. All citizens, rural and urban, need to take responsibility for contributing to our water problems. Energy & Conservation (B+, same as last year) The coal that Iowa depends on for much of its energy in environmentally and economically bad for us. In a given year, Iowa power plans give off 75,000 tons of nitrogen oxide, 125,000 tons of sulfur dioxide, and 39 million tons of global warming pollution. 90% of this coal comes from out of state. Meanwhile, we have only just begun to tap the renewable energy resources of the state, particularly wind power. Local utilities have invested in wind power. MidAmerican Energy is building the world’s largest wind farm in northwest Iowa, with hopes of 200 turbines generating enough electricity to power 85,000 homes. Cedar Falls Utilities (CFU) owns part of wind farms in Algona and Hancock County. Governor Vilsack has set a goal to have Iowa generate 1,000 megawatts of wind energy by 2010. That is a reachable goal, but only if Iowans support and insist upon further investments in Iowa-produced renewable energy. Still, much of Cedar Falls’ energy is coal-fired and produced at western edge of Iowa. More locally, both CFU and the University of Northern Iowa operate aging coal facilities. Even when managed well, these plants remain a source of concern. The Bush administration has recently loosened clean air rules, making it less likely that older facilities will introduce new anti-pollution controls. CO2 in the atmosphere, the primary cause of global warming, does not come only from coal, however. In fact, according to scorecard.org, the single greatest cause of air pollution in Black Hawk County comes from mobile sources (i.e. automobiles). Efforts to conserve energy through fuel efficiency and stopping suburban sprawl will improve our health, our pocketbooks, and our quality of life. Recycling (B, up from B- last year) Last year’s biggest environmental disappointment was the raiding of the County landfill cash reserves to fund Vision Iowa projects rather than the environmental projects the landfill reserves were initially designed to support. Therefore, this year it was heartening to see some small, but significant, steps taken to improve local recycling with some of this landfill money. In Waterloo, the bins used for collecting yard waste (as part of the leaf burning ban) are alternately used to collect recyclable consumer goods. In Cedar Falls, a computer recycling program has been launched in an effort to keep some of the toxic chemicals in computers out of the landfill. Both of these efforts are steps in the right direction. It is important to note that much more could still be done. Black Hawk Country is one of only two Iowa counties to have no Household Hazardous Waste recycling program. The county’s lead paint poisoning rate also remains unacceptably high, and funding for county abatement efforts is insufficient. ATTENTION NEEDED: Interagency cooperation No matter how adept our county officials are, in many cases they can only do damage control. For example, nitrate levels in water in Black Hawk County have spiked higher than we should be comfortable with, despite work being done locally to safeguard our water. Why? Well, one reason might be the fact that an estimated 75% of farmers around Charles City apply anhydrous ammonia on their fields in the fall, despite that fact that conditions may cause as much as half of that chemical to be lost into the atmosphere or into the water supply. [3] Charles City, located upriver from Black Hawk County on the Cedar River, is not simply a distant small town but is rather a part of our local watershed. Environmental issues transcend county lines. County health and environmental officials need to work on a regional level in order to assure that problems are dealt with at their source. Otherwise we run the risk of applying band-aids to open wounds. Works Cited [1] For example, see Paul Krugman’s April 6, 2004 New York Times column, “The Mercury Scandal.” [2] “Polluters Continue to Violate Clean Water Act: 71 Percent of Iowa's Major Facilities Exceeded Pollution Permits in Recent 18-Month Period.” Iowa PIRG. March 30, 2004. <http://iowapirg.org/IA.asp?id2=12739&id3=IA&>. [3] “Fall nitrogen leaching away” Matthew Wilde. Waterloo/Cedar Falls Courier. Nov. 11, 2003. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢ http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send any message to: [log in to unmask]