The Des Moines Water Works filed suit in U-S District Court this week against the supervisors of Buena Vista, Calhoun and Sac Counties claiming their drainage districts have cost the utility thousands of dollars to remove nitrates from the water that it draws from the Raccoon River. Iowa Agriculture Secretary Bill Northey says he understands the challenges before the Des Moines Water Works, but says the lawsuit is the wrong way to bring about change. Northey has been working to get farmers and others involved in voluntary programs to improve water quality.

“At the end of the day if they are successful it would be that there should be regulation — it still doesn’t clean up the water,” Northey says. “It just impacts folks in the pocketbook, and a lot of legal fees, a lot of uncertainty. I think it even causes folks to wonder if they aught to participate in the voluntary programs or not.”

Northey says the work should be in the watershed, not the courtroom. “And all the money that’s spent on that legal process, I think it would be a lot better spent putting practices on the ground, working with our landowners, improving our technologies to be able to keep those nutrients on the land,” Northey says. He says the lawsuit could set a bad precedent that would allow more suits against other counties and many others.

Every other drainage district and any user along the way, obviously it would be such that they could sue somebody up river. Obviously, Ottumwa could sue Des Moines for any type of water qualities that they have,” according to Northey. Northey says the issue may come down to who owns the water, and should entities be able to dictate to upstream districts specific terms for water quality.

(Radio Iowa)

In a report to the Atlantic Rotary Club at its regular meeting on Tuesday, Nishna Valley Trails (NVT) President Dave Chase announced that he had received word that the Atlantic City Council had recently approved NVT’s request for $50,000 for the construction of the Troublesome Creek Connector Trail Project. Chase received word from Atlantic City Administrator, John Lund, on Friday, by email. The grant is coming from the City’s Community Progress Fund. The money will be available July 1 as part of the City’s 2015-16 fiscal budget according to Lund.

Chase said “This is a big boost to our fundraising efforts which now stand at $310,000 in commitments to date from a number of sources.  This is well over half of our goal of $550,000.”
Chase went on to say that grant applications for an additional $120,000 have been submitted to a number of foundations and agencies, and other applications are in the works.

He also reported to the Club that the Atlantic Lions Club had recently voted to donate the net proceeds of its upcoming April 16 Pancake Feed to the Project. According to Chase, “These recent commitments are examples of the public/private support of enhancements to our area recreational opportunities which will pay dividends in the forms of healthy living and economic development for our community.”