A new report suggests the leaders of Iowa’s drainage districts, the target of a lawsuit dismissed earlier this year, should do more to improve the state’s water quality. David Osterberg, who co-authored the report for the Iowa Policy Project, believes drainage districts are authorized to reduce nitrate pollution even though they are not required to do so by law.
The report comes on the heels of an Iowa Supreme Court ruling against the Des Moines Water Works’ attempt to sue three drainage districts in northwest Iowa for nitrate pollution cleanup costs. Sarah Garvin, who helped write the report, suggests drainage districts are still vulnerable to another legal point of attack.
The researchers note that nitrate pollution from Iowa has contributed to the so-called “dead zone” at the mouth of the Mississippi River. It reached its largest size this year at over eighty seven hundred square miles.
