Water Quality Alert
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
Dear Friends,
First, I regret
to have to tell you that the global warming
plunge scheduled for December 8th at
Gray’s Lake
in Des
Moines has been
cancelled.
Second,
Iowa’s
streams and rivers need your help. While
I am no water-quality wizard, I have worked
hard on a range of environmental
issues over the past 15 years. I have gained
a lot of respect for
Iowa’s
grassroots environmental leaders, including
Steve Veysey. Steve
is a well-respected scientist and
spokesman on water quality. He’s the
environmental protection coordinator for the
Hawkeye Fly Fishing Association
and the conservation co-chair of the Iowa
Chapter of the Sierra Club.
Just this week,
I learned from him and others that the Iowa
DNR proposes to downgrade water-quality
standards in 279 river and stream
segments, rendering these waters less safe for
both aquatic life and human
recreation. To
quote from a recent
letter Steve sent to Sierra Club members, “DNR
is essentially saying they have
no evidence that anyone has ever recreated in
these rivers and streams since
1975 in a manner that would pose a significant
risk of ingesting water.
Therefore, recreational protection will
be
reduced in order to allow cities and industries
to continue discharging
unnecessary pollution.”
It’s up to us
to let the DNR know that human activity IS
occurring in these streams, and that the water
quality needs to be
protected. The
period allowed for public
comments closes on December
11th.
You can learn more about the issue by
visiting http://iowa.sierraclub.org/. To weigh in with your
own comments on streams
and rivers where you’ve seen people fishing,
canoeing, swimming, wading,
tubing, etc, go to
http://iowa.sierraclub.org/Maps2/Water%20Uses%20Outreach%20Form1.pdf.
If you have photos
that document any
such activity, I imagine those would be of
interest to the DNR as well.
In my own
county
of
Polk,
both Beaver and Four Mile creeks
are on the DNR’s list of streams to
downgrade.
I’ve canoed Beaver Creek several times,
and have also seen people tubing
and fishing in it.
I’ve seen kids wading
along a sandbar on Four Mile Creek, and on two
occasions have watched deer
drink from it. In
Dallas
County,
I’ve canoed the South
Raccoon River, which is also on
the DNR’s hit list.
Friend and former legislative
colleague, Bill Witt, summed it up in an
e-mail
to me yesterday, asking how far down the
slippery slope we want to slide,
suggesting that if you push the standard of
"reasonable attainment” back
far enough,
Cleveland’s
Cuyahoga
River
could still be burning.
One more quote
of interest from Steve:
“{T}he key question I keep asking {the
DNR}is, ‘When discussing recreational uses,
does the occurrence of the use
prove the existence of the use?’ Well,
of course it does, but I can't get DNR to admit
it. We have them on
record saying, ‘Swimming in
polluted water doesn't prove the existence of
swimming as a use; it proves the
existence of swimming in polluted water as a
use, and that is all that needs to
be protected for.’
That usually gets a
stir from the crowd.”
And it ought to
get a stir from us, too.
If you have experience with activity on
any
of the streams and rivers proposed to be
downgraded, please share that with the
DNR. Thanks for
your help!
Ed Fallon
