GOP senators scrap funding for water sensors

As Sam Cooke might sing, it was another Saturday night and we ain’t got no money to fund Iowa’s water quality sensor network.

Catchy, you have to admit.

Republicans who control the Iowa Senate declined to provide $300,000 to help maintain 60 water quality sensors across Iowa tracking nitrate pollution in our rivers and streams in real time. The sensors are run by the University of Iowa IIHR Hydroscience and Engineering department.

The $300,000 was part of Gov. Kim Reynolds’ 11th hour water quality plan announced Friday. Among its pieces is $3.7 million in conservation measures in the watershed that the Des Moines metro taps for drinking water. And yet, it also offers $25 million to the Des Moines Water Works so it can double the capacity of its nitrate removal system. Curious.

Most of the nitrate in waterways comes from farming operations leaking commercial fertilizers, manure or both applied in copious amounts to cropland.

But the Senate, around 6:30 p.m. Saturday, approved an amendment deleting that $300,000. It gave the one-time money, instead, to the Iowa Department of Natural Resources for water monitoring grants.

Sen. Tom Shipley, chair of the budget subcommittee that handles ag and natural resources funding, offered the amendment. He told me in an email that Senate GOP leadership did not want to fund the University of Iowa’s network.

“We included language that would allow them to apply to the DNR for funding and the DNR, IDALS, and Iowa State CALS (College of Agriculture and Life Sciences) could approve their application,” Shipley said.

Pleading with the Legislature failed, so good luck squeezing a pittance from our pro-ag bureaucracy. The Republican-run House accepted the Senate changes sometime around 2 a.m. Sunday. It’s unlikely the governor lifted a finger to save the funding.

So Republicans who don’t want Iowans to know the truth about our dirty water were victorious, again. Fortunately, Polk and Johnson counties have pledged $400,000 to keep the sensors running. Larry Weber director of IIHR, said Linn County likely will chip in and, with other donations, the $600,000 goal will be met.

But the state should fund this. The same Legislature that found another $1 million for the Center for Intellectual Freedom can’t spare a dime for the sensors. Even as evidence mounts that nitrate exposure can raise Iowans’ risk of cancer, in a state with the nation’s second-highest cancer rate, lawmakers keep protecting agriculture from evidence of the damage it’s causing.

But Republicans do seem worried about water as a campaign issue. Proposing a new water quality plan on the 110th day of the legislative session is one hint.

I’ve heard the plan is a “good first step.” First steps are all we ever get. No wonder we’re getting nowhere.

To ddDorman is Opinion editor atThe Gazette. Comments: (319)398-8262;todd.dorman@thegazette. com

TODD DORMAN