Bill Stowe, Des Moines Water Works CEO, Speaks at CCI Mtg.

Captions: From left, Bill Stowe, CEO and general manager of the Des Moines Water Works; on right, Cedar Rapids Mayor Ron Korbett, who attended Bill Stowe’s speech.

Bill Stowe is the CEO and general manager of Des Moines Water Works. He recently filed a lawsuit against Buena Vista, Calhoun, and Sac Counties in federal court because nitrates from farm runoff are polluting water in the Des Moines River and its tributaries to such an extent that it is costing the Des Moines Water Works hundreds of thousands of dollars to remove nitrates from the water. That means Big Ag gets to pollute the water for free and taxpayers have to pay to remove nitrates from fertilizer run-off so that drinking water is safe to drink.

The voluntary method of asking farmers to cease and desist from polluting the water by growing cover crops, creating buffer strips, and terracing their land, to name a few methods of preventing farm runoff, is not working. Given the fact that nitrates in the water are increasing, not decreasing, Bill Stowe feels compelled to file a lawsuit to get Big Ag’s attention. Needless to say, Big Ag and its advocates, namely the Farm Bureau, Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad and his Republican cohorts, are going all out with campaign ads including the misleading phrase “clean water” to discredit Bill Stowe’s initiatives to force the clean-up of some of the nation’s dirtiest water (49th in 50 states).

Bill Stowe, a well-educated man standing 6’4” tall, with wavy, longish hair, retains his wise, humorous air in the face of this fight. He spoke to an Iowa City potluck gathering organized by Citizens for Community Improvement, an organization I belong to and support, at the Johnson County Fairgrounds Extension Building (red roof) on June 4th.

Stowe, also a proud CCI member, was appointed Des Moines Water Works CEO and general manager by the Board of Water Works Trustees on August 21, 2012. He graduated from Grinnell College with a Bachelor of Arts and received a Master of Science in Engineering from the University of Wisconsin, a Master of Science in Industrial Relations from the University of Illinois, and a Juris Doctorate Degree from Loyola University Law School. Most recently, Stowe served as Assistant Manager-Public Works/Engineering for the City of Des Moines, a position held since 1999.

Stowe said that environmentalism needs to be introduced to policy. He’s not just concerned about water quality in Iowa but also air quality.

Des Moines takes water directly from the Des Moines/Raccoon Rivers. That’s surface water, which becomes drinking water. In eastern Iowa, people get water from aquifers, which are being depleted.

Iowa is naturally very swampy. Ninety percent of farmers use drainage tile to drain the land so it can be farmed. Back when Iowans were more concerned about having more land to farm, we weren’t concerned about water quality. Now surface water in Iowa is “horrible,” Stowe said. He’s especially concerned with nitrogen (NO3) pollution, which is mainly due to farming practices.

“Remember the cryptosporidium outbreak in Milwaukee?” he asked his audience. “Regulations help protect the water. However, what we hear is, ‘don’t regulate Big Ag.’

“We have to first agree there’s a problem. We can’t cooperate to fight a fire until we agree there is a fire!

“Ninety percent of the Dead Zone hypoxia [lack of oxygen] at the confluence of the southern end of the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico is caused by Big Ag. The University of Iowa resists corporate propaganda. Iowa State University doesn’t.”

[An ISU professor whose son dated my daughter, Sarah, said, ‘ISU is a wholly owned subsidiary of Monsanto,’ so there’s some anecdotal validation of Bill Stowe’s point there.]

“ISU’s agronomy department is outstanding, although there’s a lack of academic freedom.

“We regulate the 10% and let the 90% (Big Ag) completely off the hook. It’s both parties, not just Republicans. Our water is not improving over time.

“We’ve engaged in denitrification [at the Des Moines Water Works plant] for 120 days so far and we’re in June. We’ll violate the Clean Water Act . . . . “

In response to a question: “We have filed a lawsuit, an action, under the Clean Water Act that surface water is a point source polluter, mainly in Sac County. We have really good data on Sac County. Clearly Sac County is a point source polluter.

“The ‘Clean Water’ Partnership is a Republican organization that sponsors an ad campaign fighting to stick with voluntary action to clean up the waterways. That hasn’t worked or it would have at least shown some improvement by now instead of the opposite. Nitrates went up 15% in the last two years (2013-2015). Ron Korbett, Mayor of Cedar Rapids [who was sitting right in front of me in the audience], is a member of the ‘Clean Water’ Partnership.” [Ron Korbett left early with his pal Todd Dorman of the Gazette.]

In response to my question as to who are Bill Stowe’s attorneys: “The Dickenson law firm in Des Moines is fighting for us. We sued the counties, the districts, and the Boards of Supervisors of the three counties (Buena Vista, Calhoun, and Sac).

“David Belin is the lawyer for the other side. This will be a judge trial, not a jury trial.

“There are things you can put on the end of a pipe that will reduce pollutants but that’s in the future. Pipelines need to go above buffers to work.”

Bill Stowe had a big audience and CCI had a successful fund-raising effort at the end of the meeting.