Iowa has a water problem - both in quality and quantity.

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) releases a Clean Water Act report every two years and there hasn't been significant changes in decades. Iowa has been looking for voluntary solutions to excess nutrients in our water since 1997. We need to face reality. Water quality impacts all Iowans, burdens downstream neighbors, and poses serious health issues including cancers. Iowa needs to get serious if we want to maintain our quality of life and avoid one-size fits-all Federal regulations.

Iowa needs a plan for using our precious groundwater. Our natural resources belong to all of us and we need to protect our water from aquifers raiders. Droughts and high usage are lowering the water table. Surface waters recharge by rainfall but our deep bedrock aquifers recharge slowly - over hundreds or thousands of years. Droughts increase the demands for crop irrigation, and communities find that water demand increases during drought from lawn watering and other outdoor water uses. Irrigated acres increased 55% in Iowa from 2012 to 2022, according to the most recent
Census of Agriculture.

In addition, new and increasing pumping demands from a rapidly urbanizing population, ethanol plants, carbon capture, industrial facilities, data centers, animal confinements and other users are challenging urban and rural water systems to keep groundwater supplies on pace with demand.

Data centers require large amounts of water to keep their servers from overheating. In Altoona, 1/5 of the city water is consumed by the Meta data center – up to one million gallons per day.  There are 6 data centers in West Des Moines and the Google Center in Council Bluffs ( which recently announced an expansion ) uses more water than any
other in the U.S.

Outdoor recreation contributes $1.3 billion to Iowa's economy including 43.9k jobs. Iowa state parks are visited by up to 16 million people a year, unfortunately Iowa’s state parks need $100 million in infrastructure repairs . How many time will a
young family face a beach closed or visitor center closed sign before they take their tourism dollars elsewhere or vote with their feet and move?

You can’t manage what you don’t measure. Makes sense, right? Setting state water priorities must factor in the competing needs of human consumption, food production, navigation, industry, energy production, wildlife, and recreation. We need to fully fund and expand the Iowa Water Quality Information System. The IWQIS allows access to real-time water-quality data and information such as nitrate, pH, and dissolved oxygen concentrations, discharge rates, and temperature.

Conserving water resources deserves the same priority as other national and state energy security concerns. Private companies shouldn’t be allowed to raid or pollute our state’s richest treasures our soils and water. Iowa cannot carelessly mortgage the future of its water wealth. The precious water stored in the bedrock aquifers below us is the property of all Iowans, and must be protected for generations to come. I will prioritize the health, safety and quality of life for all Iowans - it is past time to get serious about the long-term health of our water.