Iowa has invested an estimated $5.6 billion over 12 years in conservation efforts to reduce farm runoff pollution.
Despite these efforts, several Iowa cities experienced record-high nitrate levels in their drinking water sources last summer.
Critics argue that the state’s intensive farming makes significant water quality improvement difficult. But state officials and growers counsel patience while conservation practices spread.
Over the past 12 years, Iowa farmers, the state and federal governments, businesses and nonprofits have pumped an estimated $5.6 billion into planting prairie and cover crops, building bioreactors and other conservation practices to cut the farm runoff that pollutes the state’s rivers, lakes and streams.
Is it working?
Yes, say farm groups and state officials, pointing to Iowa’s national leadership in conservation measures that include its acreage of wetlands that improve water quality, creating grass buffers that filter runoff and cultivating pollinator habitat.
“There’s a good reason we’re in those leadership positions. We’ve been investing heavily, and we’ve had a long-term, sustained focus on these things,” said Iowa Agriculture Secretary Mike Naig in an interview. He added that Iowa follows science and the national framework for adopting conservation measures to improve water quality.
But critics say they don’t see the claimed improvement, especially when Des Moines, Iowa City, Cedar Rapids and other Iowa cities and towns struggled last summer with near record-high nitrate levels in their drinking water sources that threatened to overwhelm their treatment capacity and their ability to meet safety standards.
For the first time ever, Central Iowa Water Works banned lawn watering for nearly two months in 2025 to curb demand.
Agriculture contributes about 80% of the nitrate in the Des Moines and Raccoon rivers, the drinking water sources for 600,00 central Iowa residents, a report last year highlighted. Excessive nitrate levels, which have continued this winter, also could be a factor in the state’s high and growing cancer rate, a connection researchers are investigating.
Water quality will likely be a flash point in this year’s agriculture secretary race, with Naig, the Republican incumbent, facing two Democratic challengers. Chris Jones, a retired University of Iowa research engineer, has long been a vocal advocate for stronger measures to ensure water quality. Wade Dooley, a sixth-generation central Iowa farmer active in conservation groups, also wants to see changes in the state’s approach.
While Naig calls for continuing Iowa’s approach, Dooley said the state needs to reevaluate it, better supporting the programs offered to farmers. Jones is calling for
