Seventy percent of the Earth’s surface is covered by water — 97 percent saltwater, 3 percent freshwater.
More than a billion people lack easily accessible water.
Meanwhile, Iowa’s relative abundance of freshwater is threatened by inaction, even with legislation passed early in the current session that did little more than provide election cover.
In Iowa, the problem is water quality — runoff primarily from agricultural sources (chemical fertilizers and bacteria from livestock facilities), but also industrial — with potentially dangerous elements spilling into rivers and aquifers.
In December 2017, the state Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Department of Natural Resources and the Iowa State University College of Agriculture and Life Sciences developed the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.
It estimated a cost of $3 billion to $6 billion to reduce agricultural and industrial pollutants from waterways using thousands of wetlands, hundreds of bioreactors and millions of acres blanketed with cover crops to soak up nitrates.
The other $126 million — tapping an existing tax on metered water currently flowing into the Iowa’s general and school infrastructure funds — will help municipalities and towns improve drinking water and wastewater facilities.
The Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy had sought cooperation from the state’s nearly 90,000 farmers, but at a cost of nearly $1.2 billion annually over 50 years.
In 2010, 63 percent of voters approved the Natural Resources and Outdoor Recreation Trust Fund, which would add three-eighths of a cent to the state sales tax, generating $150 million to $180 million annually.
Six years later, 74 percent of Linn County voters approved a $40 million conservation bond to fund projects such as wetlands development to protect sources of drinking water and improve the quality of rivers and streams as well as acquiring land for natural floodwater storage.