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CCI members goad Iowa environmental regulators

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WINDSOR HEIGHTS – State environmental regulators were blistered Tuesday by organized critics who blasted their inaction in curbing corporate farm pollution and demanded more enforcement of clean air and clean water standards.

A dozen members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (CCI) took turns berating the state’s Environmental Protection Commission for failing to live up to its regulatory mission and Iowa Department of Natural Resources officials for dragging their feet on federally directed cleanup efforts.

“Evidence has shown that our air and water quality are increasingly under attack with ever-growing numbers of polluted springs,” said CCI member Jim Yungclas of Grinnell. “It’s time to stand up for the mission of clean air and clean water and quit pandering to corporate influences destroying our environment in the name of economic development.”

CCI members demanded that state regulators turn down permit requests from large-scale confinement livestock feeding operations that fail to meet standards rather than “colluding” with them to skirt requirements and that at least seven more inspectors be hired with the $700,000 in new money state legislators and Gov. Terry Branstad have committed to that effort in fiscal 2014.

“Cronyism and pandering towards factory farms is rampant in the DNR and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves,” said CCI activist Larry Ginter of Rhodes, who also called on EPC member Brent Rastetter of Ames to resign over alleged conflicts of interest associated with his work in the livestock industry.

Cherie Mortice and Barb Lang, CCI members from Des Moines, decried the fact that they and other utility ratepayers are unfairly being required to pay to treat water from rivers fouled by upstream polluters. “We are disgusted and fed up. Enough is enough,” Mortice said.

“Everybody else in this state has to abide by rules. What is different about the factory farm industry?” asked Brenda Brink, a CCI member from Huxley who noted that the nursing home where she works is inspected every year and often takes corrective measures even before the review is completed.

Dexter CCI member Barb Kalbach noted that the federal Environmental Protection Agency cited Iowa regulators in July 2012 for DNR failing to have an adequate inspection program for large-scale livestock facilities, failing to act in response to manure spills and other environmental violations, and failing to assess adequate fines and penalties when violations occur.

“One year later, nothing has changed. It is business as usual in the factory farm industry,” she said. What has changed, she added, is that Iowa has more impaired waterways and more livestock operations – facilities that numerous speakers blamed for reducing their air quality, property values and quality of life.

Commission members did not respond to the CCI critique, although EPC chairman Mary Boote of Des Moines cautioned the speakers not to make personal attacks when they called for Rastetter’s resignation.

During his presentation to the board, DNR Director Chuck Gipp said his agency “got treated pretty well” by the split-control Legislature, which provided more money for the inspectors than Gov. Terry Branstad or the department had requested. He said he was disappointed that lawmakers did not include money to cover pay increases for state workers in the 2014 fiscal year that begins July 1.

 

Comments: (515) 243-7220; rod.boshart@sourcemedia.net


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