Des Moines, IA — The Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has released a draft 2024 303(d) Impaired Waters List for the state. The report is released every two years, as required under the Clean Water Act. Key findings include:

• 52% of Iowa’s assessed river and stream segments and 63% of Iowa’s assessed lakes and reservoirs are impaired, meaning the water is too polluted for its intended use, from drinking water and recreation to fishing and supporting aquatic life.
• E. coli, found in animal waste, is the leading cause of impairments overall, responsible for 62% of impaired waterway segments. A Food & Water Watch analysis of the USDA Census of Agriculture found that Iowa factory farms’ produce a shocking 109 billion pounds of manure annually, equivalent to 25 times the waste of the state’s human population.
• E. coli is also the leading cause of impairment among Iowa’s Outstanding Waters, designated by the state as outstanding natural resources.

Food & Water Watch Iowa Organizer Jennifer Breon issued the following statement:

“The latest data on Iowa’s worsening water quality should be a wakeup call. As legislators rely on proven-to-fail voluntary cleanup, our water is fast becoming factory farms’ toilet. It’s high time we required Iowa’s thousands of unregulated factory farms to clean up their act. The Clean Water for Iowa Act is the legislation to get us there.”

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