Iowa Legislative Session Must Address Clean Water, Public Health Crises
Rising cancer rates, high nitrate levels in drinking water necessitate bold action to reign in industrial agriculture pollution
Published Jan 13, 2025
Rising cancer rates, high nitrate levels in drinking water necessitate bold action to reign in industrial agriculture pollution
Des Moines, IA — Today, the 2025 Iowa Legislative Session kicked off against a backdrop of rising cancer rates, and high cancer-linked nitrate levels in drinking water, connected to industrial agriculture.
Food & Water Watch Iowa Organizer Jennifer Breon issued the following statement:
“No issue is more important this session than cleaning up Iowa’s drinking water and addressing our burgeoning public health crisis. The Clean Water for Iowa Act must be a Day One priority for Governor Reynolds and our state legislature. Iowa’s cancer crisis has touched so many families — the Clean Water for Iowa Act will crack down on the factory farm polluters posing a clear and unregulated threat to our health.
“Iowans need leadership willing to stand up to the Big Ag polluters profiting off our pain. That means passing the Clean Water for Iowa Act and stonewalling any efforts to rollback recourse for sick Iowans. Legislation like Bayer’s Cancer Gag Act, which would give pesticide manufacturers legal immunity from their products’ health impacts, must be dead on arrival.”
The Clean Water for Iowa Act, introduced for the first time last year as HF2354, would require water pollution permits and monitoring at more than 4,000 medium and large factory farms currently operating in Iowa without pollution oversight. Iowa’s factory farms produce more nitrate-, pesticide- and antibiotic-ridden factory farm waste than any other state in the country, much of which lands in waterways, threatening drinking water and public health. A Food & Water Watch analysis released last month found that Iowa factory farms were penalized less than $750K for ten years of consistent, illegal water pollution.
The Cancer Gag Act, introduced last year as SF 2412, would shield pesticide manufacturers from lawsuits related to the health impacts of their products. Pesticide giant Bayer-Monsanto backs the legislation. In 2020, Bayer-Monsanto paid $10 billion to settle thousands of cancer lawsuits related to their Roundup pesticide product, whose active ingredient glyphosate is currently under investigation as a possible carcinogen and is widely used in Iowa.
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Press Contact: Phoebe Trotter [email protected]
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