Real change in America occurs when citizen pressure from outside the centers of influence forces those inside to retreat. Perhaps the most compelling example of systemic change in the way the nation is run is currently unfolding in Iowa.
Severe water pollution from crop and livestock production, associated with the second-highest and fastest-growing cancer rates in the country, became an election-year issue in Iowa, one of the nation’s most important agricultural states. Never before has industrial agriculture and its massive toxic emissions been under such intense public scrutiny and condemnation in Iowa or any other state.
One important reason for this is environmental journalism. This includes incisive reporting in Toxic Terrain, a two-year project reported by Circle of Blue, edited by Carrie Gillum of The New Lede, and widely published by regional and national news outlets. In 28 deeply reported articles, Toxic Terrain played a major role in bringing Iowa’s worst water pollution and highest cancer rates in the nation to public scrutiny.
Our commitment to in-depth exploration of farm pollution scandals and their health implications, along with The New Lede and our publishing partners Investigate Midwest, MinnPost, Iowa Capital Dispatch, and The Guardian, have also proven the impact of nonprofit environmental journalism and collaboration in advancing the public interest.
Certainly Republican and Democratic gubernatorial candidates Zach Rahn and Rob Sund took note. Both parties are offering substantive ideas about how to address the risks to the state’s reputation as well as the health of its voters. Nitrate-contaminated water is endangering vast downstream basins.
I told the story of how PhD student Chris Jones completed his PhD. The chemist and water quality manager was ousted from his post at the University of Iowa after eloquently criticizing the causes and conditions of the state’s dismal water quality. Mr. Jones is currently the Democratic candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture. He has put agriculture-related water pollution and cancer at the center of his campaign, and large crowds have gathered to hear his anti-government message.
important report
Like other major changes in public opinion and citizen well-being, changes of this magnitude require an accumulation of antecedent events, such as bullying, danger, and insensitivity that can lead to prison riots. Well, it’s been a long time, but there’s currently a political and civic jailbreak happening in Iowa over water quality and cancer.
For decades, it has been common knowledge in academia and government that very large farms and livestock operations are the largest source of water pollution in Iowa and nearly every other state. For example, in 2015, the Des Moines Area Regional Drinking Water Utility filed a federal lawsuit seeking to regulate nitrogen emissions from farms upstream of the Raccoon River Treatment Plant. High concentrations of nitrates, formed when nitrogen combines with oxygen, are contaminating the drinking water of 500,000 residents, the power company said.
But this incident occurred at a time when the Iowa Farm Bureau and its allies in grain, hog, chemical, equipment, and seed companies and associations were building an intimidating political empire. Former Republican Gov. Terry Branstad denounced the lawsuit as a “war on Iowa farmers,” but it was dismissed by U.S. District Judge Leonard Terry Strand in 2017.
However, editor Art Cullen said, storm lake times In northwest Iowa, Iowans tried not to forget. He won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for a series of tenacious editorials that challenged the interests of powerful agricultural corporations in Iowa over nitrogen runoff and water pollution. This is the second Pulitzer Prize to be awarded for research on agricultural damage to the environment in Iowa. James Risser of the Des Moines Register won the award in 1979 for a series of articles about the damage caused by industrial farming practices.
evidence of crisis
Although new, the link between farm pollution and cancer was known in academic and government circles. A growing body of literature indicates potential associations, including increased risk of cancer. Exposure to high levels of nitrates in drinking water has been linked by researchers to cancers of the blood, brain, breast, bladder, and ovaries.
Cancer was also being quietly discussed in countless places where alarming numbers of people are being treated for or dying from cancer. School administrators reserved seats at Friday night’s football game to recognize a group of children affected by malignant tumors. Wives near Davenport recorded the number of their husbands dying from glioblastoma, a deadly brain tumor. Homeowners knew who was sick or dying in their neighborhood. Families counted deaths from cancer, especially among young adults.
In 2023, the Iowa Cancer Registry confirmed that the lives of 3.2 million Iowa residents could be harmed or shortened by Iowa’s second-highest cancer rate (the only state with an increasing rate).
Iowa news media reported on the registry findings, which were announced at an event in February. Toxic Terrain realized there was more to this story. More and more. Our contribution was twofold.
The first was the project’s deep understanding of the cancer crisis in the Corn Belt. Exactly one year ago, in 2022, Brett Walton published a story about higher rates of juvenile cancer in Nebraska counties with elevated nitrate and herbicide levels in the water.
And second, Circle of Blue had already developed expertise in the national scandal of agricultural pollution. In late 2022, we published a series of reports on how phosphorus pollution from agricultural land and large-scale livestock and poultry farming is causing toxic algal blooms in Lake Erie and other iconic American waters. This project, supported by the Erb Foundation and the Joyce Foundation, made us aware of the even more dire emergency of nitrate pollution in Corn Belt states.
With support from the Fund for Investigative Journalism and the Alicia Patterson Foundation, we launched Toxic Terrain to dig deeper into the health and environmental damage caused by industrial farming practices, which are responsible for some of the worst water pollution in our nation’s history.
Continue after the important story
The depth of coverage, its continuity, and widespread publication by nonprofit partners confirmed public concerns and sparked interest, as did other regional and national media outlets, including recent coverage by Politico and PBS.
Independent authorities are also involved. Last year, Polk County, where Des Moines is located, released a 227-page study showing that agricultural operations across Iowa are a major source of water pollution in the state, posing serious risks to public and environmental health.
Earlier this year, the Harkin Institute for Public Policy and Civic Engagement and the Iowa Environmental Council published a study that found exposure to nitrates and pesticides from agriculture are important factors in increased cancer rates in Iowa.
The veil of intimidation posed by the Farm Bureau and its agricultural sector allies is being torn away.
“Media coverage of cancer rates has influenced public interest in this issue,” said Audrey Tran Lam, director of the environmental health program at the University of Northern Iowa’s Center for Energy and Environmental Education. “You guys were the ones who were really ringing the bell on this issue in the first place. I also want to credit Investigate Midwest and some of the strong reporting from Inside Climate News, The Sentinel, and the larger media that made it feel like this issue was coming at us from all sides. I think that coverage made these topics and their intersections an inevitable topic in the state.”
The last point is important here. Of the 14 states with the highest cancer rates, Iowa and three others are in the Midwest Corn Belt. Runoff of chemicals and fertilizers from farms and livestock and poultry production sites poses an intolerable and dangerous threat to water and human health. The agricultural industry is largely exempt from emissions regulations. And even though governments have helped concentrate wealth into large-scale crop and livestock operations that generate millions of dollars in revenue, leaders have shown little interest in managing agro-industrial waste responsibly.
That has to change. This year, Iowans are demonstrating the power of public action, voice, and accountability to force agriculture to clean up its act. If they succeed, residents of other large, polluted agricultural states could follow Iowa’s lead.
Talk about a big story. There is nothing more important in American environmental journalism.
Lead image: © Brett Walton / Circle of Blue
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