Topsoil changes get first round of approval By Donnelle Eller, Des Moines RegisterJanuary 21, 2015 (photo: The Register) The debate over how much topsoil should be in Iowans’ yards continued Wednesday as a state commission moved closer to giving homebuilders more discretion over the amount of dirt they must return. State rules require builders to [...]

Des Moines Initiates Clean Water Act Lawsuit to Stem Farm Pollution By Brett Walton - Circle of BlueJanuary 20, 2015  Iowa’s largest city will sue three upstream counties to reduce nitrate contamination.   Photo © Flickr/Creative Commons user w4nd3rl0st Des Moines, the Iowa capital, sits at the confluence of the Raccoon and Des Moines rivers. The [...]

Will Des Moines water lawsuit change farming rules? By Donnelle Eller - Des Moines RegisterJanuary 19, 2015  (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register)   A Des Moines utility's plan to sue three northwest counties for polluting central Iowa's drinking water supply may have broad ramifications for state and U.S. farmers, who environmentalists complain have been too slow [...]

USDA-private projects affect Mississippi and Louisiana By AP - Sun HeraldJanuary 17, 2015 U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced this projects selected for a new conservation initiative encouraging partnerships between government and nonprofit organizations. Here are those involving and affecting Louisiana and Mississippi. Some Regional Conservation Partnership Program projects are national, others regional and others [...]

Civilization has crossed 4 out of 9 planetary boundaries By World NewsJanuary 15, 2015    Planetary boundary according to the international team of researchers has published a report on “safe operating space for humanity.” And humans, according to the scientists, have crossed four out of the nine so-called “safe operating space” as a result of the [...]

Vilsack doubts lawsuit will speed water-pollution cleanup By Des Moine RegisterJanuary 19, 2015A "holistic" conservation approach to curbing fertilizer runoff polluting Iowa and U.S. streams will work quicker than litigation, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told The Des Moines Register's editorial board Monday. Vilsack fielded questions about Des Moines Water Works' decision this month to [...]

Precision Conservation By John Carey for Conservation MagazineJanuary 19, 2015     If we treat agricultural pollution with a scalpel instead of a hatchet, we might have a fighting chance of cutting the flow of fertilizers into rivers, lakes, and coastal waters. By John Carey When Katie Songer started cold-calling farmers in Wisconsin’s Pleasant Valley in [...]

EPA fighting order that it decide on Gulf of Mexico Dead Zone rule making By Jennifer Larino, Nola.comDecember 6, 2014  This color-coded map shows oxygen levels in bottom waters of the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast. The darkest red areas, surrounded by a black line, show where the oxygen level is below 2 [...]

A Sustainable Solution for the Corn Belt By New York Times Op-Ed Contributing Writer Mark BittmanNovember 18, 2014 It’s hard to imagine maintaining the current food system without Iowa. Yet that state — symbolic of both the unparalleled richness of our continent’s agricultural potential and the mess we’ve made of it — has undergone a transformation [...]

Global warming likely worsening 'dead zone' in Gulf of Mexico, study finds By Associated PressNovember 10, 2014   Global warming is likely playing a bigger role than previously thought in dead zones in oceans, lakes and rivers around the world and it's only going to get worse, according to a new study. Dead zones occur [...]