Manure becomes pollutant as its volume grows unmanageable By David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, March 1, 2010 UNFINISHED BUSINESS: THE ENVIRONMENT 40 YEARS AFTER EARTH DAY: Rising with a bullet among top pollutants: Number Two Full of manure Nearly 40 years after the first Earth Day, this is irony: The United States [...]

Rulings Restrict Clean Water Act, Foiling E.P.A. By CHARLES DUHIGG and JANET ROBERTSFebruary 28, 2010, New York Times, David Walter Banks for The New York Times Thousands of the nation’s largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act’s reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according [...]

Dumping on manure, chemical fertilizerMarch 1, 2010; Baltimore sunAccording to a story today in the Washington Post, the waste generated by farms raising cattle, hogs, chickens and turkeys is getting into the water (and air) in increasing quantities, even as environmental laws are cracking down on other pollutants.  Farm animal manure (like the chicken manure being cleaned out of [...]

Governor Culver's office publicly opposes "Manure in Water" bill -- HF 2324 By Natalie Snyders, 515-282-0484, natalie@iowacci.org; Kristin Schaaf, 515-255-0800, kristin@iowacci.org 2/23/2010; Iowa CCIMONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010, DES MOINES, IOWA -- Governor Culver's chief of staff and top political advisor Jim Larew told more than 100 members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa CCI) [...]

EPA Budget Signals Good News for the Mississippi RiverFebruary 2010 : River Currents Newsletter Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but the news this month that the Environmental Protection Agency had allocated nearly 46 percent of its budget for clean and safe water made me feel better about the Mississippi River's future. $17 million of the [...]

Guest column: Farm drainage proposal based on sound science By BILL NORTHEY: agri@IowaAgriculture.gov; WENDY WINTERSTEEN: wwinters@iastate.edu February 26, 2010 ; Des MOINES REGISTER To provide a little background, north-central Iowa has a significant amount of tile drainage, which is a system of pipes running underneath farm fields that drain standing water from the field and [...]

Iowa CCI: Governor Culver's office publicly opposes "Manure in Water" bill -- HF 2324 By IowaPolitics.com, Natalie Snyders, 515-282-0484, natalie@iowacci.org Kristin Schaaf, 515-255-0800, kristin@iowacci.org 2/23/2010MONDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2010, DES MOINES, IOWA -- Governor Culver's chief of staff and top political advisor Jim Larew told more than 100 members of Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement (Iowa [...]

Nasty, nurturing nitrogen By Holly MoellerFebruary 23, 2010MIT The Tech When Captain N.C. Middlebrooks claimed the Brook Islands for the United States in 1859, he had no idea they would later be known as Midway Atoll, site of a World War II turning point more than eighty years later. The island cluster was coveted for [...]

Series Intro Where does our food come from?These days, most people might think corn, the ubiquitous grain that provides the bulk of feed for our livestock; most of the sweetener for our soft drinks and snacks; and a large amount of our cooking fat. But where does the corn—and other staple crops—come from? The answer [...]

Guest column: Don't rush redesign of farmland drainage By DES MOINS REGISTERFebruary 17, 2010MICHAEL BURKART is a hydrologist in Ames. Contact: burkartj15@ hotmail.com. • WILLIAM STOWE is D.M. public works director. Contact: wgstowe@dmgov.org. Last November, the Iowa Water Resources Coordinating Council (WRCC) submitted flood plain management policy recommendations to Gov. Chet Culver and state legislators. The [...]