DES MOINES, IOWA (December 12, 2023) — After repeatedly seeking stakeholder input and proposing rule changes to protect water quality, DNR backtracked on those positive steps in a November 15 update to draft rules for animal feeding operations (AFOs). The Environmental Protection Commission approved moving ahead with the weaker rules on November 21. There is still opportunity for public input, and IEC will keep pushing for rules that will protect our rivers and streams.
How did we get here?
In 2021, IEC and the Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) petitioned for rule changes to protect karst terrain and drinking water. The petition highlighted the risks for karst terrain, where groundwater and surface water are closely connected. It also sought more monitoring to protect drinking water.
The Environmental Protection Commission (EPC), which is responsible for adopting the rules that DNR implements, denied that petition in February 2022. We petitioned again in May 2022 to force the agency to adopt a 100-year floodplain map, which the legislature required in 2002, but the DNR and EPC never did. As IEC reported, dozens of AFOs have expanded in floodplains over the intervening decades. DNR subsequently developed draft rule changes and sought stakeholder input several times, incorporating some of the requests by IEC and partner groups.
An executive order signed in January 2023 delayed the process by requiring agencies to conduct a “regulatory analysis” for all rules — including a cost/benefit analysis and re-justification for every agency’s rules on all subjects. IEC provided comments on these issues and issued a report called The Cost of CAFOs: Impacts on Your Wallet and Your Health to highlight the economic costs of poor water quality in Iowa. DNR’s analysis, released in September 2023, concluded that regulating CAFOs provided water quality benefits and had economic justification. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the final version.
Backsliding on protections
In multiple drafts by DNR, the rules would have prevented manure storage structures from being built directly on porous karst terrain — which current rules allow. IEC and ELPC petitioned for 25 feet of vertical separation between the bottom of a manure basin and bedrock, based on a history of sinkholes forming under liquid storage structures. In its September 2023 draft and some prior drafts, DNR proposed a hard minimum of five feet, plus an additional liner between five and fifteen feet, so in practice there would have been fifteen feet of separation plus a liner.
In its May 2023 draft rules, DNR had proposed to include a change IEC and partners suggested: Requiring manure to be applied at the maximum return to nitrogen (MRTN), rather than the “optimum crop yield” rate in rule now at 65.3(1). The current “optimum yield” approach allows application at rates that waste nutrients and lead to water pollution, ultimately losing the farmer money and costing downstream communities that must treat drinking water to meet current federal requirements of nitrogen at less than ten mg/L.
The scientific assessment in the Nutrient Reduction Strategy concluded that applying all fertilizer at the lower MRTN rate would save tens of millions of dollars per year in fertilizer costs and reduce nitrate in surface water by close to 10%. Although manure is a portion of all fertilizer, reducing manure rates to MRTN would be a significant change. Rather than implement the approach in the Nutrient Reduction Strategy, the September draft and November draft rules went back to the “optimum crop yield” method in existing rule.
In a few other instances, DNR proposed weaker oversight than existing rules or failed to make common-sense changes. For example, existing rules allow DNR to evaluate facilities on a case-by-case basis and deny a construction permit if the facility would pollute water or cause a violation of water-quality standards. DNR proposed to delete that authority in every draft of the rules. The rules still allow applicants to submit paper manure management plans, even though by law DNR “shall to every extent feasible provide for the processing of permits and manure management plans required under this subchapter using electronic systems.”
Despite backsliding on the protections for water quality, DNR did not re-assess the costs and benefits of the rule. Allowing more construction directly on karst terrain and allowing higher rates of manure on cropland will worsen water quality and increase the costs borne by Iowans.
What's next
After giving little time to review the final draft up for approval, the Environmental Protection Commission voted on November 21 to publish the proposed rules in the Iowa Administrative Bulletin for public comment. This means the public can weigh in on the rules and argue for better protections.
The DNR must receive comments by February 23, 2024, at 4:30PM. IEC is working on our response now and will prepare an action alert in the new year to aid you in submitting your comments or you can review the materials and submit your comments anytime.
