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A drought crisis unfolding across the West will require short-term relief and massive, long-term federal funding, lawmakers heard Tuesday.

by Perry Beeman The country’s top environmental official spent his first trip to Iowa largely meeting with farmers, not environmentalists.  Michael Regan, a former top North Carolina environment official who now heads the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told reporters at a news conference near the Dico Superfund site in Des Moines he will be in no rush to change the state’s voluntary Nutrient Reduction Strategy.  He did not sound like a man moving quickly to regulate nitrogen and phosphorus, the two main farm fertilizers causing pollution issues from Iowa’s streams and lakes...

by Perry Beeman A team of University of Iowa scientists has found toxic “forever chemicals” in private wells near the Cedar Rapids airport and expects to find them across the state. The state isn’t doing enough to respond to the threats of widely used PFAS chemicals, said David Cwiertny, director of the Center for the Health Effects of Environmental Contamination (CHEEC) at the University of Iowa. “They are used extensively in industry and commerce. We know they don’t get removed in wastewater treatment, so they are discharged into the environment. They don’t go away. They�...

by Perry Beeman The state of Iowa has approved plans for a large northeast Iowa cattle feedlot in an environmentally sensitive area that includes some of the state’s trout streams. After environmentalists and others objected to Supreme Beef’s plans to raise 11,600 cattle near Monona and spread manure on farm fields within 30 miles, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources approved the plans. The nonprofit Iowa Environmental Council said it will consider “next steps.” In a statement, the council said DNR’s approval of the manure-spreading plans shows the state’s emphasis on a...