By Nina B. Elkadi for Sentient.
Broadcast version by Mark Moran for Iowa News Service reporting for the Sentient-Public News Service Collaboration

A new report from environmental watchdog group Food & Water Watch suggests that almost 2 million fish were killed from manure spills in Iowa between 2013 and 2023. The 179 spills occurred throughout the state, with a major hotspot for spills in the northwest corner of the state. Earlier this year, the group reported that Iowa factory farms produce more waste than any other state, at 109 billion pounds of manure annually, based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

The report and accompanying map, released on Dec. 9, designated over 700 segments of Iowa water as “impaired” — not meeting the standards necessary to support aquatic life, public water supplies or recreation. Details include where in the state spills occur, who owns the operation and if they are repeat offenders.

Manure spills in the state of Iowa have contributed to what environmental advocacy groups call a water quality crisis. In the capital city of Des Moines, the local water supply has one of the world’s largest nitrate removal facilities. Nitrate is the resulting chemical of manure that is not absorbed by the soil or crops. Due to high levels of nitrate in water, which can cause blue baby syndrome in children and colon cancer in adults, the Des Moines Water Works has to run its nitrate removal system more frequently as the situation worsens — at a cost of anywhere from $10,000 to $16,000 per day, which falls entirely on utility customers.

“When you think about the nature of what they’re spilling and the quantities of what they’re spilling, it’s the difference between life and death, and people are being strapped down with medical debt and suffering in a prolonged way,” Food & Water Watch Iowa Organizer Michaelyn Mankel tells Sentient.

According to the report, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources fined 171 of the 179 offenders at $635,808 over the ten-year period it studied. That’s less than half of what Des Moines Water Works spent on its nitrate removal system in 2015, at $1.4 million. There are gaps in the state reporting as well. The total volume of the spills is difficult to determine because most reports do not contain information on how much manure is spilled. And in those that do note volume, the range is anywhere from 500 to 1 million gallons.

“The fines that the DNR has leveled against these companies do not represent restitution for the damage that they’re causing to Iowa,” Mankel says. “They also don’t represent a real demand that these corporations change the way that they’re doing business.”

In 2024 alone, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources documented 13 fish kill events, one of which regulators directly tied to animal waste. This one “anthropogenic” spill in northwest Iowa — caused by dairy manure land-applied runoff —killed anywhere from 100,001-500,000 fish.

Many concentrated animal feeding operations operate without the proper discharge permits, rendering their spills more difficult to track. In October, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a petition from 13 groups — including Food & Water Watch — calling for stricter regulation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act. Today, Food & Water Watch is calling for a “Clean Water for Iowa Act” to be passed in the state legislature. The act would require all medium and large-scale concentrated animal feeding operations to get National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits.

This report and map are released in the midst of a health crisis in the Midwest, which some observers and critics argue is tied to, or exacerbated by, large-scale industrialized agriculture. Mankel points to cancer incidence in the state of Iowa; it’s the only state in the country with rising cancer rates (though other factors, like obesity and alcoholism rates may play a role).

“We’re paying for it,” Mankel says. “I really want Iowans to understand that these problems are a policy choice, and that we are being burdened with paying the true cost of massive profits that these corporations are reaping from our state, and that’s a very intentional choice on behalf of lawmakers.”


Nina B. Elkadi wrote this article for Sentient.


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A north Texas commissioners' court has declared a county disaster because of PFAS contamination.

Johnson County Commissioners are asking Gov. Greg Abbott to join the declaration.

PFAS - also known as forever chemicals - have been found in soil, groundwater, and surface water across the county.

Commissioner Larry Woolley said the problem has been going on since at least 2001, when biosolids were used as fertilizer.

"These chemicals don't break down, they don't go away," said Woolley. "They just build up, and they get more and more concentrated, whether it be in soil and livestock organs. A stillborn calf liver tested 610,000 parts per trillion."

He said well water near biosolid application sites tested positive for PFAS, at levels several hundred times higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's safe drinking water limits.

The disaster declaration allows Johnson County to apply for federal assistance for farmers and implement emergency measures to protect public health and safety.

An emergency declaration from the governor would let residents apply for federal assistance.

Deputy Johnson County Constable Dana Ames said the problem is not going away.

"We're around 50 cows now," said Ames. "Back when this first started, it was a couple of cows, it was some dead fish. This is a reoccurring thing because the contamination persists. The PFAS that's there, once you get them into your body, they bioaccumulate."

The county and several ranchers have also sued the EPA, alleging it failed to set limits on the number of PFAS allowed in sewage sludge used as fertilizers.





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Recognizing climate change is not isolated to certain parts of New Mexico, legislators are considering bills to help protect the state's air, land and water.

One in three counties in the state has experienced devastating fire and flood damage in recent years.

Shelley Mann-Lev, executive director of the advocacy group Healthy Climate New Mexico, a group of public health professionals and students who believe climate change is the greatest threat to residents' health, as well as the state's ability to provide health care in local communities, said the effects are far-reaching.

"It's not just chronic diseases," Mann-Lev pointed out. "Heat, flooding, fires, drought are creating incredible health threats and if we don't take action, we'll make it so that we will not have a livable future."

According to the 2024 Conservation in the West poll, 59% of New Mexicans consider climate change a "very" or "extremely serious" issue. Mann-Lev noted the bills would address climate change head-on to achieve the state's goal of reducing greenhouse gases by 45% by 2030, compared to 2005 levels.

New Mexico experienced its largest and most destructive wildfire in the state's history in 2022. But Mann-Lev stressed residents' health is also affected by wildfires as far away as California or Montana, depending on wind conditions.

"Part of what makes us as New Mexico so vulnerable is that so many people in our population already have serious health problems," Mann-Lev observed. "We already have higher rates of child asthma."

New Mexico also is the second-largest oil-producing state in the U.S. behind Texas, and the nation's top natural gas producer. Mann-Lev believes the legislation would align pollution reduction goals.

"We also can demonstrate that an important oil and gas producing state can make the investments and make this transition in a way that sustains our economy, supports our communities in the process," Mann-Lev contended. "So that it's not just being done 'to them,' it's being done with them."

She added the state's Community Benefit Fund would invest $340 million in infrastructure, workforce development, renewable energy projects, energy efficiency upgrades and more.

Atlantic menhaden weigh less than a pound and measure little more than a foot long but the small fish has big consequences for the Chesapeake Bay ecosystem.

A bill introduced in the Virginia General Assembly is looking to study the Atlantic menhaden population in the Chesapeake. There is little data on Atlantic menhaden populations in the Bay and fishing and conservation groups say that's the problem.

Jaclyn Higgins, forage fish program manager for the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, said menhaden populations are not well-researched in the Bay, despite studies on the species along the entire Atlantic coast.

"There were a couple studies kind of done throughout the last 20 years but nothing super comprehensive and nothing that would allow us to say this is the amount of menhaden that we would consider healthy for the Chesapeake Bay," Higgins explained. "Really, we don't know anything about Chesapeake Bay menhaden."

The bill would provide $3 million for the study of menhaden populations in the Chesapeake. The research would look at if reduction fishing, which pulls millions of pounds of menhaden out of the Bay each year, is leading to local depletion.

But why is such a small fish so important to the Chesapeake Bay environment? Higgins pointed out Atlantic menhaden are a keystone species for the rest of the Chesapeake food chain.

"They make up the base of the marine food chain along the Atlantic, but in particular, in the Chesapeake Bay," Higgins emphasized. "They are a primary food source for striped bass. Striped bass are really reliant on menhaden as a food source in those juvenile and adult stages while they're in the bay."