Farm Progress

Iowa Learning Farms: Plans include goals and practices that prevent contaminants from entering public drinking water.

August 21, 2018

6 Min Read
PROTECTING WATER: Source Water Protection plans manage the areas water travels and activities that occur on the land.

By Jamie Benning

Communities in Iowa are voluntarily taking steps to safeguard the quality of the groundwater they use to supply drinking water for their families, friends and neighbors. This is a result of opportunities offered through the Iowa Department of Natural Resources’ Source Water Protection Program.

Recently, more communities have spent time creating Source Water Protection plans. The shallow groundwater aquifers are recharged by precipitation in specific areas surrounding their wells or capture zones. That water can potentially carry with it contaminants from the land surface. Capture zones are the focus areas of a community’s Source Water Protection Plan. Source Water Protection is the act of preventing this contamination from entering the aquifer.

Bridget Durst, source water community facilitator for Conservation Districts of Iowa and the Iowa DNR, explains: “The purpose of Source Water Protection planning is to unite a community in the common goal of protecting their drinking water at the source. In crafting a Source Water Protection Plan, we are working to ensure safe, affordable drinking water. We are trying to prevent contamination from the land surface, which in turn, reduces the costs of water treatment and possibly postpones the need to drill new wells.”

Purpose of plan
The plans outline objectives and practices that promote preservation of the community’s source water. “The document also gives everyone a chance to contribute to the protection of their shared resources,” she adds. “Through collaboration on this project, community members will leave a positive legacy for future generations.”

The volunteers for Source Water Protection teams consist of city officials, residents from within city limits, rural water customers, landowners and local agricultural producers. The role of Durst as source water community facilitator is to support and guide the Source Water team. She is equipped with knowledge and resources to lay the groundwork for the Source Water Protection plans, and helps ensure access to partners who provide education, scientific tools, technical assistance and funding to help communities implement the steps within plans. Together they’ve established plans that address rising nitrate levels in each community’s water supplies.

Since June 2017, Durst has helped five municipalities and one rural water system actively engage in Source Water Protection planning for the public drinking water supply, resulting in Iowa DNR approval of the plans. They now move into the implementation phase, while other communities begin the development phase.

Protect drinking water at source
Due to the northwest Iowa landscape, most communities and private well owners are using groundwater aquifers for their drinking water. Most aquifers in northwest Iowa lay under many acres of agricultural land. They are typically shallow alluvial aquifers, considered highly susceptible to contaminants from the land surface. Although many water supply systems have good working relationships with their ag neighbors, this program has encouraged, increased and enhanced these relations and created more opportunities for partnerships.

“Our main objective is to protect our drinking water at the source,” Durst says. “But it also brings together community members including some who may not have known the source of their drinking water nor the impact they have on water quality.”

While city governments and residents look to invest in urban conservation practices, such as rain gardens, pervious pavers, bio-swales and other infrastructure changes, farmers have been considering conservation practices to protect source water for their communities.

Farmers can participate
Gary Brummer, who has been farming near Holstein for 30 years, is one of the farmers participating in a source water protection project. Holstein gets most of its water from a shallow, alluvial aquifer about 5 miles east of the city. The capture zones for this aquifer total 1,129 acres. This consists of 932 acres of row crops within the priority area. Brummer produces primarily corn and soybeans, along with a small amount of hay, on a piece of land within the capture zone.

“It’s a calling,” Brummer says about farming. “I grew up in town, in Holstein, and since I was a young child, 4 or 5 years old, I knew I wanted to farm.” This same feeling is shared by many farmers. It’s a way of life, not a job. Brummer agrees that being personally contacted by the local water operator was a good way to introduce producers to the city’s Source Water Protection planning. With the amount of pressure on landowners and farmers to address water quality throughout the state, this local focus and personal contact were welcome.

With local focus, contact successful
“It was a way to break the ice with someone you already knew. We weren’t bombarded by someone who makes you feel skeptical,” Brummer says. He’s been participating in Source Water Protection planning since being contacted by the water operator for the city of Holstein in August 2017. Asked why he decided to participate, Brummer answers: “We’ve had enough coverage with the Chesapeake Bay area that I think this is something a farmer needs to keep in the back of his mind, and yet move forward.”

Brummer is referring to the mandates for reducing nutrient loads in the Chesapeake Bay. “I don’t want to be regulated, if I can help it,” he says.

Brummer learned about the process and practices through Source Water Protection meetings, and he decided to act by planting cover crops on his land within the capture zone. While developing their Source Water Protection plan, the city of Holstein reached out to USDA’s Natural Resource Conservation Service in Ida County as a partner. This relationship has benefited Brummer with his choice to use cover crops.

Cost share provides incentive
Brummer was able to use a cost-share program that furnishes a certain amount of funding per acre per year. This helps relieve some of the financial risk to farmers who are seeking to use cover crops. Cover crops are mutually beneficial by helping to prevent nitrate leaching into groundwater and providing cover and stability for soil. “Our hope is if we do have a torrential rain, it doesn’t wash, and my fertilizer stays put; it doesn’t go down the drain,” Brummer says.

Local farmer commitment to protecting a drinking water source has a far-reaching impact as well. Practices like cover crops help Iowans reach the state goal to reduce the statewide nitrogen load by 41% and phosphorus load by 29%, as called for in the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy.

Brummer admits the idea of working to protect a local water supply is more of a concern to him, and possibly other farmers in this and many capture zones, than what may be happening in the hypoxic zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It may just be too overwhelming to think of impacting something like that, but when it is the water their family, friends and neighbors are drinking, it is less so.

“It isn’t that we don’t care about what is going on down there; it’s just so far away you sometimes feel helpless,” he adds. “When we focus on our own groundwater and local impact, that approach makes sense. Yes, it’s still the trickledown effect. But if everybody fixes what needs to be fixed in their communities, that will help the Gulf.”

For information on Source Water Protection, contact [email protected]. Also visit the Iowa Department of Natural Resources.


Benning is water quality program manager with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. Contact her at [email protected].

 

Subscribe to receive top agriculture news
Be informed daily with these free e-newsletters

You May Also Like