Question is where to send a check
The Greene County board of supervisors has agreed in principle to contributing financially to the legal defense of the supervisors of Sac, Buena Vista and Calhoun counties against a lawsuit filed by the Des Moines Water Works, but the board doesn’t yet know where to send a check.
Greene County drainage clerk Michelle Fields three weeks ago talked with the supervisors about a request from the Iowa Drainage District Association for $5,000 for each of the next three years. The supervisors could not act on the request because it wasn’t an agenda item, but they were in agreement that Greene County should comply with the request.
The next week Fields said she had received a letter from a representative of the three counties asking that funds be sent directly to them, rather than to the IDDA. Fields later told the supervisors the defendant counties and the IDDA were having discussions about how best to fund the defense. To date, the supervisors have officially committed county funds.
DMWW filed the lawsuit in March, claiming that excess nitrates entering the Raccoon River via the agricultural drainage system in those three upstream counties create a health risk for its Des Moines water customers. DMWW is legally obligated to provide clean and safe drinking water that meets the Environmental Protection Agency’s maximum contaminant level (MCL) of 10 mg/L. DMWW claims costs approaching $1.5 million for denitrifaction of the water supply.
The highly contentious lawsuit has set environmentalists against agricultural interests, as the lawsuit seeks to have drainage districts required to meet federal regulations as point source contaminants.
Water in the Raccoon River in Sac County has tested as high as 39.2 mg/L. DMWW CEO Bill Stowe has said those three counties were named in the lawsuit because reliable data was most easily available there.
The Greene County supervisors consider themselves as very fortunate they weren’t named in the lawsuit as well. (The supervisors’ involvement is as trustees of most of the county’s drainage districts.)
The U.S. Geological Survey maintains a water sampling station on the river in Jefferson, near the Highway 4 bridge. Information of the nitrate level is available in real time and historically at http://waterdata.usgs.gov.
The nitrate/nitrite level at the Jefferson station has been over the 10 mg/L. level very consistently. The highest level in the past 120 days was 23.6 on Jan. 3. The level fell during the winter months and reached 8.04 on March 13 before starting to climb again. The highest reading was 19.8 on April 13 and April 14. (USGS data)
On April 17, DMWW issued a statement saying it had needed to start its denitrification units due to high nitrate levels. The nitrate level in Jefferson was 19.0. The level was at 17.9 April 19 at 11:15 am. 
To read an archived GCNO post about the lawsuit, click here: DMWW lawsuit, Jan. 14 ~GreeneCountyNewsOnline
