|
|
The Trouble with Iowa
Corn, corruption, and the presidential caucuses
Manning, Richard http://harpers.org/archive/2016/02/the-trouble-with-iowa/2/
Publisher: Harper's
Date Written: 01/02/2016
Year Published: 2016
Resource Type: Article
While a state of only three million Iowa plays an outsized role in American politics, speaking to such central issues as healthcare and obesity, poverty and income inequality, waste and pollution, and the entrenchment of corporate oligarchy.
Abstract:
-
Excerpt:
These days a fair amount of the nitrates are derived not so much directly from chemical fertilizers as from hog manure. There are about 21 million hogs in Iowa, and almost all of them live in hog factories. Each hog produces the waste of about 2.5 people, meaning Iowa bears the shit equivalent, from hogs alone, of about 45 million people, some fifteen times its human pollution. But Iowa also has 52 million laying chickens, 50 million of which are in concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs) that hold more than 100,000 birds. These birds likewise produce more manure than all the people in the state. Almost none of it passes through a sewage-treatment plant or even a septic tank before making its way through drainage pipes to the public waterways and drinking water.
It is techically possible to remove nitrates from water, and this past year the Des Moines Water Works has been attempting to do that, at a cost of more than a million dollars. But the level and persistence of the pollution have repeated overwhelmed the equipment. Absent cleaner intake water, the Water Works will face up to a $180 million bill to upgrade its equipment, but this amount vastly understates the cost of the problem. There are 260 cities and towns in Iowa that face similar problems with their water supplies, and removing the nutrients from drinking-water intakes does nothing for the life of the rivers themselves.
|
AlterLinks
c/o Sources
© 2023.
|
|
|
|
