DES MOINES, Iowa – Several hundred Iowa residents gathered in the state capital this week, calling on public officials – and each other – to take swift action against dangerously polluted water supplies that are closely linked to the state’s powerful agricultural industry.
A controversial Iowa water safety report has confirmed what many people in the state have long feared to be true: Dangerously high levels of farm chemicals, including nitrates and pesticides are polluting waterways with potentially dire health consequences for hundreds of thousands of residents.
Pesticide applicators in North Carolina and Iowa who sprayed the insecticide carbaryl often during their career have a higher risk of getting stomach, esophageal, tongue and prostate cancers, according to new research led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI).
Agricultural operations across Iowa are a leading cause of significant water pollution problems in the state, posing dire risks to public and environmental health, according to a new scientific report that is sparking heated debate in the key US farm state.
New research out of Iowa adds to a wide body of evidence showing that when pregnant women are exposed to nitrates in drinking water, it raises the risks of problematic birth outcomes, including low birth weights and pre-term birth. The study, published June 25 in PLOS Water, found that the risks persist even when exposures are lower than the regulatory standard for allowable levels.
Iowa is currently facing an unprecedented drinking water crisis. Recent reports indicate alarming nitrate levels in the Raccoon River; so high that city officials enacted emergency measures such as lawn water bans, to ensure water treatment facilities could comply with regulatory standards for safe drinking water. Unfortunately, at least for pregnant women, any level of nitrate in drinking water appears unsafe.
INDIANOLA, Iowa – Six months ago, Alex Hammer was diagnosed with colon cancer at the age of 37. Dianne Chambers endured surgery, chemotherapy and dozens of rounds of radiation to fight aggressive breast cancer, and Janan Haugen spends most days helping care for her 17-year-old grandson, who is still being treated for brain cancer he developed at the age of 7.
EMMETSBURG, IOWA – Raised in rural Iowa, 71-year-old Maureen Reeves Horsley once considered her tiny hometown in the northwest part of the state to be a blessed space. She recalls a time when the streams here ran clean and the lake water was clear.