“Drought, increasing consumption, and old pipes demand that the City of Storm Lake spend some $90 million on water and sewer upgrades over the next decade … ” Art Cullen, The Storm Lake Times.
EDITOR’s NOTE: We share Art Cullen’s Op-Ed from The Storm Lake Times front and center, word for word because it speaks to the kind of vision we all need for our rural towns and communities and how the US Department of Agriculture needs to get (more?) serious about its vision and its lead on these issues. Author Art Cullen can be found at the newspaper and on Substack.
Art Cullen: A Memo to Bureaucracy
RE: Water
CC: Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack
“Drought, increasing consumption, and old pipes demand that the City of Storm Lake spend some $90 million on water and sewer upgrades over the next decade. The city applied for a federal grant to pay 85% of the projected cost after an attempt was denied last year. Ratepayers will have a hard time shouldering a real burden without the help of state or federal grants.
“Northwest Iowa is the nation’s leading livestock production and processing center. Storm Lake is among the world leaders in protein production. It draws from the same primary source, the underground Dakota Aquifer, along with the rest of this region dense with ethanol distilleries, poultry, swine, dairy, and beef cattle.
“Obviously, water is the main ingredient of our economy designed to support a cheap-food recipe written by Washington and Wall Street. Water is the new oil in a warming climate. The Southwest is already bidding for water from the Upper Midwest rivers and the Great Lakes. The pocket of the Dakota serving Storm Lake and Cherokee cannot handle increased pumping. Because of drawdown of alluvial aquifers, the Ocheyedan River near the Minnesota border recently ran dry. This is not a Storm Lake problem. It is a regional issue that has the potential to be a crisis if we don’t figure out how to manage it.
“The city is applying to FEMA under a resilient communities program for about $65 million. FEMA should consider that since the federal government supports ethanol production (three gallons of water for every gallon of fuel) and since it supports an ample, safe and secure food supply directly and indirectly (through disaster grants, research, and inspection), it should take the leading role in protecting Storm Lake’s water supply and distribution.
“Storm Lake’s demographics should illustrate that our residents cannot and should not bear the weight disproportionate to their consumption. The main water consumer is meatpacking, which pays a rate based on volume, but actually, the city is competing for resources with poultry barns, Rembrandt Foods when it is in production, ethanol plants in Buena Vista, Cherokee, and Ida counties, and hogs. It is competing for water with regional suppliers that get federal support and that pump so hard the river runs dry. The city will spend nearly $10 million for its share of the project. The federal government must play a central role in helping this region vital to the nation’s protein needs develop and protect its water resources.
“We were stunned when the city was turned down before.
“We have been told that help is on the way from the Biden Administration but so far have received a cold shoulder from FEMA. No love for the Linn Grove dam. No money for arguably the most important water supply system in the state — more than 15,000 hogs a day in a state built around pork production. If Storm Lake does not get the help it deserves, don’t talk to us anymore about resiliency in the food supply chain. Don’t just say that Tyson can make up the difference when you subsidize the ethanol plant and the corn grower, and the consolidated hog producer. Tyson should pay its fair share. So should the carwash, and so should a federal government that depends on us to keep the pork, turkey, and eggs on the table. It’s not as if most people here live high on the hog, cutting up meat for your table in Washington. The least you could do is give us a break on our water rates. Approve the grant application.
“And then, get serious about water in a changing climate. We have yet to address our declining aquifers amid increased production. It’s not that there are too many people in Northwest Iowa. The brewing crisis is about too much livestock and ethanol sucking our wells dry. We detect no sense of urgency. More livestock are coming into Iowa, South Dakota, and southern Minnesota, all drinking from the same underground pond that is going down. There are calls to produce more ethanol and increase blending rates. Meanwhile, Storm Lake’s water rates have been going up at twice the rate of inflation before this year. They will continue to go up until we get a handle on our supply and demand. That’s not something you want to leave to the mercies of the market. We must have active state and federal participation in providing solutions to urgent resource challenges. So far, all we get are local rate increases on a working-class town.”