• Home
  • Staff
  • Privacy Policy
  • News Tips/Press Releases
  • Advertising
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
No Result
View All Result
The Times-Delphic
  • News
    • All
    • Administrative News
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • The Ones

    Indira Sheumaker, city councilmembers find common ground among conflicts

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake to build University Center

    Student Senate passes resolution in support of the transgender community

    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • All
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
    • Tennis
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball

    Promising 2022 NFL Draft for Packers fans

    The two national parks you should visit this summer

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    Former Drake Basketball Player Wins National Championship

    The Top Moves of NFL Free Agency

    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • All
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
    • Letter to the Editor

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: How to meet your next partner in 2022

    Commentary: “Oh… We’re Not Dating…”

    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • All
    • Greek Life
    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    Painted Street recap

    Bam Bam wins Drake University’s 43rd annual Beautiful Bulldog Contest

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Humans of Drake Podcast

    Bulldog Blitz 1: December 7, 2010

    The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

  • Relays Edition

    Bill that would make Iowa a hands-free driving state stalls in the legislature

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    State of Sustainability at Drake

    Dean Kathleen Richardson: Leaving a Legacy for the Drake SJMC

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion
  • News
    • All
    • Administrative News
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • The Ones

    Indira Sheumaker, city councilmembers find common ground among conflicts

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake urges community to remain cautious as reporting of new COVID-19 cases slows

    Drake to build University Center

    Student Senate passes resolution in support of the transgender community

    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • All
    • Baseball
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
    • Tennis
    • Track and Field
    • Volleyball

    Promising 2022 NFL Draft for Packers fans

    The two national parks you should visit this summer

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    Former Drake Basketball Player Wins National Championship

    The Top Moves of NFL Free Agency

    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • All
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
    • Letter to the Editor

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: Top 5 Self Care Tips

    Commentary: How to meet your next partner in 2022

    Commentary: “Oh… We’re Not Dating…”

    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • All
    • Greek Life
    Drake welcomes first Black woman Student Body President

    Student Body President Morgan Coleman shares experiences as a leader

    Painted Street recap

    Bam Bam wins Drake University’s 43rd annual Beautiful Bulldog Contest

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Drake Public Safety and the student body

    Humans of Drake Podcast

    Bulldog Blitz 1: December 7, 2010

    The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

  • Relays Edition

    Bill that would make Iowa a hands-free driving state stalls in the legislature

    New Casey’s Location on Forest Avenue

    ADA student task force advocates for disability inclusion

    Des Moines lands news USL team and stadium district

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    The Great Resignation: What Is It? And Why Is It Happening?

    Hip astrology: Relays horoscope

    State of Sustainability at Drake

    Dean Kathleen Richardson: Leaving a Legacy for the Drake SJMC

    Painted Street ain’t so sweet when costs are heaped

    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion
No Result
View All Result
The Times-Delphic
No Result
View All Result
Home News Campus Health

Iowa water quality raises concern in the Drake community

byMegan Mcdowell
November 2, 2019
in Campus Health, In Des Moines, News
0 0
0
Iowa water quality raises concern in the Drake community

by MEGAN MCDOWELL

Drake University recently announced it earned a Bronze STARS rating demonstrating Drake’s commitment to environmental sustainability.

Drake could bring that score up even more, if it focused on its one out of seven rating on water within the operations category. 

According to the announcement on Drake’s website, Drake, just like the rest of Iowa, needs to make water management and nutrient reduction an important goal.

“Water quality is one of the most important issues in Iowa,” said David Courard-Hauri, professor of environmental science and sustainability at Drake. 

Courard-Hauri is also a board member of the Iowa Environmental Council, a non-profit organization educating the public about the major concerns Iowa has with water quality and its “impaired waters.” 

Iowa is a highly agricultural state, but water quality problems are ‘due to a mix of things,’ according to Courard-Hauri. 

The high price of corn incentivizes farmers to plant more crops on more land, rather than use conservation practices like buffer strips to help filter out nitrates and prevent them from reaching Iowa waterways.

Iowa also lacks in compliance legislation. The conservation practices in place today are voluntary only.

Then, there is the lack of authority with the ability to enforce any regulations that are in place from the Clean Water Act passed in 1972.

Jerry Anderson, the dean of the Drake Law School, has also worked with IEC and Courard-Hauri on several pieces of litigation. 

Anderson worked on a lawsuit in 1999 with IEC, and at the time, Iowa had never enacted any water quality cleanup plans as established by the Clean Water Act. His work on that lawsuit got the ball rolling on a 10 year schedule for water quality improvement plans.

At the time of Anderson’s lawsuit in 1999, Iowa had approximately 300 impaired waters, but as of 2016, that number had more than doubled to 700. 

“Cleanup plans were important because it helped identify the sources,” Anderson said.

Those plans were a step in the right direction, and they help direct money to programs and plans for action. Too often though, those plans are unactionable.

“You can have laws on the books like the Clean Water Act, but if it’s not enforced or implemented, it doesn’t mean anything,” Anderson said.

A key problem to enforcing those laws is non-source point pollution, which the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has no authority over. 

The consensus at Drake is that Iowa needs to step its nutrient reduction strategy efforts in order to win this battle. Thankfully, some watershed management authorities are taking this seriously.

Peter Levi, assistant professor of environmental science and sustainability at Drake, is studying two such efforts to impact water quality in local watershed areas. Earlier this year, he received grants to perform water quality research, with the help of students, during the next three years.

Levi started his research in June 2019 on the streams in Fourmile and Walnut Creek watersheds. These watersheds are particularly interested in how the stream travels through diverse landscapes in a relatively short time. 

Both watersheds flow from agricultural to suburban to urban areas, giving Levi and his students a look into how water is affected in human dominated landscapes.

Levi is looking to see if “the needle is moving in the right direction,” as both watersheds have water management authorities who have invested money in improving water quality in their streams.

One large project along Walnut Creek planted green areas to help filter out run off, which was a sizeable investment. They are supporting Levi in his research to make sure their efforts are paying off.

“By improving water quality on a smaller scale, it shows it can be done on a bigger scale,” Levi said. 

These two watersheds are playing an important role in the future of water quality improvement. They are being studied in a well-rounded and in-depth way; data is collected at three stations on each stream every 10 minutes by electronic sensors. 

Fundamentally, the waterway’s ecosystem metabolism is being measured physically, chemically and biologically. Data that is collected shows how “the stream breathes,” Levi said. Oxygen levels rise and fall, from morning to night, rhythmically from day to day.

Changes can be exciting to see, said research assistant Taylor Vroman, a sophomore at Drake majoring in environmental science. Vroman was involved in collecting the 90 physical samples per week during the summer.

The rhythm of streams can undergo changes. 

“During storm events, it’s really interesting to see that as well,” Vroman said, reflecting on the disruption a heavy rain can do to the metabolism of the ecosystem in the streams.

One major factor in these swings in water quality is how Iowa developed its land.

“Iowa is one of the most developed states in the country. A lot of people don’t realize that,” said Sophia Siegel, a senior at Drake with an environmental sustainability major and a sociology minor and the senior member of DEAL.

“The way we develop our land impacts our water quality,” Siegel said. “It’s not that farmers don’t want to make improvements; the systems that farmers operate within aren’t set up to be sustainable.”

Every system needs a balance. Iowa has low biodiversity that isn’t natural to helping filter out polluting nutrients and too much land is devoted to maximizing crop yield.

Siegel pointed out the need to focus on engineering solutions and avoid temporary solutions, but at the same time, we can overthink things with science. 

In Iowa, the food production system is set up to be complicated and to make it seem like it’s not connected to water quality.

“No issue is truly separate, the system teaches us that they are separate,” Siegel said. “We need to find a platform for bringing these issues together.”

Siegel said Iowa should focus on a path to be environmentally and socially responsible. A better plan of action would be to take a holistic approach: Bring leaders together and equip them with an interdisciplinary framework for approaching Iowa’s water quality problems.

The Drake consensus is that all Iowans and their lawmakers need to make changes in how Iowa addresses water quality solutions, incentivizes farmers and enforces regulation. 

“Changes start with people who are willing to challenge the structure,” Siegel said. 

Megan Mcdowell

Next Post
Iowa water quality raises concern in the Drake community

Drake theatre presents student led shows

Twitter Feeds

The Times-Delphic
The Times-Delphic @timesdelphic

The Times-Delphic is still hiring for the positions of Student Senate Beat Writer, Business and Finance Manager and Distributor for the 2022-23 school year! Apply online or reach out to grace.altenhofen @drake.edu for more information. https://t.co/U9VY5TtOZt
View on Twitter
timesdelphic photo
0
1
The Times-Delphic
The Times-Delphic @timesdelphic

BREAKING: Drake President Marty Martin announced in a campuswide email that Drake's number of active cases is projected to decline to 80 by the end of the day, down 241 since early Friday afternoon.
View on Twitter
2
10

Recommended

Women’s tennis wins 2 out of 3 duals over the weekend

Women’s tennis wins 2 out of 3 duals over the weekend

2 years ago
The two-faced nature of social media

The two-faced nature of social media

3 years ago

Popular News

  • Twitch Streamer Raises Money for LGBT Community

    Twitch Streamer Raises Money for LGBT Community

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Gladwell’s “Outliers” reveals the many factors of success

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Drake ranks among Ivy Leagues on Economist list

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The history of Indian boarding schools in Iowa

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Music as a political platform

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Drake Weekly Sports Podcast | December 3

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Humans of Drake Podcast

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The Sports Report 2010 7: 11/09/2010

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Familiar face helps bring massive skatepark to Des Moines

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • The rise and fall of Motown Records

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0

Connect with us

  • About
  • Home
  • Podcasts
  • Privacy Policy
  • Virtual Edition
  • Advertising

Copyright 2015 Fuel Themes. All RIGHTS RESERVED.

No Result
View All Result
  • News
    • Administrative News
    • The Ones
    • Campus Events
    • Campus Health
    • Caucus Roundup
    • In Des Moines
    • Politics
    • Student Politics
    • Student Senate
    • Senate Elections
  • Sports
    • Basketball
    • Column
    • Cross-Country
    • E-Sports
    • Football
    • Golf
    • Rowing
    • Soccer
    • Softball
  • Commentary
    • Horoscope
    • Letter from the Editor
  • Features
    • Greek Life
  • Podcasts
  • Relays Edition
    • Commentary
    • Coronavirus
    • Elections
    • Features
    • In Des Moines
    • News
    • This week in photos
    • Top News
    • Top Stories
    • Uncategorized
    • Video
    • Sports
    • Security Reports
    • Relays Edition
    • Poll
    • Podcasts
    • Online Exclusives
    • Opinion

Copyright 2015 Fuel Themes. All RIGHTS RESERVED.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Create New Account!

Fill the forms bellow to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist

Bodybuilder is fighting for his life after taking dirty steroids femara uk trump's "operation warp speed" for mass vaxxing. "big bucks for big pharma" - global research