The battle to reclaim Iowa’s idyllic waterways as gross issue halts summer fun
Hannah Ray J Childs finds exhilaration in Iowa’s Maquoketa River, performing whitewater acrobatics that give her the “feeling of flying” and she met her husband through their shared passion for violent currents.
Yet, her deep connection to the state’s waterways comes with a stark reality: she’s also fallen ill from its pollution, now wearing nose and ear plugs to minimize risk. This paradox prompts a bewildered response to her hobby: “Ew, that’s disgusting. Why would you do that?”
Iowa, a leading agricultural state, grapples with one of the Midwest’s most severe water quality challenges. Its rivers and streams are increasingly contaminated. Its farms, as a top producer of corn, soybeans, and hogs, generate nitrates and phosphorus, draining into these waters and contributing to the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone. Last summer, its largest city faced water restrictions due to harmful nitrates in tap water.
This decades-old pollution affects public health and water enjoyment. Algal blooms create dangerous conditions at beaches, and soil runoff makes waters unappealing. Bacterial contamination, sometimes from human sewage, deters swimmers. In 2024, over half of the state’s monitored river, stream, and lake sections failed to meet standards for swimming, drinking, or aquatic life.
The state has largely relied on voluntary actions and incentives, not mandates, to curb runoff, consistently falling short of its goals. Environmental groups recently sued a previous administration, alleging it improperly reversed a Biden-era requirement for Iowa to address nitrate pollution in several rivers.
Despite challenges, investment and improvement have occurred. Governor Kim Reynolds recently championed a $320 million package for water infrastructure and other projects, adding to the nearly $100 million annually that the state allocates to the problem. Phosphorus levels have diminished, and better practices like cover crops, reduced tillage, and on-farm runoff reduction installations have substantially increased.
Iowa’s identity is deeply intertwined with its waterways, including the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. These offer beautiful lakeside beaches and excellent trout fishing. Childs learned to love the Maquoketa River growing up on a nearby corn and hog farm, remembering paddling to find fishing holes and exploring streams with friends.
Now, she volunteers to test the river for chemicals and championed a whitewater park in Manchester, her hometown, to foster community connection with the water. “If we don’t get people invested in their local river, their local community, how are we ever going to ask them to take care of it?” she said.
Mary Swander, a 75-year-old theater director and former state poet laureate, fondly remembers learning to canoe and swim outdoors while growing up near the water. Summer was for splashing around. Winter, ice skating.
“I had a little group of friends and we played hooky once, and we all got our swimsuits and drove over to Lake MacBride and spent the whole day in the lake, in the water, swimming, and we had a whole picnic,” she said.
Swander now avoids the water after bad experiences. One time the water at a state park felt wrong — sticky. Another time a ranger warned her canoeing group not to get their hands — or anything else — in the water.
“I was like, ‘Well, what the hell are we doing out here, then?’” she said.
Swander was able to replace swimming with other activities and keep some friendships, but others faded. The loss of places outside the home and office where people can connect may make sustaining social interactions harder, especially for older adults, said Philippa Clarke, a University of Michigan professor who has researched social spaces.
Bacteria plays the biggest role in making streams inaccessible. It comes from cows, deer and other animals, although in some places human sewage is the biggest problem. Experts say heavy rains are a major risk when they wash away manure — something that climate change will intensify — and improving sewage treatment and leaky septic systems is vital.
