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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Caffeine and a drug used to regulate blood sugar levels for people with Type 2 diabetes wash down the drain every day to
become some of the most common unregulated contaminants in Iowa’s public drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">The presence of these contaminants is minuscule, but government officials are concerned because the risks of chronic ingestion
of these contaminants are unclear — the result of a lack of research to determine potential health risks for humans.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Prescription drugs and caffeine contaminate rivers and streams treated to become drinking water. Many of these contaminants
affect the human endocrine system, which produces hormones that regulate metabolism, growth and development, among other functions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Chemicals affecting the endocrine system exist in nature, but show up prominently in man-made products such as pharmaceuticals,
plastics, detergents and cosmetics people dump down a drain. These compounds commonly are referred to as emerging contaminants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“Iowa is in a water quality crisis,” Des Moines Water Works communication coordinator Laura Sarcone said. She cited the
facility’s increased use of an expensive nitrogen removal process and a record number of impaired waters as determined by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as well as a growing concern about the impact of emerging contaminants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Burlington is among Iowa cities most likely to be exposed to emerging contaminants because it uses a high proportion of
river water, making it more susceptible to pharmaceuticals and endocrine-disrupting chemicals than cities relying more on underground aquifers for drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">A new study conducted by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health analyzed data from a third round of unregulated contaminant
monitoring and concluded millions of Americans may be drinking water with unsafe levels of polyfluoroalkyl and perfluoroalkyl substances. The contaminants come from industrial sites, military bases with firefighting training and wastewater treatment plants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">A little less than half of Iowa’s residents get drinking water from systems using surface water or a combination of water
from rivers or lakes and groundwater. They are among the nine of 10 Iowans who use public water systems, with the remainder using private well services.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Eight percent of Iowa’s public water systems use surface water, sometimes mixed with water from other sources, but are in
heavily populated areas.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“Everything we use has the potential to become an environmental contaminant,” said Dana Kolpin, a research hydrologist with
the U.S. Geological Survey. “We use it, we excrete it, we wash it down the drain.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Caffeine ends up in water from a number of sources, not limited to coffee and soft drinks. Soap, shampoo and even pantyhose
can be caffeinated, and it’s this level of dependence on caffeine making it such a prevalent contaminant.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Though water from drains and toilets is treated, emerging contaminants can survive and make their way in surface water,
which can become source drinking water for communities downstream.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">So many potential contaminants from an array of sources exist, trying to monitor and understand each is overwhelming researchers
and treatment facilities.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Tim Wilkey, superintendent of the Iowa City wastewater treatment plant, said pharmaceuticals and caffeine can pass through
the treatment process but only at minute levels. Treated water from Iowa City’s plant washes into the Iowa River, which feeds into the Mississippi River and continues downstream.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Some wastewater and drinking water treatment plants use a treatment process called activated carbon, which is effective
in preventing emerging contaminants from permeating drinking water supplies. This process uses carbon to attract unwanted organic compounds such as caffeine through absorption, leaching those compounds out of the finished water. Activated carbon also is used
in air filtration and other purification applications.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">According to findings from the 2013 Survey of Iowa Groundwater, the highest level of acetaminophen found in one sample was
826 parts per trillion.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“For perspective, it would take almost 200,000 cups of untreated well water to equal the dose of acetaminophen recommended
for infants,” the report said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Attempts to monitor<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">The Environmental Protection Agency does not require emerging contaminants be removed from drinking water. To better understand
these lesser known contaminants, the EPA developed the Unregulated Contaminant Monitoring Rule, a program designed to collect data for contaminants suspected to be in drinking water to determine whether to regulate them in the future.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Public drinking water source testing began at the state level in 1988 and became a national program following the Safe Drinking
Water Act amendment of 1996. The first list of contaminants monitored was published in 1999 and monitoring ran from 2001 through 2003. The third round was the first to include emerging contaminants.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Not all contaminants are considered emerging. Naturally occurring compounds, such as cobalt and testosterone, were included
in the third cycle, which ran from 2013 through 2015. Some of the monitored compounds considered to be emerging contaminants were perfluorooctanesulfonic acid — an ingredient in Scotchgard — and perfluoroheptanoic acid — a grease-proof substance used on food
packaging.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">No more than 30 contaminants can be monitored over a span of five years in the program, which Susan Glassmeyer, an EPA research
chemist, said makes selecting which contaminants to monitor an added challenge.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“We don’t want to waste one of those slots,” Glassmeyer said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Contaminants for the fourth round of monitoring have been chosen and include 10 cyanotoxin compounds — produced by blue-green
algae — and eight pesticides.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">These contaminants are monitored in municipal supplies serving more than 10,000 people and select smaller systems. In Iowa,
58 public water systems participated in the last round of unregulated contaminant monitoring. Monitoring data is processed by certified labs — including the Iowa State Hygienic Labs in Coralville and Ankeny — and recorded with the EPA.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Jeff Mitchell, a lab supervisor with Des Moines Water Works, said concern about pharmaceuticals and other emerging contaminants
began in the past 10 to 15 years.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“We’re always trying to stay ahead of the emerging contaminants, but money does influence that ability,” he said.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">The EPA funds testing for systems serving populations under 10,000, but for larger systems, the cost ranges from $50 to
$470 per sample, per testing method, on average. The EPA estimates the average annual cost to each of these large systems over the five-year rule period to be less than $2,381.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Des Moines Water Works operates six systems that participate in testing for the program and most often saw levels of contamination
below or equal to preliminary standards set in the monitoring rule.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Monitoring, however, does not equal treatment.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Chuck Pietscher, superintendent of the Keokuk Water Pollution Control Plant, said his plant does not have a specific treatment
process to combat pharmaceuticals or other emerging contaminant endocrine disruptors.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“We can find anything anywhere anymore but we don’t know what it all means,” Pietscher said. “We don’t treat for those contaminants
because we aren’t even sure which ones need to be treated for.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">That sentiment of a lack of information about emerging contaminants resounds among water quality specialists like Kolpin
and treatment plant officials like Pietscher. While more testing will help identify emerging contaminants, Kolpin said a seemingly endless list of compounds in the chemical universe could end up in drinking water.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“There’s so much going on with drinking water that it’s hard to point at one thing and just start,” Kolpin said. “It’s an
ongoing learning process. As we find more in our drinking water, we will have to come up with more and more solutions to those problems.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Six percent of Iowa’s public water systems violated standard health-based regulations in 2015, according to the DNR’s annual
compliance report released in July. About 200,000 of the 2.9 million Iowans served by public water supplies were exposed to some type of health-based violation.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Unlike the emerging contaminants, the contaminants in the DNR report are regulated by the EPA and proved to have some level
of health risks if ingested.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">While there are no known health risks for humans ingesting emerging contaminants in water, research has shown some emerging
contaminants have negative impacts on aquatic life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">For instance, Fourmile Creek runs through central Iowa and was tested at various points by Kolpin’s team. The team found
downstream from metro areas, including Ankeny, aquatic creatures responded differently to predators than those upstream. Minnow larvae in particular were found to have been exposed to a range of antidepressants such as bupropion and desvenlafaxine, and ended
up responding slower to predators.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">While the exposure itself did not kill the hatched minnows directly, Kolpin said the slower response time made them more
susceptible to predators, thereby decreasing their chance of survival.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Iowa’s water concerns<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Measures to clean up Iowa’s waterways garnered legislative attention earlier this year.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Lawmakers tried allocating funds from the state’s sales tax for water quality measures, but opponents argued the move would
hinder public school construction and improvement projects, which receive the funding.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Four bills failed in the Legislature, but Gov. Terry Branstad said it doesn’t mean they are dead forever.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“When you have something that is big and bold and is a big change and expensive, it’s not unusual that it might take more
than one session,” he said in an interview with IowaWatch. “But there’s a clear understanding that there’s a need for a long-term reliable source for funding for water quality.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">None of the failed measures targeted emerging contaminants, but improving Iowa’s water quality needs a solution, according
to many conservation groups as well as members of the state legislature. One of the failed bills would have directed funds toward improving more than 700 impaired waters in the state. A proposal to raise taxes garnered hesitation from Republicans and Democrats
in the Legislature.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">One measure to increase the state sales tax by 3/8 of a cent would have allocated the additional revenue to protect and
enhance water quality and natural areas in the state including parks, trails and fish and wildlife habitats, and conserving agricultural soils.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Branstad told a crowd Aug. 2 in Storm Lake he stands by his plan to split state sales tax funding between school improvements
and water quality projects with the deadline of 2029. The next day in Anamosa, he said neither the Iowa House nor Senate could support a tax increase in order to fund water quality projects.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Kolpin said the U.S. Geological Survey and EPA research showing negative health effects in aquatic life is enough of a reason
to investigate if humans could be at risk as well.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“It certainly raises the question that if it’s happening to animals it at least deserves more research to see if there is
a risk for us or not,” Kolpin said. “Certainly with pharmaceuticals you can’t deny there are benefits, but do we need to do better in takeback programs or have greener pharmaceuticals that break down quicker?”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Instead of focusing on wastewater and drinking water treatment down the line, he said, people should focus on the source:
reducing what he viewed as overuse of caffeine and adjusting the way doctors prescribe medications in order to prevent excess medication from piling up in home medicine cabinets.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Kolpin said future research into these contaminants will be important, especially given what scientists know about their
effects on aquatic life.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">“People aren’t having massive effects, but there could be some chronic level multi-generational thing that we just don’t
know is happening yet,” he said. “In my mind, there is good news, but it’s cautionary news.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black"><img width="540" height="348" style="width:5.625in;height:3.625in" id="Picture_x0020_1" src="cid:image001.jpg@01D201CE.2CF01CF0" alt="From river to faucet"></span><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:7.5pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:16.5pt;font-family:"inherit",serif;color:black"><a href="http://www.thehawkeye.com/news/local/from-river-to-faucet/article_7ec69cb0-3722-5aa6-a884-792b66c0996e.html"><span style="color:black;text-decoration:none">From
river to faucet </span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Before water comes out of your faucet, it goes through an extensive filtering process.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Activated carbon treatment process</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Activated carbon is a porous substance that attracts organic chemicals through a process called adsorption. Adsorption varies
from absorption because adsorption uses only a product’s surface area to take in material, while absorption uses the whole of the product.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">A carbonaceous substance - often charcoal - is burned without oxygen to create a substance - called “char” - that is chemically
treated to develop the pores of the finished product. The network of pores makes for a large surface area for the product to take in organic material. One gram of activated carbon has a surface area that can range from 500 square meters to 1,500 square meters,
or 5,382 square feet to 16,146 square feet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Activated carbon is a cost-effective way for air filtration and water treatment to remove minute levels of organic contaminants.
Activated carbon works as a purifying measure through the process of adsorption.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Coal and coke can also be used to create the initial char material and are called activated coal and activated coke, respectively.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Sources: General Carbon Corp., New World Encyclopedia<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">– By Brittany Robb, IowaWatch<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Medication disposal kiosks</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Eight Walgreens locations in Iowa will add medication disposal kiosks by<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">the end of August, with an additional 500 at other nationwide locations.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Walgreens officials say the program is critical to reducing prescription<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">drug abuse, but reducing the amount of medications being improperly<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">disposed of will turn out to be an added benefit.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Impaired waters</span></b><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">The Iowa Department of Natural Resources is required to submit a survey of Iowa bodies of water to the Environmental Protection
Agency every two years. These bodies of water can have a variety of designated uses, from recreation to drinking water or an aquatic life habitat. Each body of water is categorized in one of five ways:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">It meets its designated need.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Some designated uses are met, but there is insufficient data to determine if all are met.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">More information is needed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">It is impaired, but a water quality improvement plan has already been written.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">It is impaired and has no improvement plan written.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">A waterbody is considered impaired until the water quality improves and it passes an assessment to show that improvement.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">If one portion of a watershed is deemed impaired - say one portion of the Des Moines River - it does not mean the entire
watershed is impaired. Improvements to the overall watershed can, however, have a positive effect on impaired portions of the watershed.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">According to the DNR, the majority of impairments to waters in Iowa are considered minor to moderate. Out of 2,567 bodies
of water analyzed in 2014, 765 were considered impaired. Seven met all designated uses while 1,455 had insufficient data to determine whether any designated uses are met.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">Sources: Iowa Department of Natural Resources, IowaWatch interview with DNR environmental specialist John Olson<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6.0pt"><span lang="EN" style="font-size:10.5pt;font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif;color:black">– By Brittany Robb, IowaWatch<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Laurie Tenace<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Environmental Specialist<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Waste Reduction Section<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Florida Department of Environmental Protection<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">2600 Blair Stone Road, MS4555<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Tallahassee, FL 32399<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us">Laurie.Tenace@dep.state.fl.us</a><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">850.245.8759<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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