Des Moines Faces Extreme Measures to Find Clean Water
In the dim light just after dawn, Bill Blubaugh parks his Des Moines Water Works pickup truck, grabs a dipper and a couple plastic bottles and walks down a boat ramp to the Raccoon River, where he scoops up samples from a waterway that cuts through some of the nation’s most intensely farmed land.
Each day the utility analyzes what’s in those samples and others from the nearby Des Moines River as it works to deliver drinking water to more than 500,000 people in Iowa’s capital city and its suburbs.
“Some mornings walking down, it smells like ammonia,” he said. “It’s concerning. I’m down here every morning and care about the water.”
Water Works for years has tried to force or cajole farmers upstream to reduce the runoff of fertilizer that leaves the rivers with sky-high nitrate levels but lawsuits and legislative lobbying have failed. Now, it’s considering a drastic measure that, as a rule, large cities just don’t do — drilling wells to find clean water.
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Each day the utility analyzes what’s in those samples and others from the nearby Des Moines River as it works to deliver drinking water to more than 500,000 people in Iowa’s capital city and its suburbs.
“Some mornings walking down, it smells like ammonia,” he said. “It’s concerning. I’m down here every morning and care about the water.”
Water Works for years has tried to force or cajole farmers upstream to reduce the runoff of fertilizer that leaves the rivers with sky-high nitrate levels but lawsuits and legislative lobbying have failed. Now, it’s considering a drastic measure that, as a rule, large cities just don’t do — drilling wells to find clean water.
Click Here to read more.