Threatening Iowa's Future

Iowa's Failure to Implement and Enforce the Clean Water Act for Livestock Operations

On May 19, 2004, the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP) released this 61 page report critical of both DNR's and EPA's implementation and enforcement of the Clean Water Act as it pertains to large animal feeding operations in Iowa. Many of these large scale animal factories are required to have National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits just like other municipal and industrial sources of wastewater, yet DNR has issued very few permits. Instead, "amnesty" has been granted to a complete sector of this industry (large open feedlots) and the issuance delayed of NPDES permits to another large sector - confined animal feeding operations.

EIP is a non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to more effective enforcement of existing federal and state environmental laws and to the prevention of political interference with those laws.

Threatening Iowa's Future.. (PDF 1.7 Mb)