State Rep Gary Worthan, who represents two of the northwest Iowa counties targeted by the Des Moines Water Works for a lawsuit over nitrate levels in the Raccoon River, said the utility should “reel in their legal beagles…talk with us and find a common solution” said the Des Moines Register. The utility says it faces high expenses to remove nitrate from drinking water. Its board voted last week to sue the counties as a way to get them to remove or prevent agricultural runoff. During a session of the Iowa House, Worthan said it was “an insult to every family farmer in northwest Iowa to suggest the runoff was intentional or due to bad practices.
Vermont Gov Peter Shumlin “says if problem farms don’t clean up their act, they should get booted from Current Use,” a program that reduces tax bills for agricultural and forest land, says Vermont Public Radio. “The Shumlin administration hasn’t yet said what kinds of environmental transgressions would prompt expulsion from Current Use.”
A U.S. district judge ruled an 11,000-cow dairy farm in eastern Washington state “polluted drinking water through its application, storage and management of manure in a case that could set precedents across the nation,” said Associated Press. The judge said last week that the farm, Cow Palace, contributed to high nitrate levels that contaminated groundwater in the lower Yakima River valley. Trial is scheduled for March 23 in Yakima to decide how much pollution was caused by the dairy and what is the remedy, said AP. An attorney for one of the environmental groups involved in the lawsuit said it was the first federal court ruling that improperly managed manure is a solid waste.
Late last month, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that manure that contaminates a well is a pollutant and is not covered by a farm’s general-liability insurance policy. “This is a precedent-setting decision,” said the National Law Review, “and it will affect whether farms in Wisconsin that allegedly cause the contamination of wells with manure will be able to rely on insurance to pay for damages.”