DRIFTLESS WATER DEFENDERS FILES CITIZEN SUPREME BEEF WATER USE PERMIT CHALLENGE TO DNR

DECORAH -- In a case that seeks much greater protection for Iowa’s surface and groundwater Driftless Water Defenders (DWD) yesterday filed a citizen complaint with Iowa’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR)  to challenge the agency’s rubber stamp approval of water use permits.

Driftless Water Defenders is an Iowa law and environmental advocacy group founded in 2024 to compel industrial agriculture in northeast Iowa and statewide to more responsibly manage its wastes and its treatment of Iowa’s surface waters and aquifers. The complaint, signed by more than 80 residents of the northeast Iowa region, is aimed specifically at challenging a water use permit renewal application submitted by Supreme Beef, a large cattle feeding operation located at the headwaters of Bloody Run Creek, east of Monona, in Clayton County, historically one of Iowa’s purest stream and a habitat for naturally-reproducing trout. Citizens assert that Supreme Beef is a prominent source of the high nitrate contamination in the creek, a prized trout fishery.

 The complaint comes two months after Administrative Law Judge Toby Gordon ruled in favor of seven northeast Iowa residents, represented by attorney James C. Larew in a case that first challenged the DNR’s approval of a water use permit for Supreme Beef. Judge Gordon rejected the approach taken by DNR in approving the permit renewal, deciding that DNR must consider water quality in its decision as well as the impact of a water use permit’s issuance on the environment.

But in compelling the Iowa DNR to comply with state law in its evaluation of water use permit applications, the complaint also has substantive statewide significance for farms, livestock and poultry feeding operations, and any other business that uses large quantities of water.

Iowa water use law directs the DNR to evaluate applications and issue permits for how much water businesses are allowed to use for their operations. The law specifically calls for the DNR to consider whether the amount of water applicants want to use could harm public health and safety. The law also requires the agency to determine if the water withdrawal would lead to water shortage or contamination for downstream users. Most importantly, state law requires the agency to determine whether the amount of water withdrawn from an aquifer or stream could adversely affect the public interest.

The DNR, though, for decades, involving tens of thousands of water use permit applications, has only evaluated permits with respect to the amount of water applicants propose to use, said Larew, who joined others in founding Driftless Water Defenders last spring and serves as its attorney.  

In the course of the proceeding that resulted in Judge Gordon’s ruling, a DNR official testified that in the decades since the water use statute was enacted in the early 1980s the state agency evaluated over 40,000 water use applications. Not a single one was denied. 

“The DNR needs to think about effects of issuing water use permits in addition to that of water quantity, only,” said Larew. “Iowa Code provisions clearly require the DNR to consider the public interest and the environment when evaluates water use permit applications.  But those provisions have never been used by DNR. As a consequence, citizens’ expressed concerns about particular water use permit applications have fallen on deaf ears—until Judge Gordon’s ruling.”

In its complaint Driftless Water Defenders is calling on the DNR to cancel Supreme Beef’s water use permit. If the feeding operation seeks a new permit, Driftless Water Defenders calls on the DNR to initiate a new review process that is consistent with the law, as ordered by Judge Gordon, and that includes a public hearing and the allowance of public comments.

For more information:

James C. Larew, Attorney

319-541-4240

James.Larew@LarewLawOffice.com 

Driftless Water Defenders

https://www.driftlesswaterdefenders.com