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Environment

Wetlands and the Water Works: Flowing off the farm and into the water supply

By Lauren Mills/ IowaWatch.org | November 1, 2012

Iowa is home to two rivers, the Cedar and Iowa rivers, voted as some of America’s most endangered rivers by the American Rivers organization. Over 180,000 people in the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City area depend upon the Cedar and Iowa rivers for drinking water, according to the organization’s Most Endangered Rivers publication.

Sending it on downriver: Iowan nutrients in the deadzone

The dead zone may seem like an abstract concept in Iowa, a state more than 800 miles to the north of the Gulf, but for fishermen in Louisiana the destruction is very real. Harmful algal blooms — the explosion of algae due to nitrogen and other pollutants — occur every year all along the coast of the United States; and they come with a price.